avail

verb

1. (often, reflexive, transitive)To turn to the advantage of.

   “I availed myself of the opportunity.”

   “It asserts that the museum has clear protocols for dealing with any form of discrimination or discontent, which it says [Tanya] Barson never availed herself of, […]”

2. (transitive)To be of service to.

   “Artifices will not avail the sinner in the day of judgment.”

3. (transitive)To promote; to assist.
4. (intransitive)To be of use or advantage; to answer or serve the purpose; to have strength, force, or efficacy sufficient to accomplish the object.

   “The plea in court must avail.”

   “This scheme will not avail.”

   “Medicines will not avail to halt the disease.”

   “All of this avail’d not, for whoe’er he be That tells my faults, I hate him mortally; […]”

   “Words avail very little with me, young man.”

5. (Africa, India)To provide; to make available.

   “With this initiative, Valucard becomes an open system that is not limited to point of sale (POS) transactions, but now avails cash to its holders in various locations nationwide.”

6. (Africa, India)To use or take advantage of (an opportunity or resource).

   “You can avail discounts on food.”

   “Over 85.3% of all persons who have adopted this method of contraception availed this service from government facilities.”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Effect in achieving a goal or aim; purpose, use (now usually in negative constructions).

   “I tried fixing it to no avail.”

   “Labor, without economy, is of little avail.”

   “Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.”

   “At half-time, Poyet replaced Wes Brown with Liam Bridcutt in the heart of defence and sent out the rest of the players to atone for their first-half mistakes. To no avail.”

   “The announcement was made in Leeds - the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system. It's also a city which has been doggedly pressing (to little avail) for an integrated transport system for two decades.”

2. (US, countable, uncountable)Proceeds; profits from business transactions.

   “the avails of their own industry”

3. (countable, uncountable)An advertising slot or package.

   “The salesperson at an affiliate TV station might prepare an avail which offers two weeks of spots in early and late news[…].”

   “At an avail, the ad server plays out the MPEG-2 audio/video elementary streams.”

4. (US, countable, uncountable)A press avail.

   “While holding an avail yesterday, the candidate lashed out at critics.”

5. (British, countable, uncountable)Non-binding notice of availability for work.
6. (countable, uncountable)A readily available stock of oil.

   “Total crude oil avails (production plus purchases) of even highly "self-sufficient" refiners are far greater than their reported refinery inputs.”

7. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)Benefit; value, profit; advantage toward success.

   “I shal take the aduenture sayd Balen that god wille ordeyne me / but the swerd ye shalle not haue at this tyme by the feythe of my body / ye shalle repente hit within short tyme sayd the damoysel/ For I wold haue the swerd more for your auaylle than for myne / for I am passyng heuy for your sake”

   “hardy Citizens[…]sticke not to sacrifice their honours and consciences, as those of old, their lives, for their Countries availe and safety.”

   “So this friar, unworthy as he was of his holy calling, had me at an avail on every side, nor do I yet see what I could do but obey him, as I did.”

8. (countable, obsolete, poetic, uncountable)Effort; striving.

   “And ev'n now, though he breathless lies, his sails / Are struggling with the winds, for our avails / T'explore a passage hid from human tract, / Will fame him in the enterprise or fact.”

adj

1. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, colloquial)Clipping of available.

   “In another incident, Henry allegedly sent Areu a video titled "Fastest interview" in which a woman flashes her vagina to a man during a job interview and then immediately receives a job offer. Henry allegedly followed up the video by texting Areu, "Are you avail for anchor interview."”

   “Bravoholic NYC resident Trace Bechter, who attended the sentencing, disagreed with Stein's understanding of Housewives as purely scripted entertainment. "I thought, that can't be true, because if this current season of RHOSLC was written, we need completely new scriptwriters." (Bravo, I'm avail.)”