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avocation - 4 dictionary results
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Avocation
Av`o*ca"tion\, n. [L. avocatio.]1. A calling away; a diversion. [Obs. or Archaic] Impulses to duty, and powerful avocations from sin. --South. 2. That which calls one away from one's regular employment or vocation. Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations. --Fuller. By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life. --Atterbury. Note: In this sense the word is applied to the smaller affairs of life, or occasional calls which summon a person to leave his ordinary or principal business. Avocation (in the singular) for vocation is usually avoided by good writers. 3. pl. Pursuits; duties; affairs which occupy one's time; usual employment; vocation. There are professions, among the men, no more favorable to these studies than the common avocations of women. --Richardson. In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations. --Macaulay. An irregularity and instability of purpose, which makes them choose the wandering avocations of a shepherd, rather than the more fixed pursuits of agriculture. --Buckle.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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avocation
1529, "a calling away from one's occupation," from L. avocationem (nom. avocatio) "a calling away," pp. of avocare, from ad- "away" + vocare "to call" (see voice).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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