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Ordinary   Listen
noun
Ordinary  n.  (pl. ordinaries)  
1.
(Law)
(a)
(Roman Law) An officer who has original jurisdiction in his own right, and not by deputation.
(b)
(Eng. Law) One who has immediate jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical; an ecclesiastical judge; also, a deputy of the bishop, or a clergyman appointed to perform divine service for condemned criminals and assist in preparing them for death.
(c)
(Am. Law) A judicial officer, having generally the powers of a judge of probate or a surrogate.
2.
The mass; the common run. (Obs.) "I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of nature's salework."
3.
That which is so common, or continued, as to be considered a settled establishment or institution. (R.) "Spain had no other wars save those which were grown into an ordinary."
4.
Anything which is in ordinary or common use. "Water buckets, wagons, cart wheels, plow socks, and other ordinaries."
5.
A dining room or eating house where a meal is prepared for all comers, at a fixed price for the meal, in distinction from one where each dish is separately charged; a table d'hôte; hence, also, the meal furnished at such a dining room. "All the odd words they have picked up in a coffeehouse, or a gaming ordinary, are produced as flowers of style." "He exacted a tribute for licenses to hawkers and peddlers and to ordinaries."
6.
(Her.) A charge or bearing of simple form, one of nine or ten which are in constant use. The bend, chevron, chief, cross, fesse, pale, and saltire are uniformly admitted as ordinaries. Some authorities include bar, bend sinister, pile, and others. See Subordinary.
In ordinary.
(a)
In actual and constant service; statedly attending and serving; as, a physician or chaplain in ordinary. An ambassador in ordinary is one constantly resident at a foreign court.
(b)
(Naut.) Out of commission and laid up; said of a naval vessel.
Ordinary of the Mass (R. C. Ch.), the part of the Mass which is the same every day; called also the canon of the Mass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ordinary" Quotes from Famous Books



... himself very agreeable at dinner, talking upon all sorts of subjects, and never letting drop a single word to remind Adela that she was in the presence of a medical man. Nor did he seem to take any notice of her more than was required by ordinary politeness; but behavior without speciality of any sort, he drew his judgments from her general manner, and such glances as fell naturally to his share, of those that must pass between all the persons making up a small dinner-company. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... the rump, while the tail is tipped with black. Both the male and female have horns, those of the former being remarkable for their enormous size, while those of the latter somewhat resemble the horns of the ordinary goat. The horns of some of the sheep we afterwards killed measured upwards of two feet six inches in length. The head is provided with cartilaginous processes of great strength, and they with the frontal bone form one strong mass of so solid a nature that the animal can, when ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... till. Scropps, the new Lord Mayor, cannot sleep all night for his greatness; the wind down the chimney sounds like the shouts of the people; the cocks crowing in the morn at the back of the house he takes for trumpets sounding his approach; and the ordinary incidental noises in the family he fancies the pop-guns at Stangate announcing his disembarcation at Westminster. Then come his droll mishaps: when he enters the state coach, and throws himself back upon his broad seat, with all imaginable ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long; it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... enemies of the Republic. He did his best to drag down the party with him. His associates, acquitted by the revolutionary tribunal on the plea that their delinquencies were not political, were then sent before the ordinary courts. On the day on which the convention resolved that the butcher of Nantes must stand his trial, they closed the Jacobin Club, and now the reaction was ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... Costituzionale (composed of 15 judges: one-third appointed by the president, one-third elected by Parliament, one-third elected by the ordinary ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... walk. Here, saying, that it was his intention to return to Estuviere on the following day, he asked her if she would permit him to take leave of her in the morning; and Emily, perceiving that she could not reject an ordinary civility, without expressing by her refusal an expectation of something more, was compelled to answer, that she should be ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of vague growing fears. What if it were the end? What if he had chosen this as the most merciful way of leaving her? But surely he would never be so cruel! Close on the heels of this too painful thought came reaction; and she told herself that she was a fool. He was at the House; something quite ordinary was keeping him. It was absurd to be anxious! She would have to get used to this now. To be a drag on him would be dreadful. Sooner than that she would rather—yes—rather he never came back! And she took up her book, determined to read quietly till ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... what she had heard sailor Jack say, that, in spite of the desire to give all her attention to the start of the voyage, destined to be so momentous, she looked first at Jepson and then at the new arrival. The latter appeared to be an ordinary sailor, but there was a commanding air about him, as though he were used to having his own way. But he was sufficiently subservient to Captain Brisco, saluting the commander ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... translates þā by when and connects with the preceding sentences, thus rejecting the ordinary canto-division at l. 711. He objects to the use of cōm as principal vb. at ll. 703, 711, ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... apparent how education alone, in the ordinary meaning of the word, is to solve, in any appreciable time, the problem of the relations of Southern white and black people. The need of education of all kinds for both races is wofully apparent. But men and nations have been free without being learned, and there have been educated slaves. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... professors of the truth, and know the truth in the convincing power of it, and have had a sober conversation among men; yet content yourselves only to know truth for yourselves, to go to meetings, and exercise an ordinary charity in the church, and an honest behaviour in the world, and limit yourselves within those bounds; feeling little or no concern upon your spirits, for the glory of the Lord in the prosperity of his truth in the earth, more than to be glad ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn

