ACCIPITRES, the name of Linnaeus's first order of Birds. See ORNITHOLOGY.
ACCISMUS denotes a feigned refusal of something which a person earnestly desires. The word is Latin; or rather Greek, Ἀκισμός; supposed to be formed from Ἀκός, the name of a foolish old woman noted in antiquity for an affection of this kind.
Accismus is sometimes considered as a virtue; sometimes as a vice, which Augustus and Tiberius practised with great success. Cromwell's refusal of the crown of England may be brought as an instance of an accismus.
ACCISMUS is more particularly used, in Rhetoric, as a species of irony.