Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Formal   Listen
noun
Formal  n.  (Chem.) See Methylal.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Formal" Quotes from Famous Books



... months,—a period just long enough to accomplish its object, but too short for the royal intervention against it to be of any direct avail. Under these circumstances, the clergy bore their losses for that year with some murmuring indeed, but without any formal protest.[37] ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... and looked at those banquets of the soul! There epicurism was in the lip as well as the palate, and one had humour for a hors d'oeuvre and repartee for an entremet. At dinner there is something too pompous, too formal, for the true ease of Table Talk. One's intellectual appetite, like the physical, is coarse but dull. At dinner one is fit only for eating; after dinner only for politics. But supper was a glorious relic of the ancients. The bustle of the day ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... proved thenceforth to be the centre of his greatest work and teaching. There for a time, how long cannot be known, he continued in quiet fellowship with his new friends, until the approach of the Passover drew him to Jerusalem to make formal opening of his Messianic work in that centre of his people's ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... Tuscany received a copy of the treaty signed between the republic and the King of France, a treaty in which the king engaged to help his ally against any enemy whatsoever, and at the same moment the formal prohibition from Louis to advance any further. Caesar also learned that beside the 400 lances with the captain Imbaut, which were on the road to Florence, Louis XII had as soon as he reached Asti sent off to Parma Louis de la Trimouille and 200 men-at-arms, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... himself to whom he should direct his addresses on this score; the general acquaintance he had in the world, brought many ladies into his mind, who seemed suitable matches for him; but then, as they were of equal birth and fortunes with himself, he reflected, that a long formal courtship would be expected, and he was now grown too indolent to take that trouble, as he was not excited by inclination to any of them, and had determined to enter a third time into the bonds of ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... embrace me, 45 But then first when I had already taken My formal leave, and when the door already Had closed upon me, then did she come out In haste, as she had suddenly bethought herself, And pressed me to her bosom, more with anguish ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... about "classic shades," "groves of Academe," et cetera. Trollope had his fling at the square brick buildings; but it was a fling that they richly deserved, for they are in very deed as ugly as it is possible to conceive,—angular, formal, stiff, windowy, bricky,—and the farther in you go, the worse it grows. Why, I pray to know, as the first inquiry suggested by Class-Day, is it necessary for boys' schools to be placed without the pale of civilization? Do boys take so naturally to the amenities of life ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... thus somewhat incapable of strict formal definition, for all practical purposes it may be confined in Greek poetry to pieces written in a single metre, the elegiac couplet, the metre appropriated to inscriptions from the earliest recorded period.[1] Traditionally ascribed to the invention ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... remaining at their posts until their work was done. There was one gentleman in particular, a Scotch mathematician and engineer, who had been educated at the University of Aberdeen, that complained of the treatment which he received in a full and formal protest, which he addressed to Peter in writing, and which is still on record. He makes out a very strong case in respect to the injustice ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... and a bit of supper with him—such unheard-of hospitality that Millet went home quite persuaded that the old man was, as he expressed it to his wife, 'going off his chump;' so that it was quite a relief to meet him two days later at the choir practice as formal and distant ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... but with none of them had she fallen ever so little in love, and without love she determined to try no more experiments; her determination, however, did not involve surrender of interest in the subject. Hence the notable discussion on the June night. Hence, perhaps, after a few other meetings of a formal character, the prettily intimate invitation ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... and myself walked across the park to the wayside inn to which Salter Quick's body had been removed, and where the coroner was to hold his inquiry. I remember, however, that nothing was done that morning beyond a merely formal opening of the proceedings, and that a telegram was received from the police at Devonport in which it was stated that they were unable to find out if the two brothers had any near relations—no one there knew of any. Altogether, I think, nothing was revealed that day beyond what we knew already, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... The formal breach between England and Rome occurred in 1534. Parliament passed a series of laws, one of which declared the king to be the "only supreme head in earth of the Church of England," and others cut off all communication with the pope and inflicted the penalty of treason upon any one who ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... under Australian authority in 1931; formal administration began two years later. Ashmore Reef supports a rich and diverse avian and marine habitat; in 1983, it became a National Nature Reserve. Cartier Island, a former bombing range, is now ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... form fitting, 'tis true, but none too close a fit upon me. I had owned it for years; I looked forward to owning and using it for years to come. I laid it aside for a period during an abatement in formal social activities; then bringing it forth from its camphor-ball nest for a special occasion I found I could scarce force my way down into the trousers, and that the waistcoat buttons could not be made to ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... did on November 17, 1919, in a formal Memorial addressed to the President of the Chinese Republic, which is quoted below as it appeared in the Peking press, under date of November ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... look with much favour upon outward form, ceremony, or with much favour upon formulated, or formal religion; and he somehow or other seemed to avoid the company of those who did. We find him almost continually down among the people, the poor, the needy, the outcast, the sinner—wherever he could be of service to the Father, that is, wherever he could be of service to the Father's children. ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... us, and it will take long generations of goodwill to wipe out some memories. Again, and yet again, let there be no confusion of thought as to this final peace; it will never come while there is any formal link of dependence. The spirit of our manhood will always flame up to resent and resist that link. Separation and equality may restore ties of friendship; nothing else can: for individual development and general goodwill is the lesson of human life. ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... at the escritoire, arranged a sheet of the monogrammed note-paper used by Mrs. Gosnold for correspondence with personal friends (as distinguished from the formal letter-head of Gosnold House, with its bristling array of telephone numbers and telegraph, post-office, railroad and steamboat addresses), dipped a pen, and waited with a mind preoccupied by visions of the night to come. Her first ball! ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Defeats in the Netherlands might compel Lewis to withdraw the succours which he had furnished to his grandson. Then would be the time to strike a decisive blow. This excellent advice was rejected. Peterborough, who had now received formal letters of recall from England, departed before the opening of the campaign; and with him departed the good fortune of the Allies. Scarcely any general had ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely any ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... terms of which I have not the least doubt but Congress will comply with. The secrecy necessary in some part of the operation, which I have undertaken for your service, requires also, on your part, a formal resolution, that all the vessels and their demands should be constantly directed to our house alone, in order that there may be no idle chattering or time lost—two things that are the ruin of affairs. You will advise me what the vessels ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... such as the war of the Titans against Zeus and similar episodes. Ate and the Erinyes are embodiments of man's own evil nature or represent the punishment that overtakes guilt, but they do not represent a formal opposition to goodness nor are they organized into a definite body.