... verbally, and even to refer to the matter in a private letter to myself, he never would write about it to anyone in France. Dalou was afterwards selected to make the official statues of the Republic, and may be said to have become, after the general amnesty, Sculptor-in-Ordinary ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... could not advance so rapidly as on the plain. We had thus also an advantage, of which we were determined to make the best use: inured to long tramps across the Desert, with but little flesh on our bones, and our muscles well strung, we could run as fast as any ordinary camels over the hard ground. We were in good wind, too, and had no fear of getting tired; instead, therefore, of stopping at the first place Selim had discovered, we pushed on for the ruined temple he had discovered in the wood. ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... brought,—even whiskey, considered indispensable in those days, being barred out. All sick and disabled men were sent home, and the non-combatants weeded out so thoroughly that only one man was left in camp who could beat the ordinary calls on the drum. At length, about the middle of March, a sufficient supply of food was at hand ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... ordinary life was one neither of seclusion nor of widely extended social courtesies; but of active benevolence and cheerful retirement, disfigured neither by ostentatious philanthropy nor studied recluseness. A son and daughter who had hardly passed the confines of juvenility, with the necessary ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... grandparents and all your friends, don't take unnecessary chances. I can see your face as you read that and think that I am a silly idiot. I'm not and I mean what I say. You see I know YOU and I know you will not be content to do the ordinary thing. We want you to distinguish yourself, but also we want you to come back whole and sound, if it is possible. We shall think of you a great deal. And please, in the midst of the excitement of the BIG work ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... later, Huygens wrote a book, called "Cosmotheoros," in maintenance of the same thesis. The more this doctrine obtained root and life in the convictions of men, the more strongly its irreconcilableness with the ordinary theology must have made itself felt by fearless and competent thinkers. Could a quadrillion firmaments loaded with stars, each inhabited by its own race of free intelligences, all be burned up and destroyed in the Day of Judgment ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... time, nothing happened. Then the viewplate was filled with a deadly blue-white glare. Unlike an ordinary atomic bomb, the flare bomb would not explode violently; it simply burned, sending out a brilliant flare of deadly radiation that would crisp all life dozens of feet ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance

... on a particular category returned week after week on their build-up to a grand prize, which was a quarter of a million dollars. This quiz, however, had elements that the younger Brants liked. In the first place, the contestants were ordinary people. The producer didn't seem to go in for odd characters as ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... term began. He was likely to be shy, ill-at-ease and homesick, among so many strange faces and unfamiliar ways. Moreover, Mr. Pollard wished to become better acquainted with the boy than would be easily possible once the term was in full swing. For he was something more of an experiment than the ordinary Indian princeling from a State well under the thumb of the Viceroy and the Indian Council. This boy came of the fighting stock in the north. To leave him tramping about a strange drawing-room alone for over an hour was not the best possible introduction to English ways ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... of a hard heart and a shriveled soul to stand in awe of her any longer, a few kind and ordinary remarks ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright

... "we have not the necessary stage equipment for a metropolitan production. The only thing we have, for that matter, is the name. That is enough for us, and we are going to do the best we can with it. Ordinary actors, together with all the necessary equipment of props and scenery, might be able to attempt a presentation of the famous pantomime, but it takes your strolling players, bred and brought up in the old stock school, to turn the trick ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville

... face, and the horror painted on his countenance, plainly show the dreadful situation of his mind; which we must imagine to be agitated with shame, remorse, confusion, and terror. The careless position of the Ordinary at the coach window is intended to show how inattentive those appointed to that office are of their duty, leaving it to others, which is excellently expressed by the itinerant preacher in the cart, instructing from a book of Wesley's. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... Angelique tranquilly replied: "But why not?" It would be a real scandal, a marriage beyond all ordinary conditions of happiness. Did she hope, then, to contend against all the world? "But why not?" Monseigneur is called very strict and very haughty, proud of his name, and severe in his criticisms in regard to all marks of affection. Could she dare to ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... train, and there begins a weary wait for the poor fellows till more wounded arrive and the train is loaded up, and sometimes they are kept there all day. The stretcher cases are in a long corridor, and the sitting-up cases in ordinary third-class carriages. The sitters are worn, limping men, with bandaged heads, and hands bound up, who are yet capable of sitting up ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... appreciate its character as a science, unless he shall devote himself, with some labor and assiduity, to this study of its system. That skill which consists in repeating, with fluency and precision, the ordinary lectures, in complying with all the ceremonial requisitions of the ritual, or the giving, with sufficient accuracy, the appointed modes of recognition, pertains only to the very rudiments of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... of finer observation would have discovered the signs of no ordinary anxiety and alarm, struggling to show themselves openly in the poor woman's face. Her husband only saw a change that puzzled him. "Send for Emma," he said, his natural cunning inspiring him with the idea of confronting the mother and daughter, and of seeing what came of that. Emma appeared, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... few critical weeks. Years of hope, endeavour, determination, and emotional experience, I had crowded into my last days in Dorking. And through it all I had been upheld and exalted by a pervasive conviction (which I apprehend is not part of the ordinary lover's capital) that now, at length, I was to know peace, rest, content; the calm, glad realisation of all the vague yearnings and strivings which had spurred me to strenuousness, to unceasing ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... the ominous hush of the elements that precedes the tempest. Within the last few days the mining community has been startled by the discovery of the notorious gang of bush-rangers, Starlight and the Marstons, domiciled in the very heart of the diggings, attired as ordinary miners, and—for their own purposes possibly—leading the laborious lives proper to the avocation. They have been fairly successful, and as miners, it is said, have shown themselves to be manly and fair-dealing men. We are not among those who care to judge their fellow-men ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... very well, my child," replied her father, "if your plan were not liable to be frustrated by ordinary cunning; but no doubt this image has been already missed by its owner, and he will have set it down for certain that it was taken out of the room by the person he locked up there. To give him notice ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... aged earl marshal the position for which his nomination as justiciar at Gloucester had already marked him out. The title of regent was as yet unknown, either in England or France, but the style, "ruler of king and kingdom," which the barons gave to the marshal, meant something more than the ordinary position of a justiciar. William's friends had some difficulty in persuading him to accept the office. He was over seventy years of age, and felt it would be too great a burden. Induced at last by the legate to undertake the charge, from that moment he shrank from none of its responsibilities. The ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... who are stenographers, the majority are of two kinds: (1) those who use stenography incidentally with their other and more important work as clerks, and (2) those for whom stenography is but a stepping-stone to another kind of position. The only firms which make a practice of offering ordinary stenographic positions for boys are those which restrict themselves to male employees for every ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz

... ordinary frocks to-day, nursie; it would be a dreadful come down. Why! you have taken off your "silken gown," and it's ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... of Donne is true, with modifications, of all the metaphysical poets. They had the same forced and unnatural style. The ordinary laws of the association of ideas were reversed with them. It was not the nearest, but the remotest, association that was called up. "Their attempts," said Johnson, "were always analytic: they broke every image into fragments." The finest spirit among them was "holy George Herbert," whose ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... Saturday afternoon, and, as usual, the cadets of the military academy were making the most of their off time, some with bobsleds and other with ordinary handsleds and what were locally called ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)

