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Apt   Listen
adjective
Apt  adj.  
1.
Fit or fitted; suited; suitable; appropriate. "They have always apt instruments." "A river... apt to be forded by a lamb."
2.
Having an habitual tendency; habitually liable or likely; used of things. "My vines and peaches... were apt to have a soot or smuttiness upon their leaves and fruit." "This tree, if unprotected, is apt to be stripped of the leaves by a leaf-cutting ant."
3.
Inclined; disposed customarily; given; ready; used of persons. "Apter to give than thou wit be to ask." "That lofty pity with which prosperous folk are apt to remember their grandfathers."
4.
Ready; especially fitted or qualified (to do something); quick to learn; prompt; expert; as, a pupil apt to learn; an apt scholar. "An apt wit." "Live a thousand years, I shall not find myself so apt to die." "I find thee apt... Now, Hamlet, hear."
Synonyms: Fit; meet; suitable; qualified; inclined; disposed; liable; ready; quick; prompt.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Apt" Quotes from Famous Books



... not to be recommended, for while thus the final appearance of the notebook may be improved, it is no longer a first-hand record such as every scientist makes, but rather a transcribed one. The student, in making up such a transcription, is only too apt to draw upon his inner consciousness to make the book appear better; indeed, when he has neglected to transcribe his notes for several days, he is bound to produce anything but a true and accurate record, to say nothing about being put to the temptation to ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... Mr. Jacquetot threw away the stump of a cheap cigar. One would almost have said that he recognised the step at a considerable distance. Young people are in the habit of considering that when one gets old and stout one loses in intelligence; but this is not always the case. One is apt to expect little from a fat man; but that is often a mistake. Mr. Jacquetot weighed seventeen stone, but he was eminently intelligent. He had recognised the footstep while it was yet seventy ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... which symbolism, either from the organic or inorganic creation, can supply; and personification is itself a symbol, liable to misapprehension as much as, if not more so than, any other, since it is apt to degenerate into a mere reflection of our own infirmities; and hence any affirmative idea or conception that we can, in our own minds, picture of the Deity, must needs ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... almost magical; for, notwithstanding the nearly imperceptible force of the propelling power, owing to the lightness and exquisite mould of the craft, it served to urge her through the water at the rate of some three or four knots in the hour; or quite as fast as an ordinarily active man is apt to walk. Her motion was nearly unobservable to all on board, and might rather be termed gliding than sailing, the ripple under her cut-water not much exceeding that which is made by the finger as it is moved swiftly through the element; ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... will be found in the following chapters are drawn from personal reminiscences, extending over more than half a century, combined with notes collected from many different sources during at least two-thirds of that period. In dealing with such material one is apt, even unconsciously, to be egotistical, and to linger too long and too fondly over scenes and incidents of which one might say, in Virgilian phrase, quorum pars, si non magna, at parva fui. Should the reader deem any portions unduly prolix, he will, perhaps, kindly excuse it on this ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... around for months with someone who was clean all the way through—washed clean, spoke clean, thought clean—and now there was no tellin' what kind of a push I'd fall in with. You've had a peek at trainin' camps, eh? Them rubbers is apt to be a scousy lot. It was the goin' back to eatin' with sword swallowers that came hardest, though. I can stand for a good many things, but when I sees a guy loadin' up his knife for the shovel act, I rubs him ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... country people say, headless ghosts of defeated Cavaliers may still be seen on moonlight nights riding up and down, carrying their own plumed-hatted heads under their arms. All over the county these story places are to be found. The more odd a Cornish name sounds at the first hearing, the more apt it will often prove, when the reason for it ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... few years and expects to treble or quadruple its business this season if supplies can be secured. The trouble with most walnut cracking machines is that they crush instead of crack and small bits of shell are apt to stick to the meats. But there is machinery now to remove these bits of shell. There are wild black walnuts that run 16 to 18 per cent kernels, though the average is only 12-1/2%. It is not always the largest nuts that ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... stranger, might have suggested a certain looseness of character. But this was denied by their facial expression, which bore out the claim of a chance acquaintance long resident among them that they are very frank, "simple," and friendly, but far more apt to keep within a well-defined limit than the average of tropical women. Tehuantepec, indeed, is the land of "woman's rights." The men having been largely killed off during the days of Diaz, the feminine stock is to-day the sturdier, more intelligent, and industrious, and arrogates ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... We must, however, beware of thinking that the defeat of these tribes was as crushing or their desolation as terrible as the testimony of the inscriptions would lead us to suppose. The rulers of Nineveh were but too apt to relate that this or that country had been conquered and its people destroyed, when the Assyrian army had remained merely a week or a fortnight within its territory, had burnt some half-dozen fortified towns, and taken ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... with buried sutures of unabsorbable materials, such as silk, silkworm gut, or silver wire, it is apt to persist till the foreign material is cast ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... history and the traits of his character. The truth about him seems to be that he had really become a savage, and it would not be strange if he felt all the ferocity of a savage, together with the