[1784] The Roman Furies are practically identical in function with the Erinyes. In the old Teutonic religion the only figure who approaches essential ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... are all however of one kind, namely that of the inference of the probandum (sadhya) by virtue of the unconditional and invariable concomitance of the hetu, called the vyapti-niyama. In the new school of Nyaya (Navya-Nyaya) a formal distinction of three kinds of inference occupies an important place, namely anvayavyatireki, kevalanvayi, and kevalavyatireki. Anvayavyatireki is that inference where the vyapti has been observed by a combination of a large number of ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood before her at any time since her marriage. The same formal politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same distance, which nothing has ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... wanted to feel my way, to try whether I could possibly venture upon my own confession. 'Consider it this way, Clarendon,' I said. 'Take it for granted that Helen did somehow arrange that Beauclerc were to be satisfied without any formal explanation.'—'Formal!' said he,—'I will not say formal,' said I; 'but without a full explanation: in short, suppose that from mere timidity, Helen could not, did not, exactly tell him the ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... preeminence which he modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The alliance of the East and West was annually declared by the unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that the Italian candidate who was named by Theodoric accepted a formal confirmation from the sovereign of Constantinople. [54] The Gothic palace of Ravenna reflected the image of the court of Theodosius or Valentinian. The Praetorian praefect, the praefect of Rome, the quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... look at the 92 colleges in France, although the University of Paris was in one quarter of the city, and in that sense materially one,—although including 50 colleges,—yet in the formal and essential bond these 92 Jesuit colleges were vastly more of a unit as an identical educational power than any faculty existing. No faculty at Paris, Rome, Salamanca, or Oxford ever preserved the control over its 50, 20, ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola

... Abijah?" remarked the young man with the air of lordly pleasantry he used to all servants who were not white. Beyond the fine old hall he saw the formal drawing-room and the modern octagonal dining-room at the back of ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... eaters, yet is the same place and body able to contain them, by reason of their conversion, partly into blood, partly into air and fire. What in these things is the speculation of truth? to divide things into that which is passive and material; and that which is active and formal. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... in a charity school in the capital a considerable number of the pupils had never seen a butterfly or a sunset. We were certainly not to be classed among such children. But our intercourse with Nature had been limited to formal visits which we were permitted to pay the august lady at stated intervals. In Keilhau she became a familiar friend, and we therefore were soon initiated into many of her secrets; for none seemed to be withheld from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... little after four o'clock. The Convention, with the self-possession that so often amazes us in its proceedings, went on with formal business for another hour. At five they broke up. For life, as the poets tell, is a daily stage-play; men declaim their high heroic parts, then doff the buskin or the sock, wash away the paint from their cheeks, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... contests and games of all kinds in modern times, and especially the keen competition for "records'' and championships, often of an international character, have made it a matter of importance to arrive at a clear and formal definition of the amateur as distinguished from the professional. The simple, straightforward definition of the amateur given above has been proved to be easily evaded. Many leading cricketers, for example, preserve their amateur status who, although they are not paid wages for each match ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... yet, the great trouble was without doubt at head-quarters. The department was directed by an officer who had done good service in the Mexican war, but who by long connection with the regular army, seemed to have become so wedded to the formal precision of military routine, that no contingency was sufficient to move him from his established habits. Here was occasion for dispensing with formalities. Responsibilities should have been assumed, and, if necessary, supplies should have been thrown into the army broadcast, without ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... against the Scots, as much perhaps and as unjustly as they were undervalued by the King, refused to come to his court, which, in those days, was looked on as the first usual mark of discontent in a nobleman; and was often charged by princes as a formal accusation. The earl having disobeyed the King's summons, and concerted matters with other accomplices, broke out into open rebellion, with intentions to depose King William, and set up Stephen Earl of Albemarle, son of a sister to William the Conqueror: but all was prevented ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... Constitution: no formal constitution; some of the functions of a constitution are filled by the Declaration of Establishment (1948), the basic laws of the parliament (Knesset), and the ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... The very idea of canonicity was originally associated with the Torah, and was only afterwards extended to the other books, which slowly and by a gradual process acquired a certain measure of the validity given to the Torah by a single public and formal act, through which it was introduced at once as the Magna Charta of the Jewish communion (Nehemiah viii.-x.) In their case the canonical— that is, legal—character was not intrinsic, but was only subsequently acquired; there must therefore have been some interval, and ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... tardiness of their foes to levy raw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal error, however, lay in the system of conquest pursued by both Austria and England. Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns within the French territory taken by Coburg, were compelled to take a formal oath of allegiance to Austria, and England made, as the condition of her aid, that of the Austrians for the conquest of Dunkirk. The siege of this place, which was merely of importance to England ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... insulted by such a little smuggling slave-driver as him! I think it was in the year 1780 an accident happened, when the old Register Office at Williamsburg was burned down, in which there was a copy of the formal assignment of the Virginia property from Francis Lord Castlewood to my grandfather Henry Esmond, Esquire. "Oh," says Fanny, "of course this is the work of Jack the Painter!" And Mr. Van den Bosch was for prosecuting her for libel, but that ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... according to Hooker's suggestion, but the latter received a serious wound in the foot, as it would seem, before the attack by the Twelfth Corps had begun. Hooker turned over the command to Meade, and a formal order confirming this was issued from McClellan's head-quarters later in the day. [Footnote: Id., pt. