avocation

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: av=o=ca=tion

CIDE DICTIONARY

avocation, n. [L. avocatio.].

•  A calling away; a diversion.  [1913 Webster]

  "Impulses to duty, and powerful avocations from sin."  [1913 Webster]
•  That which calls one away from one's regular employment or vocation.  [1913 Webster]

  " 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."  [1913 Webster]

  "Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations."  [1913 Webster]

  "By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life."  [1913 Webster]
•  Pursuits; duties; affairs which occupy one's time; usual employment; vocation.  [1913 Webster]

  "There are professions, among the men, no more favorable to these studies than the common avocations of women."  [1913 Webster]

  "In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations."  [1913 Webster]

  "An irregularity and instability of purpose, which makes them choose the wandering avocations of a shepherd, rather than the more fixed pursuits of agriculture."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

avocation, n.
1 a minor occupation.
2 colloq. a vocation or calling.

Etymology

L avocatio f. avocare call away

ROGET THESAURUS

avocation

Business

N business, occupation, employment, pursuit, what one is doing, what one is about, affair, concern, matter, case, matter in hand, irons in the fire, thing to do, agendum, task, work, job, chore, errand, commission, mission, charge, care, duty, part, role, cue, province, function, lookout, department, capacity, sphere, orb, field, line, walk, walk of life, beat, round, routine, race, career, office, place, post, chargeship, incumbency, living, situation, berth, employ, service, engagement, undertaking, vocation, calling, profession, cloth, faculty, industry, art, industrial arts, craft, mystery, handicraft, trade, exercise, work, avocation, press of business, businesslike, workaday, professional, official, functional, busy, on hand, in hand, in one's hands, afoot, on foot, on the anvil, going on, acting, in the course of business, all in one's day's work, professionally Adj, a business with an income at its heels, amoto quaeramus seria ludo, par negotiis neque supra.