rare and capricious emotions of pity and generosity which are apt to visit the savage heart. There have always been good Indians and bad Indians, and Simon Girty ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... self-determination. On returning from abroad toward the end of 1917 I ventured into print with the statement that the great war had every aspect of a race with revolution. Subliminal desires, subliminal fears, when they break down the censor of law, are apt to inspire fanatical creeds, to wind about their victims the flaming flag of a false martyrdom. Today it is on the knees of the gods whether the insuppressible impulses for human freedom that come roaring up from the subliminal chaos, fanned by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... annum. Full $1,000 of this amount in the opinion of "Sam" was the result of his own fettered hands. Not only was "Sam" serviceable to the doctor in the mechanical and practical branches of his profession, but as a sort of ready reckoner and an apt penman, he was obviously considered by the doctor, a valuable "article." He would frequently have "Sam" at his books instead of a book-keeper. Of course, "Sam" had never received, from Dr. M., an hour's schooling in his life, but having perceptive ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... teacher Miss Pepper had recommended during her enforced absence, and how far she had pleased Miss Salisbury, and all the other things an elder brother who had come to his conscience rather late, would be apt to look into. "And so you really think you are getting ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... him "Mr. Sunderline," though she remembered very well that in the earnestness of his talk he had called her "Marion." They had grown to that time of life when a young man and a girl who have known each other always, are apt to drop the familiar Christian name, and not take up anything else if they can help it. The time when they carefully secure attention before they speak, and then use nothing but pronouns in addressing each other. A girl, however, says "Mr." a little more easily than a man says "Miss." ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... present circumstances. They must not be regarded as literally exact, although they are usually sufficiently accurate for all general purposes. Astronomers know this and allow for it; but general readers of books, when they find figures which do not agree with others they have seen, are apt to regard them as all being mere guesses, and in this they are doing an injustice to the painstaking labours of ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... of opinion, that there is not a more general and greater mistake, or of worse consequences through the commerce of mankind, than the wrong judgments they are apt to entertain of their own talents. I knew a stuttering alderman in London, a great frequenter of coffeehouses, who, when a fresh newspaper was brought in, constantly seized it first, and read it aloud to his brother ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... It is apt to be so in this life, I think. While we are coldly discussing a man's career, sneering at his mistakes, blaming his rashness, and labelling his opinions—'he is Evangelical and narrow', or 'Latitudinarian and Pantheistic' or 'Anglican and supercilious'—that man, in his solitude, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... military science, and no mean proficient in the art of politics and government, were the representatives and leaders of the two great parties into which the Commonwealth had now unhappily divided itself. But all history shows that the brilliant soldier of a republic is apt to have the advantage, in a struggle for popular affection and popular applause, over the statesman, however consummate. The general imagination is more excited by the triumphs of the field than by those of the tribune, and the man who has passed many ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... such books as they stood in need of, and to the various book-collectors who attended public sales, Lisardo expressed himself highly obliged by the promise; and, sinking quietly into a corner of the chaise, he declared that he was now in a most apt mood to listen attentively to Philemon's digressive ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... twelve feet, and when the water makes out between the wharves some of the picturesqueness makes out also. A corroded section of stovepipe mailed in barnacles, or the skeleton of a hoopskirt protruding from the tide mud like the remains of some old-time wreck, is apt to break the enchantment. ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... hope for a man who, when sober, will not concede or acknowledge that he was ever drunk. But when a man will say (in the apt words of the phrase-distiller), "I had a beautiful skate on last night," you will have to put stuff in his coffee as well ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... are not full of tricks, but the best of them are. That is, those who are the readiest to play innocent jokes, and who are continually looking for chances to make Rome howl, are the most apt to turn out to be first-class business men. There is a boy in the Seventh Ward who is so full of fun that sometimes it makes him ache. He is the same boy who not long since wrote a note to his father and signed the name "Daisy" to it, and got the old man to stand on a corner for ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... allowance of daughters. A supernumerary son might have been stowed away; but daughters in excess were the very nuisance of Spain. He did, therefore, what in such cases every proud and lazy Spanish gentleman was apt to do—he wrapped the new little daughter, odious to his paternal eyes, in a pocket handkerchief; and then, wrapping up his own throat with a good deal more care, off he bolted to the neighboring convent of St. Sebastian, not merely of that city, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... to dodge behind an apple-tree, when they passed like a whirlwind over the spot I had been standing on, and covered me with dirt from the heels of their horses. I walked back to the house, very much annoyed, as men are apt to be, when they think they have compromised their dignity a little by dodging to escape danger from another's mischief or folly. At breakfast, accordingly, I remonstrated with the chief; but he only laughed, and asked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... and semi-savage people it is always necessary to keep strictly to your word, else they lose respect, and