Absit
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Formal permission to be away from a college for the greater part of the day or more. UK
"In the evening, after some difficulty, he persuaded his tutor to give him an absit to sleep at Huntingdon that night, and drove over there after dinner in a fly with Egerton, Castleton, and Grey."
- 2 A portion of fermenting dough diluted to a paste with water and then cooked.
"A portion of the fermented paste may be mixed with three parts of water and boiled, resulting in an absit."
Example
More examples"In the evening, after some difficulty, he persuaded his tutor to give him an absit to sleep at Huntingdon that night, and drove over there after dinner in a fly with Egerton, Castleton, and Grey."
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin absit (“let (him or her) be absent”), the third-person singular present active subjunctive of absum (“be absent”).
Borrowed from Amharic አብሲት (ʾäbsit, “proofing dough”).
More for "absit"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.