aby

verb

1. (archaic, transitive)To pay the penalty for (something); to atone for, to make amends.

   “Foole-hardy Knight, full soone thou shalt aby / This fond reproach, thy body will I hang, [Hee takes down / his pole.] / And loe vpon that string thy teeth shall hang: Prepare thy selfe, for dead soone shalt thou bee”

2. (archaic, figuratively, transitive)To pay (something) as a penalty, to atone for; to suffer (something).

   “Who dyes the vtmoſt dolor doth abye, / But who that liues, is lefte to waile his loſſe: / So life is loſſe, and death felicity.”

   “We doubt thee not; / Thy tale seems true, nor dost thou glorify / Thyself herein—certes thou wouldst abye / A heavy fate if thou shouldst lie herein— […]”

3. (transitive)To endure or tolerate (something); to experience.

   “The muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a'body kens that; and as for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could stotter on two feet.”

4. (obsolete, transitive)To pay for (something); to buy.
5. (intransitive, obsolete)To pay the penalty; to atone.
6. (intransitive, obsolete)To endure; to remain.

   “So long as breath, and hable puiſſaunce / Did natiue corage vnto him ſupply, / His pace he freſhly forward did aduaunce, / And carried her beyond all ieopardy, / But nought that wanteth reſt, can long aby.”

name

1. A village in Aby with Greenfield parish, East Lindsey district, Lincolnshire, England (OS grid ref TL4178).
2. A village in south-eastern Ivory Coast.

noun

1. The Abyssinian cat.
2. (abbreviation, alt-of, informal, initialism)Initialism of Archbishop of York.