are apt to think that their adversaries are not powerful enough to do what they have threatened to do. The quality of mercy enters very little into their calculations. To threaten to do a thing, and then not to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 54, November 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... to be as restive as possible, and when she did not care for that, there was nothing for it but playing on her German superstition. So Arthur told her some awful stones about whipping blacks to death, and declared West Indian families were very apt to be haunted; but that it was a subject never to be mentioned to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. The truly wise commandant of highly-strung troops allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of their own voices ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... attacked the remainder at once, he might have captured the full half of the army under Putnam's command—and even Washington himself, who, during the heat of the battle, had crossed over from New York. But, as we have seen, the British were apt to "put off till to-morrow." And very fortunate it was ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... with your speech, Harietta. When you get to England you must not say 'along with it'—after the pains I have taken with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and even a literal translation of another language—but bad grammar—common phrases—pah! that is to ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... difficulties and dangers of others, to have recently felt some touch of similar distress in our own persons. This maxim, though it is familiar enough, makes so little impression on our ordinary thoughts, that when circumstances occur to fix our attention closely upon it we are apt to arrive as suddenly at the perception of its truth as if it were a ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... "when persons make up their minds beforehand what the facts will be, they are very apt not to observe fairly. So good observers or experimenters always take care to keep their minds free ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... apt to do what is supposed to be a traveller's duty in visiting certain obvious places of interest, I one day hunted for the English cemetery in which Fielding lies buried, and found it at last just at the back ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... days together there than they ever would have done in as many months of London life. As they climbed the hills or sat side by side on the Mess verandah and looked down on the leagues of forest and plain spread out like a map at their feet, they were apt to forget that they were ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... met: and there my Lord Teviott, together with Captain Cuttance, Captain Evans, and Jonas Moore, sent to that purpose, did bring us a brave draught of the Mole to be built there; and report that it is likely to be the most considerable place the King of England hath in the world; and so I am apt to think it will. After discourse of this, and of supplying the garrison with some more horse, we rose; and Sir J. Minnes and I home again, finding the street about our house full, Sir R. Ford beginning his shrievalty ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... had caught the flash in the dark face, and his own countenance had assumed an answering mobility. The tension of his first hours in Venice was apt to yield, though not usually as early as this. But then, he had never before had the pleasure of his two precious Pollys in anticipation. As the gondola drew near a certain stone bridge guarded by an iron railing, the sight ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller

... disagreeable element is present, as in a musical dissonance or in the suffering of a tragic hero, it contributes to a higher measure of enjoyment. It is, moreover, free from the painful elements of craving, fatigue, conflict, anxiety and disappointment, which are apt to accompany other kinds of enjoyment; such as the satisfaction of the appetites and other needs. To this purity of aesthetic pleasure must be added its refinement, which implies not merely a certain remoteness ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... fact to go upon. You had noticed that your so-called bride's gloves did not fit her; the boy below, that her shoes were so tight she hobbled. That set me thinking. A woman of Mrs. Ransom's experience and judgment would not be apt to make a mistake in two such important particulars; which, taken with the veil and the promise she exacted from you not to address or touch her during your short ride to the hotel, led me to point my inquiries so that I soon found out that your wife had had the assistance ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... concerned; for, let the general reasons on which the advice is grounded be ever so sensible, it is scarcely possible that the adviser can take in all the little circumstances of taste and temper, upon which so much of the happiness or misery of domestic life depends. Besides, people are much more apt to repent of having been guided by the judgment of another than of having followed their own; and this is most likely to be the case with the weakest minds. Strong minds can decide for themselves, not by the opinions but by the reasons that are laid before them: weak minds are influenced ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... darkened and he frowned. "So it's the Montjoy you're afraid of," he rejoined gloomily. "I'm not all Lightfoot, though I'm apt to forget it; the Montjoy blood is there, all the same, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... the brains of engaged young ladies are apt to have a solid foundation of flesh and blood. I think much could be learned concerning Mr. Hall's straying fancy. But tell me again about his attitude toward Miss Lloyd, in the successive developments ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... light-heartedness and cheerfulness of spirit, great agility, and for a boy of his age, remarkable strength, in which matters Robert was deficient, and here his jealousy found ample scope. Charles, too, was remarkably apt with his studies, whereas Robert generally ended his lessons by quarrelling with his tutor, and setting both father and mother against him, by which reason the worthy who filled that post at Bramble Park ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... that proud and yet shallow temper of mind which people are apt to fall into, especially young men who are