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... two sides! The first is the formal side and it shows itself thus: Mme. Jadwiga Karlowiecka most earnestly asks the great painter Leon to make her portrait. That is all! The painter Leon, who, it is known, paints lots of portraits, has ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... are found in various parts of Victoria, in their wild state. They are usually discovered in the thick woods, sitting upright in circles of a dozen or more, as grave as though engaged in holding a formal council. On such occasions their short forepaws hang limp before them, while their restless heads and delicate ears turn hither and thither in watchful care against surprise. Notwithstanding their huge paunches, big hindquarters, and immense tails, there ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... is the business of a grand jury to inquire concerning crimes and misdemeanors committed in the county; and if there appear just grounds of accusation against any person, they make to the court a presentment or formal charge against him, upon which he is to be put upon trial. The number of grand jurors is not always the same. In some states there may not be more than twenty-three nor less than twelve. It is not required that they shall all agree in order to put a ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... first formal expression to his Christmas thoughts in his series of small books, the first of which was the famous "Christmas Carol," the one perfect chrysolite. The success of the book was immediate. Thackeray wrote of it: "Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... belonged to her from this confused Bundle of Silks, Stuffs, Laces, and Ribbons. I have hitherto given you an Account of our Diversion on ordinary Club-Nights; but must acquaint you farther, that once a Month we demolish a Prude, that is, we get some queer formal Creature in among us, and unrig her in an Instant. Our last Months Prude was so armed and fortified in Whalebone and Buckram that we had much ado to come at her; but you would have died with laughing to have seen how the sober awkward Thing looked when ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... now with reserve, to show before it was too late at least some of that dwarfed and suffocated feeling. But he faltered over his first sentence. He had trained himself too long and too carefully to speak with that cold, ironic inflexion. He sounded in his own ears formal—unconvincing. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... surprised if they had invited her to the chapter-house for that purpose. To her circle of untravelled ladies, ignorant of Murray, but laudably desirous of information, all Ellinor's historical reminiscences and rather formal details were really interesting. There was no railroad in those days between Lyons and Marseilles, so their progress was slow, and the passage of letters to and fro, when they had arrived in Rome, long and uncertain. But all seemed going on well. ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... seemed to be a sympathy between them, for she wrote formal answers to his as formal letters. An extreme dislike took root in her mind; the found of his name made her turn sick; but she forgot all, listening to Ann's cough, and supporting her languid frame. She would then catch her to her bosom with convulsive ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... yielded freely, but perhaps for that very reason the mind of man was less exercised and less active. And the unvarying landscape, the unchanging sky, the small number and unpoetic or even grotesque forms of the plants and animals, may partly account for the lack of imagination evinced by the most formal and most stationary of nations, scarcely excepting ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... rejection of the Papal demands, he attempts to redeem the situation, even in the dreadful moment of John's kneeling supplication to Pandulph, by putting into the former's mouth 'asides' expressing a heart completely at variance with the formal penitence; in fact this scene might be understood as a clever hoodwinking of the enemy to circumvent the Dauphin. With true artistic and patriotic instinct the author creates the redoubtable Faulconbridge to demonstrate that Englishmen ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... Irish into Latin. If one of the Lives, and this a typical or characteristic Life, be a translation, we may perhaps assume that the others, or most of them, are translations also. In any case we may assume as certain that there were original Irish materials or data from which the formal Lives (Irish ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... bare, too, when one thought of Italy, and how the oleanders were robing the hillsides by Genoa in scarlet, and the cyclamen filling with its purple every valley from Florence to Rome; for there was not much real beauty, perhaps, in it, only long, white dusty roads and straight rows of formal poplars; but, now and then, some little breaking gleam of broken light would lend to the grey field and the silent barn a secret and a mystery that were hardly their own, would transfigure for one exquisite moment the peasants passing down ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... stammered, rather intimidated by this self-possessed young woman who looked him calmly through and through. "Why not call me Jefferson? Mr. Ryder is so formal." ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... to be taken as a fair example of the Italian sculpture of this time, but NICCOLO OF ARREZZO, the MASSEGNE, and the BON or BUONI family, and many others in different portions of the country contributed to put aside the stiff, formal manner of the past, and to bring in the more sympathetic and natural one of the fifteenth century. In truth, the last decades of the fourteenth century were a transition period, when art was bursting its bonds, and ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... of his taxes—including the dues which he has to pay for the temporary passport—but sometimes the Commune uses the power of recall for purposes of extortion. If it becomes known, for instance, that an absent member is receiving a good salary or otherwise making money, he may one day receive a formal order to return at once to his native village, but he is probably informed at the same time, unofficially, that his presence will be dispensed with if he will send to the Commune a certain specified sum. The money thus sent is generally used by the Commune for convivial ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... globes, which we wondered were not stolen till we were told they were of that bitter sort which are mostly sent to Scotland, not because they are in accord with the acrid nature of man there, but that they may be wrought into marmalade. On the other hand stretched less formal woods, with fields for such polite athletics as tennis, which the example of the beloved young English Queen of Spain is bringing into reluctant favor with women immemorially accustomed to immobility. The road was badly kept, like most things in Spain, where ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... great ductility, fusibility, fixedness, and solubility, in aqua regia, will have a perfecter idea of gold than he can have by seeing a piece of gold, and thereby imprinting in his mind only its obvious qualities. But if the formal constitution of this shining, heavy, ductile thing, (from whence all these its properties flow,) lay open to our senses, as the formal constitution or essence of a triangle does, the signification of the word gold might as easily be ascertained as ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... could find:—'None of my predecessors can blame me for the use I have made of them; since it is their own avowed practice. It is a kind of privilege attached to the office of lexicographer; if not by any formal grant, yet by connivance at least. I have already assumed the bee for my device, and who ever brought an action of trover or trespass against that avowed free-booter? 