AM´NESTY (Gr. _amnestia_, forgetfulness), the releasing of a number of persons who have been guilty of political offences from the consequence of these offences. The earliest recorded amnesty in history is that of Thrasybulus at Athens, and the last act of amnesty passed in Britain was that of 1747, after the second Jacobite rebellion.
AM´NION, the innermost membrane surrounding the fetus of mammals, birds, and reptiles.--In botany, a gelatinous fluid in which the embryo of a seed is suspended, and by which it is supposed to be nourished.
AMO´AFUL, village near Kumassi, West Africa, at which the Ashanti were defeated by British troops under Wolseley, 31st Jan., 1874.
AMOE´BA, a microscopic genus of rhizopodous Protozoa, of which _A. diffl[)u]ens_, common in freshwater ponds and ditches, is the type. It exists as a mass of protoplasm, and pushes its body out into finger-like processes or pseudopodia, and by means of these moves about or grasps particles of food. There is no distinct mouth, and food is engulfed within any portion of the soft sarcode body. Reproduction takes place by fission, or by a single pseudopodium detaching itself from the parent body and developing into a separate amoeba.
AMOEBE´AN POETRY, poetry in which persons are represented as speaking alternately, as in some of Virgil's _Eclogues_.
AMOL´, a town of Northern Persia, 76 miles N.E. of Teheran. Extensive ruins tell of former greatness, the most prominent being the mausoleum of Seyed Quam-u-deen, who died in 1378. Pop. in winter estimated at about 40,000.
AMO´MUM, a genus of plants of the nat. ord. Zinziberaceæ (ginger, &c.), natives of warm climates, and remarkable for the pungency and aromatic properties of their seeds. Some of the species yield Cardamoms, others Grains of Paradise.
AMONTILLA´DO, a dry kind of sherry wine of a light colour, highly esteemed.
A´MOR, the god of love among the Romans, equivalent to the Gr. _Er[=o]s_.
AMOR´GO (ancient AMORGOS), an island in the Grecian Archipelago, one of the Eastern Cyclades, 22 miles long, 5 miles broad; area, 106 sq. miles; it has a town of the same name, with a castle and a large harbour. Pop. 3561.
AM´ORITES, a powerful Canaanitish tribe at the time of the occupation of the country by the Israelites; occupied the whole of Gilead and Bashan, and formed two powerful kingdoms--a northern, under Og, who is called King of Bashan; and a southern, under Sihon, called King of the Amorites; first attacked and overthrown by Joshua; subsequently subdued, and made tributary or driven to mingle with the Philistines and other remnants of the Canaanitish nations.