clever and self-educated, and those who live in great towns, and so lose the sight of the wonderful works of God in the fields and woods, and see hardly anything but what man has made; and therefore forget how weak and ignorant even the wisest ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... Mean, mercenary, and stolid men are not found in England alone; they are ominously abundant here also. We have lunatic radicalisms as well as sane, idiotic conservatisms as well as intelligent. Too much for safety, our politics are purulent, our good men over-apt to forget the objects of government in a besotted devotion to the form. It is possible we may yet discover that universal suffrage can be a trifle too universal,—that it should pause a little short of the state-prison. New York must see to it that the thief does not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort, just as they are apt to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... the Story, in all its details; but he versified it with surprizing facility: and, as far as I could judge, with great spirit and elegance. He added, too, some trifling circumstances, and several little traits, the naivete of which afforded considerable amusement. When an accurate rhyme, or apt expression, did not offer itself on the instant it was required, he knit his brows and clenched his fingers with impatience; but I think he never hesitated more than half a second. At the moment the chord was struck, the rhyme was ready. In this manner he poured forth between ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... coincidence in time between the French Revolution of 1830 and the passing of the English Reform Bill is apt to suggest to those who look for the operation of wide general causes in history that the English Reform movement should be viewed as a part of the great current of political change which then traversed the continent ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... With the most noble blood of all this world. I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, Now, while your purpled hands do reek and smoke, Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years, I shall not find myself so apt to die; No place will please me so, no mean of death As here by Caesar, and by you cut off, The choice and master spirit of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... letters, and many new paragraphs. That is what makes it so much more interesting than long, close paragraphs like this, which the printers hate as much as I do, and which they call "solid matter" as if to indicate that, in proportion, such paragraphs are apt to lack the light, ethereal spirit ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... purpose which was his, and seemed to pervade his being. Here was one who had commanded men—who had directed skilled labour for the six impressionable years of his life. And he who directs skilled labour is apt to differ in manner, in thought and habit, from him whose commands ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... scholarship displayed by the author of the plays and poems. It is impossible that at the little Free School of Stratford (if he attended it), he should have gained his wide knowledge of the literatures of Greece and Rome. To these arguments, the orthodox Stratfordian is apt to reply, that he finds in the plays and poems plenty of inaccurate general information on classical subjects, information in which the whole literature of England then abounded. He also finds in the plays some knowledge of certain Latin authors, which cannot be proved to ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... to have been what the Kentuckians call, "playing 'possum." I have met with some of the Southern ladies whose conversations on slavery are said, or supposed, to have been those printed by Miss Martineau, and they deny that they are correct. That the Southern ladies are very apt to express great horror at living too long a time at the plantations, is very certain; not, however, because they expect to be murdered in their beds by the slaves, as they tell their husbands, but because ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... an idea of extension without the idea of any object either of the sight or feeling. For we may establish it as a general maxim in this science of human nature, that wherever there is a close relation betwixt two ideas, the mind is very apt to mistake them, and in all its discourses and reasonings to use the one for the other. This phaenomenon occurs on so many occasions, and is of such consequence, that I cannot forbear stopping a moment to examine its causes. I shall only premise, that we must distinguish ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... he had it; he was venturesome when he ought to have been cautious, and cautious when he ought to have dared everything. 'Tis with a sort of rage at his inaptitude that one thinks of his melancholy story. Do the Fates deal more specially with kings than with common men? One is apt to imagine so, in considering the history of that royal race, in whose behalf so much fidelity, so much valor, so much blood ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... was sure. He trotted along behind old Granny Fox and planned smart things to say to her when she found that there wasn't a chance to catch Quacker the Duck. I am afraid, very much afraid, that Reddy was planning to be saucy. People who think themselves smart are quite apt to be saucy. ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess

... youthful men to keep your mares, or to give them leave to marry. When Periander heard him out, he seemed infinitely pleased, for he laughed outright, and hugging Thales in his arms he kissed him; then saith he, O Diocles, I am apt to think the worst is over, and what this prodigy portended is now at an end; for do you not apprehend what a loss we have sustained in the want of Alexidemus's good ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... showed much surprise to hear such a thing. He was playing along with Joey and the little dog at the time, and teaching the puppy to learn tricks. The creature was full of brains, as mongrels are apt to be, and Joey loved it dearly, and loved the giver only less. He'd called it 'Choc,' because the puppy loved chocolates so well as Joey himself, and the dog had grown ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... centre were many swamps or bogs, very dangerous, especially in wet or stormy weather. There were also many hills, or "tors," rising to a considerable elevation above sea-level, and ranging from Haytor Rocks