'Tis vain to pretend anything of property in things of this nature. To offer our thoughts to the public, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... all been made through the senses of the child, we must not expect him to voice these impressions in logical phrases all at once, so beware of making the lesson irksome or wearisome to him through a formal questioning that does not ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... magnetic observatory. On the afternoon of the 30th, the magnetician invited every one to a tea-party in the igloo to celebrate the opening. He had the place very nicely decorated with flags, and after the reception and the formal inspection of the instruments, we were served with quite a good tea. The outside temperature was -33 degrees F. and it was not much higher inside the igloo. As a result, no one extended his visit beyond ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... The neck-band of velvet or satin, full and soft, apparently enlarges the throat. The sleeves may be in whatever style in cut prevails. This costume carries perfectly into effect the requirements of evening dress, and may be worn with equal fitness to formal functions or to informal affairs. A coat-sleeve of lace, crepe, or chiffon, beflounced at the wrist, may be inserted under the short satin sleeves when the occasion does not require gloves. The soft, white setting of thin textures around the throat and shoulders clears the complexion ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... There are possibly a few normal 6-year-old children who could not pass the test for lack of instruction, but children of this age usually have enough spontaneous interest in numbers to acquire facility in counting as far as 13 without formal teaching. Certainly, inability to do so by the age of 7 years is a suspicious sign unless the child's environment has been extraordinarily unfavorable. On the other hand, feeble-minded adults of the 5-year level usually have to have a ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... is Gordon but Jimmie doesn't like it. He always said it was too formal for a little girl. So he calls me Red-Robin and he says he'll never call me anything else. Why ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... Astro earlier had gained firsthand experience in commercial rocket ships as an able spaceman and later had been accepted in the Academy for cadet training. The son of colonists on Venus, the misty planet, his formal education was limited, and though he had no equal while on the power deck of a rocket ship, in theory and classroom study he had to depend on Roger and Tom to help him get ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... pilgrims might have the privilege of visiting a mosque within the city. These terms Frederick gladly accepted, and soon after marched into the holy city at the head of his armed followers (not unarmed, as in the case of Coeur de Lion), took possession of it with formal ceremony, allowed the Mohammedan population to withdraw in peace, and repeopled the city with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... not long afterwards) from the Master, he got nothing away with him but a letter. For some while back it had been I myself who had conducted these affairs; Mr. Henry not setting pen to paper, and I only in the driest and most formal terms. But this letter I did not even see; it would scarce be pleasant reading, for Mr. Henry felt he had his wife behind him for once, and I observed, on the day it was despatched, he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the farmhouse have one great and rare merit—they are people whom you can make friends with at once. Between not knowing them at all, and knowing them well enough to shake hands at first sight, there is no ceremonious interval or formal gradation whatever. They received us, on our arrival, exactly as if we were old friends returned from some long traveling expedition. Before we had been ten minutes in the hall, William had the easiest ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... swell her retinue, so that it came to pass that before we reached the City of Pines we were accompanied by an army of at least ten thousand mountaineers, great men and wild, who made a savage music as we marched. But with them and with their chiefs as yet we held no converse except by way of formal greeting, though every morning when we started on our journey, Otomie in a litter and I on a horse that had been captured from the Spaniards, they set up shouts of salutation and made the mountains ring. Ever as we went the land like its people ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her look more lively. They were both upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... now seventy years old and was in America. The colonies had resolved to be free. A committee had been chosen by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to prepare a draft for a formal Declaration of Independence, a paper whose principles were destined to emancipate not only the united colonies but the world. The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... Saxony, and England, simply May-riding, or fetching of the May-wagon. On the Rhine merely a battle of winter and summer, without immersion, without the pomp of an entry. In Franconia, Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia, and Bohemia only the carrying out of wintry death; no battle, no formal introduction of summer. Of these festivals the first and second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first two, the whole population take part with unabated enthusiasm; in the last two only the lower poorer class.... ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... days she chatted to women on the street, in stores. But without the protection of Kennicott's presence she did not go to the Jolly Seventeen; she delivered herself to the judgment of the town only when she went shopping and on the ritualistic occasions of formal afternoon calls, when Mrs. Lyman Cass or Mrs. George Edwin Mott, with clean gloves and minute handkerchiefs and sealskin card-cases and countenances of frozen approbation, sat on the edges of chairs ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... manuscript. When he is wound up he will break out in a cold sepulchral tone with, firstly: "foreordination!" secondly: "predestination!" and thirdly: "the final perseverance of the saints!" And he will be recognized as a Presbyterian preacher, a little blue and frigid, a little dry and formal, but one of God's own elect, and he will ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... paler than ever, although she was now quite recovered from her illness. Sadly smiling, she approached and greeted Dona Victorina with a formal kiss. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... later the family received a formal intimation of Camille's deed and state from the Minister of War, and on the following day all the journals were praising Captain Sauvallier, son of the respected founder, of Grenelle. And now they gave details. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... both of Great Britain and of Ireland. This course, it may be said, is unconstitutional. This word has no terrors for me; it means no more than unusual, and the institution of a Referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine which lies at the basis of English democracy—that a law depends at bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by the electors. At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... considerable part of those allowances, amounting to 8,220l. 10s. per annum, ought to devolve to himself, as commander-in-chief of the Company's forces in India, and, stating that the said Giles Stibbert could no longer be considered as commander-in-chief under the Presidency of Fort William, made a formal demand of the same. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of reducing the allowances of the said Giles Stibbert to the establishment at which they stood during General Clavering's command, and for the continuance of which after Sir Eyre Coote's arrival there could be no ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... entry upon land or a conversion of chattels, has been unattended by damage to the property, and the thing has come back to the hands of the true owner. The sum recovered is merely nominal, and the payment is nothing more than a formal acknowledgment of the owner's title; which, considering the effect of prescription and statutes of limitation upon repeated acts of dominion, is no more than right. /1/ All semblance of injustice disappears when the defendant is allowed to avoid the ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... already denied by implication. These, therefore, are not really cases of inference; and yet the trivial examples by which, in manuals of Logic, the rules of the syllogism are illustrated, are often of this ill-chosen kind; formal demonstrations of conclusions to which whoever understands the terms used in the statement of the data, has already, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... are requested to bring credentials of their appointment from the chairman and secretary of the meeting at which they were appointed, but in counties where no formal meeting is held, Delegates are requested to procure a certificate from some respectable person, either white or colored, a well known resident of the county from whence he or they may come. All Delegates complying ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... had been no atomic bombs to bring together most of the