at 1,491 feet to High Willheys at 2,039 feet. Mists and clouds from the Atlantic were apt to sweep suddenly over the Moor and trap unwary travellers, so that many persons had perished in the bogs from time to time; and the clouds striking against the rocky tors caused the rainfall to be so heavy that the Moor had been named the "Land ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... to her heart; and my sweet sister Norah kissed my cheek again and again, gazing at me as sisters are apt to do at a brother of whom they are proud. I am sure I felt proud of her, and wondered that all the young men in the neighbourhood were not dying with love for her; but perhaps they had too much to do in fighting for the liberty ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... but one, and to use this one as the eye that beheld the other, and as the tongue that could convey the discovery. There is no greater or more common vice in dramatic writers than to draw out of themselves. How I—alone and in the self-sufficiency of my study, as all men are apt to be proud in their dreams—should like to be talking 'king'! Shakspeare, in composing, had no 'I', but the 'I' representative. In Beaumont and Fletcher you have descriptions of characters by the poet rather than the characters themselves; we are told, and impressively told, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... machinery, certain elements of thought and spontaneity adhere to it. These must be taken into account in any estimate of the net educative influence of machinery. But though these mental qualities must not be overlooked, exaggerated importance should not be attached to them. The layman is often apt to esteem too highly the nature of skilled specialist work. A locomotive superintendent of a railway was recently questioned as to the quality of engine-driving. "After twenty years' experience he declared emphatically that the very best engine-drivers were those who were most mechanical and ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... romance, again filled her heart and bubbled from her lips. Her little stories pleased Barron mightily. Excitement heightened Joan's beauty. Her absolute innocence at the age of seventeen struck him as remarkable. It seemed curious that a child born in a cottage, where realities and facts are apt to roughly front boy and girl alike, should know so little. She was a beautiful, primitive creature, with strange store of fairy fable in her mind; a treasury which brought color and joy into life. So she prattled, and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... day you will cast about in your mind to explain this; and so in time you will come to find that it is the spirit of Troy that plays this trick upon you. For you will have learnt to love the place, and love, as you know, dear sir or madam, is apt ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... outside tribes became less pronounced, the pueblo-builders consulted convenience more, and larger rooms were built. This has occurred in many of the pueblos and in the ruins, and in a general way a ruin consisting of large rooms is apt to be more modern than one consisting of small rooms; and where large and small rooms occur together there is a fair presumption that the occupancy of the village extended over a period when hostile pressure was pronounced and when it became less strong. It has already been shown that, owing ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... desires to see in the finished article, allowing the chemical action due to the stoving to tone the colours down. Another necessity is to keep the enamel thoroughly well mixed by well stirring it every time it is used, as if this is not done the actual colouring matter is apt to sink to the bottom, the ultimate result being that streaky work is produced in consequence of this indifferent mixing ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown

... vaccinated or treated should not be given feed for at least twelve hours before handling them. If possible they should be confined in a roomy, clean, well-bedded pen. If this is practised, they are cleaner and easier to handle and their body temperatures are less apt to vary. After the treatment or vaccination the hogs should be fed a light diet for a period of at least ten days, and the ration increased gradually in order to avoid causing acute indigestion. This is necessary because of the elevation in body temperature ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... theirs, do their best to make up the difference to him in contempt and abuse. Schoolboys are not distinguished for a fastidious reticence. If they dislike, they never hesitate to say so, and they have a painfully downright way of giving reasons for their behaviour, which is apt to jar on a temperament so sensitive that its owner always and only treads the path of high principle when self-interest points ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various

... late Bishop of Norwich, or Prosodiacal like Dr. Maltby. A storm in a slop-basin was desirable for the moment. But had the desire been profoundly sincere, and had it soared to that height which real fears for religious interests are apt to attain, then beyond all doubt the Minister would not have addressed himself to a Provincial bishop, but to the two Metropolitan bishops of Canterbury and York. They, but not an inferior prelate, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... be used for bread-making, depends upon taste and convenience. Bread retains more nearly the natural flavor of the grain if made with water, and is less apt to sour; at the same time, bread made with milk is more tender than that made with water. Bread made with milk requires from one half to one cupful less ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... also! He was a true-hearted man, but more wrapped up in his love for my mother than it is well for any man to be who would look at life largely and do right by all. For such love, though natural to women, is apt to turn to something that partakes of selfishness, and to cause him who bears it to think all else of small account. His children were nothing to my father when compared to my mother, and he would have been content ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... said in the last chapter that Mary loved her husband, infirm and feeble as he was both in body and in mind. This love was probably the effect, quite as much as it was the cause, of the kindness which she showed him. As we are very apt to hate those whom we have injured, so we almost instinctively love those who have in any way become the objects of our kindness and care. If any wife, therefore, wishes for the pleasure of loving her husband, or which is, perhaps, a better ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Englishman will associate with a woman for ten years, and one day will wake up to the fact that he loves her, and has loved her probably for some time past. And then his whole manner changes immediately, and he is apt to make himself very disagreeable unless indeed the lady loves him—and women are rarely in doubt in their inmost hearts as to whether they love ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... and Epworth League is not conducive to frankness. This is especially true of students who know what the president wants him to say. It is a sort of begging the question. The average college student is apt to have too much respect for the president's feelings to be frank in such a case. He likewise has a keen sense of self-preservation. He does not want to incur ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... and strangely fascinating path. It is not merely fanciful to feel that the place expresses itself appropriately as the place where the great Christian King hid himself from the heathen. Though a marshland is always open it is still curiously secret. Fens, like deserts, are large things very apt to be mislaid. These flats feared to be overlooked in a double sense; the small trees crouched and the whole plain seemed lying on its face, as men do when shells burst. The little path ran fearlessly forward; but it seemed to ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... the nose," although, in reality, nasal resonance is reduced and difficulty is experienced in pronouncing N and M correctly, while stuttering is not uncommon. Nasal obstruction leads to poor nutrition, and hence children with adenoids and enlarged tonsils are apt to be ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... muskets, according to the number of the mess, and as many knapsacks, haversacks, belts, blankets, rubber-cloths, canteens, sets of dishes (!), boots or shoes, and a box to hold blacking and brushes, soap, candles, etc. Beside these, there is apt to be—unless the mess pass, as they ought to do, a prohibitory law on the subject—an assortment of towels, handkerchiefs, stockings and other articles of apparel which the owners thereof have lately washed, ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... be called sun; but as all three are recognized as inseparably one, the termini can change places until finally an inner illumination takes place. "Those that have never had this experience are apt to decry it as imaginary, but those who enter into it know that they have entered into a higher life, or feel themselves enabled to look upon things from a higher point of view. To use what may seem to be a misapplication of language: it is a supernatural birth, naturally ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... State of Europe] The extensive confederacies by which the European potentates are now at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were totally unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... lover, and that they loved each other! And Grandfather.... She had never thought whether he wrote poetry about her or not. She had just taken it for granted. People had to write about something, and it was just as apt to be you as a public crisis or a sunset, or anything else useful for the purpose. But they had laughed about it.... Oh, she did hope it wouldn't be a poem about her that he was going to read! She felt she couldn't stand it, if it were. She knew that when she ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... not, however, until the reign of Elizabeth that great maritime adventures began to be made. Navigators were not so venturous as they afterwards became. Without proper methods of navigation, they were apt to be carried away to the south, across an ocean without limit. In 1565 a young captain, Martin Frobisher, came into notice. At the age of twenty-five he captured in the South Seas the Flying Spirit, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... character of that region will not be disputed. In the European division of the world, we must look back to the tertiary epochs, to find a condition of things among the mammalia, resembling that now existing at the Cape of Good Hope. Those tertiary epochs, which we are apt to consider as abounding to an astonishing degree with large animals, because we find the remains of many ages accumulated at certain spots, could hardly boast of more large quadrupeds than Southern Africa does at present. If we speculate on the condition ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... leaves being thus tried. Some were rubbed for a long time with a blunt needle, and drops of milk and other exciting fluids, raw meat, crushed flies, and various substances, placed on others. These substances were apt soon to become dry, showing that no secretion had been excited. Hence I moistened them with saliva, solutions of ammonia, weak hydrochloric acid, and frequently with the secretion from the glands of other leaves. I also kept some leaves, on the backs of which exciting objects ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... Mayo woman's working dress. Here and there, a touch of realism creditable to the Reverend Mother's talent for stage management, one sat in bare feet—not, of course, dust or mud stained, as bare feet are apt to be in Connaught, but clean. The careful observer of detail might have been led to suppose that the Sisters improved upon the practice of the Holy Father himself, and daily washed the ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... that when I did go to school we used the proverbial Webster's blue-back speller. The majority of the pupils began with the "A, B, C," the alphabet, and went as far as "horseback," while apt pupils might be able to reach "compressibility." And so for years we went from "A" ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... who'd be apt to make you a call," Barlow told them impressively, "would cut your throats for a side of bacon. You boys keep watches day and night. When we get back into San Diego Bay, if you do your duties, you both get fifty dollars on ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... at these geraniums! Now, I consider that pink one a perfect bloom; yes, a perfect bloom. This is a fine red one, is it not, miss? Especially fine, don't you think? The trouble with the red variety is that they're apt to get "bobby" and have to be washed regularly; quite bobby they do get indeed, I assure you. That white one has just gone out of blossom, and it was really wonderful. You could 'ardly have told it from a paper flower, miss, not from a white paper flower. ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... give thee; so compensating thy lot, 250 From whom Andromache shall ne'er receive Those glorious arms, for thou shalt ne'er return. So spake the Thunderer, and his sable brows Shaking, confirm'd the word. But Hector found The armor apt; the God of war his soul 255 With fury fill'd, he felt his limbs afresh Invigorated, and with loudest shouts Return'd to his illustrious allies. To them he seem'd, clad in those radiant arms, Himself Achilles; rank by ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... should be made before the chinks are plastered, as the hammering is apt to loosen ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... single seaport whence it may send forth its flag, nor has it any means of communication with foreign powers except through the military lines of its adversaries. No apprehension of any of those sudden and difficult complications which a war upon the ocean is apt to precipitate upon the vessels, both commercial and national, and upon the consular officers of other powers calls for the definition of their relations to the parties to the contest. Considered as a question of expediency, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... of the ring, their favorite blow is the blow below the belt. It is viciously administered by both foot and knee. Next to that is the kick on the shins, which, delivered by a heavy, iron-shod cowhide boot, is pretty apt to render the recipient hors de combat. Supplemented by a quick fist and directed by a quicker temper, the French police agent is no mean antagonist in a general row. In brutality and impulsive cruelty he is but the flesh and blood of those with whom he ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... of Essaies 1621: "Like a swine, he never doth good till his death; as an apprentice's box of earth, apt he is to take all, but to restore none ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... differences between men. Even among members of a single community, with closely similar inheritance and environment, we find marked divergence in moral judgment. And when we compare widely different times and places we are apt to wonder if there is any common ground. It is only a very smug provincialism that can attribute the alien standards of other races and nations to a disregard of the light. Mohammedans and Buddhists have believed as firmly in, and fought as passionately for, their moral convictions ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... his companion had a confused idea of the thing, and that probably the Lake Parima they talked of was the Amazons, not far from the city of Para, or that it was their intention to deceive you. You ought to be cautious in giving credit to their stories, otherwise you will be apt to be ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... judgments we form neither affect our existence nor our welfare; and we are not forced by any physical necessity to correct them. Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts; so that we become in some measure interested in deceiving ourselves. Hence it is by no means to be wondered, that, in the science of physics in general, ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... warm-hearted man whose life-long toil had made such provision for the son he loved. Uneducated, homely, narrow enough in much of his thinking, the manufacturer of oil-cloth must have had singular possibilities in his nature to renew himself in a youth so apt for modern culture as Walter was; thinking back in his maturity, the latter remembered many a noteworthy trait in his father, and wished the old man could have lived yet a few more years to see his son's work really ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... mother!" he cried, "look here! the base of this goblet is broken off, and an apt symbol it is of my love. With the last wine which this glass will ever hold let me drink a last farewell to my love, and do you pledge her with me: To the health of the Princess Ludovicka ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... meeting in the forest a person whom he has never seen before is apt to look upon him as a foe. As civilization increases, danger to one's personal rights decreases, and stranger ceases to mean enemy. It has gradually come about that the confidence and courtesy shown to one another by men in their individual relations have extended to ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... long time before he will do that," said her brother-in-law, dryly. "When a man is asked to abandon the woman he loves for a mother's whim, he's not apt to do it if he's made of ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... impossible for any clique to control again the electoral machinery. As the sheriffs and justices were no longer so closely allied with the executive as they had been in the Restoration period, false returns of Burgesses and other electoral frauds were apt to be of less ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... next day, he recalled this order, threw it into the fire before her eyes, and confined her for six hours in her bedroom; because she was not dressed in time to take a walk with him on the ramparts, one is apt to believe that military despotism has erased from his bosom all connubial affection, and that a momentary effusion of kindness and generosity can but little alleviate the frequent pangs caused by repeated insults and oppression. Fortunately, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... the rebuke as a bird might have taken it, her bright round eyes reflecting steadily the overblown mortal opposite. She had never called Lady Dorinda anything except "her highness." The dullest soldier grinned at the apt sarcastic title. When Marie brought her to account for this annoyance, she explained that she could not call Lady Dorinda anything else. Was a poor dwarf to be punished because people made light of every word she used? Yet this innocent creature took a pleasure of ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... have," he said, as he shrank back in a petulant way, I thought. "Last week I got my feet a little damp while playing the hose on some of my stocks, but I hardly think that was what caused the trouble. I am apt to overeat, as I said. I am especially fond of fruit, too. When I was a boy I had no trouble, because I always divided my fruit with another boy, of whom I was very fond. I would