directing intelligence of the world to that hasty conference at Brissago, there would still have been, extended over great areas and a considerable space of time perhaps, a less formal conference of responsible and understanding people upon the perplexities of this world-wide opposition. If the work of Holsten had been spread over centuries and imparted to the world by imperceptible degrees, it would nevertheless have made ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... the matter fully to him. On hearing the cause of the difficulty, Ismail at once said: "I will give Gordon the Soudan," and two days later he saw and told General Gordon the same thing, which found formal expression in the following letter, written on 17th February 1877, the day ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... with a cross between, a crown surmounting every letter. Thus, with the emblems of their power, and accompanied by Rodrigo de Escoveda and Rodrigo Sanchez and some seamen, the boat rowed to the shore. They immediately took formal possession of the land, and the notary ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... her mistress, to brush her hair and to help her dress. She was also to answer the bell, wait on the table if need be, and do any other errand which her mistress might indicate. Mrs. Bracebridge seemed a little hard and formal to her prospective servant, but for all that Jennie admired the dash and go and the obvious executive capacity ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... whose acquaintance I had not yet made—about his mother, his aunt, and his sister, as also about her whom Woloda and Dubkoff believed to be his "flame," and always spoke of as "the lady with the chestnut locks." Of his mother he spoke with a certain cold and formal commendation, as though to forestall any further mention of her; his aunt he extolled enthusiastically, though with a touch of condescension in his tone; his sister he scarcely mentioned at all, as though averse to doing so in my presence; but on the subject of "the lady with the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... aside her visible annoyance to remove his doubts. "I am quite serious, monsieur. There came a formal letter to my uncle this morning from M. de La Tour d'Azyr, announcing the visit and its object. I will not say that it did ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... dining out to-night," returned Nan, trying to put a good face on it, but feeling as though things were too much for her this evening. It was bad enough for Mr. Mayne to insist on them all coming up to a long formal dinner, and spoiling their chances of a twilight stroll; but it was still worse for her mother to abandon ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. So the lad was looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages of an elaborately-illustrated edition of "Manon Lescaut" that he had found in one of the bookcases. The formal monotonous ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him. Once or twice he thought of ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... necessarily bears on relations. But this entirely formal knowledge of intelligence has an immense advantage over the material knowledge of instinct. A form, just because it is empty, may be filled at will with any number of things in turn, even with those that are of no use. So that a formal knowledge is not limited to what is practically useful, although it is in view of practical utility that it has made its appearance in the world. An intelligent being bears within himself the means ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... him entirely into English, a task of unusual difficulty. I regret to find that Mr. Payne and I are not always at one as to the author's meaning; in such cases I am bound to suppose that he is in the right, although the weakness of the flesh withholds me from anything beyond a formal submission. He is now upon a larger venture, promising us at last that complete Arabian Nights to which we have all ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Greek drama there were no formal divisions into scenes and acts; there were no means, therefore, of allowing for the necessary lapse of time between one part of the dialogue and another, and unity of time in a strict sense was, of ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... the background provided for the play called for a girl to stand behind each tree in the formal garden scene as support. In her admiration of Betty, Bobby had unconsciously edged after her to keep her in sight, and the startled audience saw the heroine being persistently pursued by a pretty boxwood tree. Bobby was recalled to herself, the tree became rooted in its place, ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... manner. Many a graceful act is spoiled by a graceless touch, as a generous deed can be ruined by a grudging manner. An air of condescension will destroy the value of the finest charity. There is a forgiveness which is no forgiveness—formal, constrained, from the teeth and lips outward. It does not come as the warm breath which has had contact with the blood of the heart. The highest forgiveness is so full and free, that it is forgetfulness. It is complete ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... made, think well before deciding where they shall be. Some persons prefer a straight path from the street to the house. This saves steps, but it gives the place a prim and formal look that is never pleasing. It divides the yard into two sections of equal importance, where it is advisable to have but one if we would make the most of things. In other words, it halves things, thus weakening the ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... to God—on occasions. We do it with the pious gesture and the sonorous phrase. Then we forget it. The habit of material trust is too strong for us. Kings, queens, presidents, princes, prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause; but there is always what we flippantly know as a "joker" in the lip-recitation. "Kingdom, power, and glory," we can hear ourselves saying in a heart-aside, "lie in money, guns, commerce, and ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... which may be extended to not more than six, each one shall present his testimony. After the testimony of every twelve witnesses is taken, the report shall be sent, folded and sealed, without other publication or formal conclusion of the preliminary proceedings, to our council, that it may decree justice. And our auditors, before they send the record, shall cause the parties to be cited to come and appear before ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... thousand men from Zealand to Ghent, at whose approach the Spaniards, who had valorously defended themselves for two months under the conduct of the wife of their absent general, Mondragon, surrendered and evacuated the citadel. The proposed alliance was now converted into a formal union, by the treaty called the Pacification of Ghent, signed November 8, 1576, by which it was agreed, without waiting for the sanction of Philip, whose authority, however, was nominally recognized, to renew ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... alderman of the parchous of the said town; and the Sieur de Bierbecque, and Jehan Pinnock, and Jehan Dymaerzelle, etc., etc., etc.; bailiffs, aldermen, burgomasters; burgomasters, aldermen, bailiffs—all stiff, affectedly grave, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask, hooded with caps of black velvet, with great tufts of Cyprus gold thread; good Flemish heads, after all, severe and worthy faces, of the family which Rembrandt makes to stand out so strong and grave from the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. "I have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive," [7] and they are for the Townsend (query, might not Falstaff mean the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... style is frequent in acts of this nature, and is that only which is suited to the occasion. An insidious use has been made of the words enact and declare, as if they were formal and operative words of force to distinguish different species of laws producing different effects. Nothing is more groundless; and I am persuaded no lawyer will stand to such an assertion. The gentlemen who say that a bill ought to have been brought ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... anxiety of so apparently powerful a king as Henry for the formal consent of the Commons to his acts. It has been represented as part of the Tudor national policy and what not, but those who write thus have not perhaps smiled, as has the present writer, over the names of those who sat for the English ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... believe?" began the bank employee with that suave, formal air which usually precedes a ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton

... totally lacks the goodness and sincerity and honesty that lead to self-examinations. The hypocrite does not love the house of God. He does not breathe freely in an atmosphere of prayer. His highest ambition is to make a fair show in the flesh, to secure some personal aggrandizement through his formal professions. ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... no hurry for a few days. Always time enough to vanish. And, with that, a touch of masculine softness, a sort of regard for appearances surviving his degradation: "You might behave decently at the last, Eliza." But there was no softness in the sallow face under the gala effect of powdered hair, its formal calmness gone, the dark-ringed eyes glaring at him with a sort of hunger. "No! No! If it is as you say then not a day, not an hour, not a moment." She stuck to it, very determined that there should be no more of that boy and girl philandering since the object of it ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... He was not at his ease, and oddly enough, the false position suited him. There could not be anything but extreme coolness and stiffness in the greeting between him and his host. Herve de Sainfoy had refused the man his daughter, and heartily despised him for accepting the formal invitation to this ball. Ratoneau knew that he was going to be forced as a son-in-law on this coldly courteous gentleman, but let no sign of his coming triumph escape him. Not, at least, to Helene's father; her mother was a different story. As the General drew ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... those who locate its formal principle in the serious or witty idea that forms the conclusion, and so insist on this that they deny anything is an epigram that lacks such a conclusion.[36] But this is an error. There are some epigrams, and highly cultivated ones, ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole

... one of those tricks of deliberate drama by which Nature sometimes shames stage managers—the late afternoon sun came out just after we crossed the frontier, and shone on us; and on the dapper young officers driving out in carriages; and on the peaceful German country places with their formal gardens; and on a crate of fat white German pigs riding to market to be made up into sausages for the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... day he had risen with some formality to usher a formal caller to the-door, when, to his slight amazement and my secret delight, his chair—an easy-chair of good proportions—deliberately jumped up and hopped after him across the room. From this period the mystery "manifested" itself to his heart's content. Not only did the rocking-chairs, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... much about pyramids as he thought he did, and he was ready to quit, but the guide and some of the tourists said we were right near the entrance to the great tomb of the kings, and that we better go in and at least make a formal call on the crowned heads, and so we went in, through dark passages, with little candles that the guides carried, and up and down stairs, until finally we got into a big room that smelled like a morgue, with bats and evil looking things all around, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... intended that all Mr. Leask's accounts should be paid at the same time that the men got their money handed over in presence of the superintendent?-There was no formal proposal ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... mill-gear, would harden his will and say to himself, "It is best so. The lad is all but a beggar, and full of idle, dreaming fooleries. Who knows what mischief might not come of it in the future?" So he was wise in his generation, and would not have the door unbarred, except upon rare and formal occasions, which seemed to have neither warmth nor mirth in them to the two children, who had been accustomed so long to a daily gleeful, careless, happy interchange of greeting, speech, and pastime, with no other watcher of their sports or auditor of their fancies ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... Himself as it is attested to us in the Gospels. But when we have taken this reality for all that it is worth, the idealism just described is shaken to the foundation. What seemed to us so profound a truth—the essential unity of the human and the divine—may come to seem a formal and delusive platitude; in what we once regarded as the formula of the perfect religion—the divinity of man and the humanity of God—we may find quite as truly the formula of the first, not to say the final, sin. To see Christ not in the light of this speculative ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney

... church. And we can hardly read a few sentences on any political subject without running a chance of crossing the phrase "paternal government," though we should be utterly horror-struck at the idea of governments claiming anything like a father's authority over us. Now, I believe those two formal phrases are in both instances perfectly binding and accurate, and that the image of the farm and its servants which I have hitherto used, as expressing a wholesome national organization, fails only of doing so, not because it is too domestic, but ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... injured person to deny the authenticity of this act in any public manner. The real state of the case was, however, made known to many through the private representations of Kosciusko; but he was never able to publish a formal denial of the transaction till after ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked amongst the Gods, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulgar. For during the first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising always about eleven o'clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Caesar, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... (35) Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba (excluded from formal participation since 1962), Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... that Nuno de Cuna arrived at Ormuz in May 1529, into which he made a formal and pompous entry, to the great admiration of the natives. He immediately issued a proclamation at that place and its dependencies, "That all who had cause of complaint against the Portuguese should appear before him for redress." Many complainers accordingly came forwards, and the offenders ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... about employment and pursuits; everybody is a gentleman at large, for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleasant and unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must occasionally succumb elsewhere. As to the ladies (God bless them), they are quite above any formal absurdities; the mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society—for of course they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted into that close fellowship with them, which acting engenders. They place ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... Arkansas on August 1 and Mrs. Cotnam was elected by the State Board to take charge of affairs. On November 28 she was elected chairman of the State Suffrage Central Committee upon the receipt of Mrs. Ellington's formal resignation. Mrs. Cotnam appeared before the State Farmers' Union in August and secured a unanimous endorsement of woman suffrage and in September at the meeting of its executive committee she secured ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... disappeared like shadows. As we reached the steep and difficult Pass on the Hamshan and were preparing to spend the night there, suddenly far up on a ridge above us appeared about forty horsemen with entirely white mounts and without formal introduction or warning spattered us with a hail of bullets. Two of our officers fell with a cry. One had been instantly killed while the other lived some few minutes. I did not allow my men to shoot but instead I raised a white flag and started forward with the Kalmuck ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... Dunstone. She had gone home weary and sick of her lodging and convalescence, and hoping to find relief in the home that had once been all-sufficient for her, but Dunstone was not changed, and she was. She had not been able to help outgrowing its narrow opinions and formal precisions; and when she came home, crushed with her scarcely realized grief, nothing there had ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... strongly the spirit of the French Assembly: I mean the reception they have given to the Frith Street Alliance. This, though the delirium of a low, drunken alehouse club, they have publicly announced as a formal alliance with the people of England, as such ordered it to be presented to their king, and to be published in every province in France. This leads, more directly and with much greater force than any proceeding with a regular and rational appearance, to two very material considerations. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... official wording of the document do not succeed in stifling the vividness and colour of this crowded scene. Through the piety of the formal cries, it is easy to see that Augustin's hearers were hard to manage. This flock, which he loved and scolded so much, was no easier to lead now than when he first became bishop. Truly it was no sinecure to ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... native place or river-head of three separate societies still existing, University, Oriel, and Brasenose. Brasenose claims his palace, Oriel his church, and University his school or academy. Of these, Brasenose College is still called in its formal style ' the King's Hall,' which is the name by which Alfred himself, in his laws, calls his palace; and it has its present singular name from a corruption of brasinium, or brasin-huse, as having been originally located in that part of the royal mansion which ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... side, and gently lifted it up. Such a delicate hand, Mrs Caffyn thought. She was proud that she had for a friend the owner of such a hand, who behaved to her as an equal. It was delightful to be kissed—no mere formal salutations—by a lady fit to go into the finest drawing-room in London, but it was a greater delight that Madge's talk suited her better than any she had heard at Great Oakhurst. It was natural she should rejoice when she discovered, ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... he continued, with his charming smile and a manner as free from perplexity as if he was announcing a formal visit to his grandmother. "I have just decided to go to Paris at once. The train leaves Victoria at 8.15. Lord Fairholme will take you home, and you will both, I am sure, be able to convince Sir Hubert that to yield too greatly to anxiety just ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... alone that night. As we sat in the library after our somewhat formal, perfunctory dinner, I ventured to ask her why she had gone away when I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the French on the other side; and the next morning after the British had gathered in some escaping Germans who seemed to have lost their way, the blue and the khaki met in the main street without indulging in formal ceremonies and exchanged a "Good morning!" and "Bon jour!" and "Here we are! Voyla! Quee pawnsays-vous!" and "Ca va bien! Oh, yais, I tink so!" and found big piles of shells and other munitions which the Germans could not take ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... anxious to know how far she might go in filling her house without offending him, he told her to ask Lady Rosina De Courcy! If he chose to be ridiculous he might. She would ask Lady Rosina De Courcy. In her active anger she did write to Lady Rosina De Courcy a formal letter, in which she said that the Duke hoped to have the pleasure of her ladyship's company at Matching Park on the 1st of August. It was an absurd letter, somewhat long, written very much in the Duke's name, with overwhelming ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... derisively. "Well, he seems to have a friend in you, anyway. I'll investigate a little before I file formal charges." ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... At the first formal meeting of the Club Charlie Leland was chosen President. He was the intellectual leader among the boys, now that the old Class had gone; he was a lad of good principles, bright, generous, and popular. As may be judged from the somewhat discursive dialogue on the piazza, he had a subject well matured ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... that on the occasion of his first visit we children regarded him with mingled awe and curiosity. His quaint appearance and his formal, deliberate manner of speech made him seem to us like a being from another world. We were at once fascinated and repelled, and I think he became at first the object of our constant, though furtive, observation. But his unvarying ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... last of the month we had everything in readiness for departure. We had agreed, however, to pay a formal visit of leave-taking to the village, and Too-wit insisted so pertinaciously upon our keeping the promise that we did not think it advisable to run the risk of offending him by a final refusal. I believe that not one of us had at this time the slightest suspicion of the good ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Now, I suppose I had better write to the old man and say that I have returned, and shall call upon him to-morrow. The chances are ten to one against my catching him in now, and as this is rather a formal sort of business, I had better give him due notice; but I cannot keep Hilda in suspense. I wonder whether she has the same maid as she had before I went away. I have given the girl more than one half-guinea, and to do her justice I believe that she was so attached to her mistress that she ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... Ashton about this time also submitted to a formal dismission; and had the mortification to reflect, that he was bestowing upon the object of his affections, the tenderest proof of his regard, by absenting ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... Gallienus in A.D. 260, the Church was once more restored to peace. Gallienus, though a person of worthless character, was the first Emperor who protected the Christians by a formal edict of toleration. He commanded that they should not only be permitted to profess their religion unmolested, but that they should again be put in possession of their cemeteries [303:1] and of all other property, either in houses or lands, of which they had been deprived during the reign of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... beyond painting he has put into it with his nightingales! and then what figures besides! A knight on a winged steed descending with a naked beauty into a meadow in the thick of woods, with "here and there a solitary mountain." The mountains make no formal circle; they keep their separate distances, with their various intervals of light and shade. And what a heart of solitude is given to the meadow by the loneliness of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... successfully navigated competing pressures from the major powers (US, USSR, and UK), various Arab states, Israel, and a large internal Palestinian population, through several wars and coup attempts. In 1989 he resumed parliamentary elections and gradually permitted political liberalization; in 1994 a formal peace treaty was signed with Israel. King ABDALLAH II - the eldest son of King HUSSEIN and Princess MUNA - assumed the throne following his father's death in February 1999. Since then, he has consolidated his power and established his ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... Valentinian, except those secret and criminal practices, which abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was more strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal distinction to protect the ancient methods of divination, which were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... population. But I find, on reviewing my residence of five years and a half in the tranquil island, that first impressions melt so imperceptibly into final conclusions, that it appears best not to attempt a too formal separation of them. Before recounting the results of my own experience, however, in any form, it will not be amiss to attempt some general description of the island and of its population, and to give a slight ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... formal moral, obtruding itself in set phrase. The lessons inculcated, elevated in tone, are in the action of the story and the feelings and aspirations of the actors. A young lady, for example, has been on a visit to aid and console a poor peasant-girl, whom, having been in deep affliction, she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... become simply a machinery for authorizing the Students of the various Colleges to add certain letters, such as M. A., or LL. B., after their names; and it would become the interest of all the Colleges in which a really good education was given, that such letters should have a formal significance only; the education itself, testified by the addition of the name of the College, having alone a real market value readily appreciated by the public. Each College of reputation would be careful to have its own name inserted after the ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton

... subjection of their people to the acts of a secret and strange tribunal, no longer supported by imperial power. Alliances of princes, nobles, and citizens were made against the Westphalian courts, and their power finally ceased, without any formal decree ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... the other. But there is this difference, that the relation of woman is, characteristically, that of subordination and dependence. This does not imply inferiority of character, of capacity, of value, in the sight of God or man; and it has been the glory of woman to have accepted the position of formal inferiority assigned her by the Creator, with all its responsibilities, its trials, its possible outward humiliations and sufferings, in the proud consciousness that it is not incompatible with an essential superiority; that it does not prevent ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... in her armchair at the corner of the fireplace. The two grandsons, warned the night before by Adolphine that a storm was gathering about their heads, had been ordered to stay in the house. Summoned now by Gritte, they were alarmed at the formal preparations of their grandparents, whose coldness and anger they had been made to feel in the air for ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... Ternate and a few of his kinsmen, together with the Dutch, escape, the former going to the island of Gilolo. The reduction of the lesser forts continues, and some of the king's relatives who are well affected to the Spanish, offer to induce the king to surrender. This he does after a formal safe-conduct has been given by Acuna. Don Pedro receives him in a manner befitting his rank, and houses him sumptuously, but at the same time keeps him carefully guarded. Several days later a treaty is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... not one scholar's theory, but the formal and repeated proclamation of infallible popes. Here is the "Syllabus of Errors", issued by Pope Pius IX, Dec. 8th, 1864, declaring in ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... always been a kind and affable master, seemed put upon the very tallest stilts of his dignity, when he met his old servant now; and though he congratulated him on his good fortune, never honored him with either a formal or friendly call—while Lady Powerscourt and her daughters, who had often visited the cottage by the Dargle, in times of sickness and trouble, were never seen driving up the avenue of O'Daly Castle,—and as for the young lord, he ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... deep-seated corruption in mind and character. Nevertheless the revulsion against the treaty of Troyes was real and serious, even in the very heart of the party attached to the Duke of Burgundy. He was obliged to lay upon several of his servants formal injunctions to swear to this peace, which seemed to them treason. He had great difficulty in winning John of Luxembourg and his brother Louis, Bishop of Therouenne, over to it. "It is your will," said they; "we will take this oath; but if we do, we will keep it to the hour of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of any church on any Christian is in so far to make it an unchristian church. To go into the South to establish white churches from which, whether by a formal law or by an unwritten but self-enforcing edict, men are excluded because God made them black, is to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Christ: All ye are brethren. It is to introduce into a church already divided by sectarian strifes a new division. It is to rend afresh the seamless robe. ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various

... extent of superstition and of priestly influence over their conduct, which shows how powerfully mere habits and custom may influence our manners without improving our minds, when we are brought up in a formal routine of habits of respect for we don't know well what; for they have no further acquaintance with the principles of religious belief than the habit of crossing themselves before figures of the Virgin and ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... to the very doors of the Mission School, and through the formalities of an absurdly formal introduction to Mrs. Williams, and during the suppertime meal with the little Indian children in the big dining room. Eleanor noticed how Lizzie's lips pursed with contempt at the other children and the little ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... walk out Market street takes you to the Civic Center, with the City Hall, Library, Auditorium and State Building grouped about a formal garden. The War Memorial, with its Opera House and American Legion Museum, will face the City Hall on Van ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood

... men, both of whom had sat at the Prince's table in the cafe. They introduced themselves as the Duke of Mizrox and Colonel Attobawn. Their visit was brief, formal ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... the outset looks with disfavor upon anything that has even the appearance of meddling with the commonly received and almost universally approved version of the Holy Scriptures. Let us, in a brief space and with as little of formal and scholastic criticism as possible, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... day Legazpi took formal possession of the island of Cebu and adjacent islands for Spain. The testimony of Hernando Riquel, government notary, of this act appears in Col. doc. ined. Ultramar, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... friend. The one of the wind is masterly, but not new to us. Being only three, perhaps you might have clapt a D. at the corner and let it have past as a printer's mark to the uninitiated, as a delightful hint to the better-instructed. As it is, Expect a formal criticism on the Poems of your female friend, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... more formal historical writings in which the first ineffectual attempts were made in the direction of systematic chronology we have no knowledge at first-hand. Of Hellanicus, the Greek logographer, who appears to have lived through the greater part of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... applied for entrance. She had applied many times previously, without effect. But this time she enforced her application with a nickel's worth of red peppermint drops, bought for the very purpose. The twins accepted the drops gravely, and told Connie she must make formal application. Then they marched solemnly off to the barn with the peppermint drops, without offering Connie a share. This hurt, but she did not long grieve over it, she was so busy wondering what on earth they meant ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... Halfpenny. "Now I believe that object to have been the key of Jacob's safe at the Safe Deposit, which, you remember, could not be found, but which young Selwood affirmed had been in Jacob's possession only that afternoon. The letter I believe to have been a formal authority to the Safe Deposit people to allow the bearer to open that safe. I've thought all that out," concluded Mr. Halfpenny, with a smile of triumph, "thought it out carefully, and it's my impression that that's what we shall find when the police move. I believe ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... my readers understand that the West Highland White Terriers are not White Aberdeens, not a new invention, but have a most respectable ancestry of their own. I add the formal list of points, but this is the work of show bench experts—and it will be seen from what I have written that I do not agree with them on certain particulars. There should be feather to a fair degree on the tail, but if experts ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton



Words linked to "Formal" :   ceremonious, white-tie, starchy, formal garden, official, form-only, formal semantics, evening clothes, ceremonial, cotillion, schematic, logical, prom, full-dress, courtly, promenade, formalwear, positive, cotilion, informal, ball, gown, masquerade ball, dance, dress, dignified, dinner gown, pro forma, evening dress, nonrepresentational, fancy-dress ball, evening gown, literary, nominal



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com