always divide my fruit in two equal parts, keeping ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... into many rivulets divides also its strength, and grows contemptible and apt to be forded by a lamb and drunk up by a summer sun; so is the spirit of man busied in variety, and divided in itself; it abates its fervour, cools into indifferency, and becomes trifling by its dispersion and inadvertency. Aquinas was once asked, with what ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... soul's inner symmetry; from love Too deep and pure to utter, had she words; From the divine desire to know; to prove All objects brought within her dawning ken; From frolic mirth, not heedless but most apt; From sense of conscience, shown in little things So early; and from infant ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... they imagine the other. I have lived both, and I know there is very little in wealth that can add to human happiness, beyond the small comforts of life. Millionaires who laugh are rare. My experience is that wealth is apt ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... parade the various quarters of the city and fight with the bands of rival streets. If the rivalry is good-humoured, little harm accrues; but if, as is sometimes the case, feelings of real resentment are cherished, heads are apt to be broken and the leaders find themselves consigned to the care of the Police. It is difficult to see the connection between these brawling street-companies and the lamentation for Hasan and Husein; but the rivalry of the mohollas recalls ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... him do it more than once, an' more than twice," replied Rob. "You know we live in the same house, and mostly come on to school together, an' both him an' me is apt to stop for peanuts. And the first time I saw him do that, taking out a handful extra for himself, was one morning when I hadn't any money to buy; but he stopped in, and I staid out, 'cause it was too kind of tantalizing to go in and smell ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... would solicit free discussion Upon all points, no matter what or whose, Because as ages upon ages push on, The last is apt the former to accuse Of pillowing its head on a pincushion, Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse. What was a paradox becomes a truth or A something like it, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... the disease, to the further spreading of the infection, it is therefore ordered that there be chosen and appointed able and discreet chirurgeons, besides those that do already belong to the pest-house, amongst whom the city and Liberties to be quartered as the places lie most apt and convenient; and every of these to have one quarter for his limit; and the said chirurgeons in every of their limits to join with the searchers for the view of the body, to the end there may be a true ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... and philosophers say what they may, it is very questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last; 'in which case,' say they who have hunted ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... Belisarius-like air; and more than one hero without an obolus has stumbled upon a fortune merely from his contempt of riches. If to fight, or write, or dress be above you, why, then, you can ride, or dance, or even skate; but do not think, as many young gentlemen are apt to believe, that talking will serve your purpose. That is the quicksand of your young beginners. All can talk in a public assembly; that is to say, all can give us exhortations which do not move, and arguments which do not convince; but to converse in a ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... moments in which every man is apt to imagine, that the history of his own life is the most important of all histories. The gloom and sunshine, with which my short existence has been chequered, lead me to suppose that a narrative of these vicissitudes may be interesting to others, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... that when one is overmastered by the dogma of natural selection he is apt, perhaps unconsciously, to give up all effort to work out the factors of evolution, or to seek to work out this or that cause of variation. Trusting too implicitly to the supposed vera causa, one may close his eyes to the effects of change of environment ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... half a dozen paces toward Monte before he stopped. He heard True's groaning curse; a spat of flame from where the man lay showed him that he was still to be counted on. But his shooting would be apt to be wild and he must be forgotten ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... the close of the summer that, one morning, the little one did not appear. She was sick of fever, they said. At breakfast, the Major looked disturbed. But in a hotel we are not apt to think seriously of the troubles of our neighbors, even if they are next door to us, and few of us thought to ask about the baby. One night coming in late from the theatre, I saw a large rocking chair ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley

... disgraced by a flogging, whatever might have been the nature of the offence we committed. The drill will never get on so well as it used to do, unless the rattan be called into use again; but we apprehend no evil from the abolition of corporal punishment afterwards. People are apt to attribute to this abolition offences that have nothing to do with it; and for which ample punishments are still provided. If a man fires at his officer, people are apt to say it is because flogging has been done away with; but a man who deliberately fires at his officer is prepared ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... WITHOUT errors in pagination; and this is only a common example of the beginner's blunders. Collecting is like other forms of sport; the aim is not certain at first, the amateur is nervous, and, as in angling, is apt to "strike" ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... tough little ponies will stand near them, down the hill, scarcely moving or making a sound. Some scouts declare that an Indian pony never whinnies or sneezes! But that seems absurd, although some of those little beasts show wonderful intelligence and appear to have been apt ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe



Words linked to "Apt" :   disposed, intelligent, minded, aptness, pertinent, inclined, apposite, apropos, tending, likely, liable, clever, given



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