... to that, for it was true. "Nevertheless," said I, after a pause, "there may be spirits among the Turks who could render that, which is only a few days' journey in ordinary circumstances, a six months' business to ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... make amends to his painter-in-ordinary, hung up the nymphs of the preceding sign in his bedroom, which made Madame Cropole blush every time she looked at it, when she ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... eighty and odd—if I haven't found Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not already decided, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help! Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling, beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in the street—a ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... Grant Palmer was well aware, but he felt that he was in danger of losing the entire proceeds of his skilful burglary, and to this he could not make up his mind. Besides the danger was not very great. Why should any one suppose that an ordinary valise contained stolen property? There was nothing remarkable about the appearance of his hand-bag. Hundreds of them are carried every day. If it were opened by a dishonest person, of course it would be doubtful if he ever got it back, but the clerk at the Clifton had said that ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... of the ordinary run of Shetland fishermen just now?-I am speaking of the Scalloway men. I understand that in some of the islands, such as Burra, there are a class of very good men; but here there are no men staying ashore, except young boys and old men. All the ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... formal or informal, is very much like the ordinary dinner. The same holds true of the luncheon or supper party. The menu may be identical, if he pleases; but often an elaborate Chinese, French or Italian menu is decided upon ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... very dissimilarity that provoked their squabbles saving them from any more serious rivalry. In reality, no two people could be less alike: Kearney being a slow, plodding, self-satisfied, dull man, of very ordinary faculties; while the other was an indolent, discursive, sharp-witted fellow, mastering whatever he addressed himself to with ease, but so enamoured of novelty that he rarely went beyond a smattering of anything. He carried away college ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... watching Tilloughby and watched Hollis. Curly-head was an accomplished rider, and Sam felt that he himself cut but an awkward figure. In reality he was too conscious of his defects. By strict attention he was proving himself a fair ordinary rider, but when Hollis, out of sheer showiness, turned aside from the path to jump his horse over a fallen tree, and Miss Stevens out of bravado followed him, Sam Turner well-nigh ground his teeth, and, acting ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... infirmities, acted upon by unfavourable conditions, developed his craving for applause and his fear of censure, till certain morbid tendencies in him assumed proportions which, compared to the same weaknesses in ordinary mankind, are as the growth of plants in a tropical forest to their stunted representatives ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... reaches its extreme in the frequent use of abstract and often absurdly pretentious expressions in place of the ordinary ones which to these poets appeared too simple or vulgar. With them a field is generally a 'verdant mead'; a lock of hair becomes 'The long-contended honours of her head'; and a boot 'The shining leather that ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... indicate any particular disease, yet it is often such a prominent symptom that a few words may not be out of place. General, irregular muscular contractions of various parts of the body, with unconsciousness, characterize what we regard as convulsions, and like ordinary spasms are dependent upon some disease or irritation of the nervous structures, chiefly of the brain. No treatment is required; in fact, a general convulsion must necessarily be self-limited in its duration. Suspending, as it does, respiratory movements, checking the oxygenation and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... suggested we come up here," she said. "He knows I do that often when the responsibilities of being queen of a world—I'm such an ordinary and untalented person—become too much for me. I always feel better when I sit up here and look down on ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin

... understood that "we have not been in a controversy about the right of a People to govern themselves in the ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories;" that, "in this controversy, whatever has been said has had reference to the question of Negro Slavery;" and "hence," said he, "when hereafter I speak of Popular Sovereignty, I wish to be understood as applying what I say to the ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... those few members of the highest nobility who held the title of Peers of France. With these came the legal hierarchy of First President, presidents a mortier and counselors, numbering about two hundred. The members were distributed, for the purposes of ordinary business, among several courts, the Great Chamber, five courts of Inquest, two courts of Petitions, etc.[Footnote: Grand' Chambre, Cour des Enquetes, Cour des Requetes.] The Parliament of Paris possessed original and appellate jurisdiction over a large part of central France,—too ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... Hal's vehemence, the Harrigan manner was failing; the Coal King's son was becoming a bewildered and quite ordinary youth. But there was a power greater than Hal behind him. He shook his head. "It's the old man's business, Hal. I've no ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... little mother, he married, and had no reason to repent his choice. Ultimately, having improved in his education, he passed as a boatswain, in which capacity he served for many years, till he was laid up, like many another noble tar, in ordinary; but to the end of his days he maintained the same cheerful and hopeful disposition which had carried him through so many trials in his youth—a disposition which was happily ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston

... process, the immediate effect of such a pecuniary struggle as has just been described in outline would be to make men industrious and frugal. This result actually follows, in some measure, so far as regards the lower classes, whose ordinary means of acquiring goods is productive labour. This is more especially true of the labouring classes in a sedentary community which is at an agricultural stage of industry, in which there is a considerable ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... of the English bugle-calls, now artfully used to create confusion. The silence and steadiness of the men were most admirable, and the manoeuvring of regiments that followed, in taking up position for the remaining hour of darkness, was as steady as on an ordinary parade; and this during a midnight attack, with an enemy's fire flashing in every direction, and cavalry surrounding, ready to take advantage of the slightest momentary confusion. At length, having been roughly handled by the 78th, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... believing that at such an age he wrote the Epistle to the Philippians, or that another apostolic Father would then have addressed him in the style employed in the Ignatian correspondence, must be plain to every reader of ordinary intelligence. No wonder that the advocates of the genuineness of these Epistles have called into requisition such an enormous amount of ingenuity and erudition to pervert the chronology. Pearson, as we have seen, spent six years in this service; and the learned Bishop of Durham has ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... IN OUR REMEDIAL RESOURCES. It should be borne in mind that, while we recommend, in this little volume, certain courses of treatment for ordinary cases, the remedies mentioned do not by any means embrace all our resources in the way of medicines and other curative agencies, especially for complicated, difficult, or very obstinate cases. In many ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... believe generally given to the chief or elder of the tribe, and thus was applied by the natives to me, as chief of the party. The boocolo of the Cawndilla tribe was an old man with grey hairs and rather sharp features, below the ordinary stature, but well made and active. Of all the race with whom I have communicated, his manners were the most pleasing. There was a polish in them, a freedom and grace that would have befitted a drawing-room. It was his ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... himself addressing them with that frank familiarity which comes to the journalist, in minor communities, from the habit of print. He began by confessing to them the defeat of certain expectations with which he had returned to Florence, and told them that they must not look for anything like the ordinary letters of travel from him. But he was not so singular in his attitude toward the place as he supposed; for any tourist who comes to Florence with the old-fashioned expectation of impressions will probably suffer a disappointment, unless he arrives very young and for the first time. ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... were appointed for him seventeen thousand, nine hundred, and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and Brehemond, to furnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible to find a nurse sufficient for him in all the country, considering the great quantity of milk that was requisite for his nourishment; although there were not wanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who affirmed that his own mother gave him suck, and that she could ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... all-comprehending love and pity in the farthest heaven, that almost agony of prayer—now whispered, now a groan, now a struggling silence—wherewith she besought the Divine assistance through the day! Evidently, this is to be a day of more than ordinary trial to Miss Hepzibah, who, for above a quarter of a century gone by, has dwelt in strict seclusion, taking no part in the business of life, and just as little in its intercourse and pleasures. Not with such fervor prays the torpid recluse, looking ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... deal with the Free Public Libraries, several ethical questions arise, which do not occur in respect to other libraries. One of the most pressing of these questions refers to the amount of Fiction read by the ordinary frequenters of ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... set on seeing the hidden arms, and seemed so scornful of my ill-concealed terror of the place, I should have turned tail twenty times before I reached our destination. Yet in ordinary I was no coward. I would cross the lough single-handed in any weather; I would crack skulls with any boy in the countryside; I would ride any of his honour's horses barebacked. But I shook in my shoes at the thought of a ghost, and the cold sweat ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... for some miles before you reach the entrance of the Niagara river assumes a yellowish-green tint, quite different from the ordinary deep blue of its waters. This is probably owing to the vast quantity of soil washed down by the rapids ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... afforded by Perdita's absence, she preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take her within view of the gate at which her father had entered Constantinople. She promised to commit no extravagance, to be docile, and immediately to return. I could not refuse; for Clara was not an ordinary child; her sensibility and intelligence seemed already to have endowed her with the rights of womanhood. With her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by the servant who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the Top Kapou. We found a party of soldiers gathered ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... forty-four goldsmiths' and jewellers' shops. The houses of the rich were furnished with elegance, and decorated with beautiful works of art. There was a great contrast between the simplicity of ordinary domestic life, especially as regards provisions for the table, and the splendor displayed on public occasions, or when guests were to be hospitably entertained. The effect of literary culture was seen ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... must and would—a much fuller history of his engagement. And of those conversations in the garden, too. It stung her to recollect that, after all, he had given her no account of them. She had been sure they had not been ordinary conversations!—Mrs. Fairmile was not the person to ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... strange-looking instrument of torture called the boot. In regard to these machines there is a passage in the Privy Council Records which gives an idea of the spirit of the age about which we write. It runs thus: "Whereas the boots were the ordinary way to explicate matters relating to the Government, and there is now a new invention and engine called the Thumbkins, which will be very effectual to the purpose aforesaid, the Lords ordain that when any person shall by their order be put to ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... is one of the favorites of Heaven, in a great measure exalted above mortal commiseration, even if his days are clouded with cares and sorrows. He lives in a different and purer atmosphere than ordinary men. He may not banquet on the pleasures of sense, but he revels in the joys of the soul. A Dante may be sad and sorrowful, as when, in his gloomy wanderings and isolations, he asked of Fra Ilario the rest and peace of his sacred monastery; but he was sad as a ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... Rodd eagerly; "but I am afraid uncle won't let us have much time for ordinary fishing. He will be more ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... more rare, and hence more valuable, than the bulk of the edition. Thus, copies with "proofs before letters" of the steel engravings or etchings, sometimes command more than double the price of copies having only the ordinary plates. Each added impression deteriorates a little the sharp, clear outlines and brilliant impressions which are peculiar to the first ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... Under ordinary conditions Mary would have been in the avenue, lying in wait for her lover, eager to get the very first glimpse of him when he arrived, to see him before he had brushed the dust of the journey from his raiment. But to-day she hung back. She stayed in her grandmother's ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... was to arouse the people. If some ordinary means had been used, people would have heard and forgotten, but the "strange act" demanded an explanation and the people wanted that, and they never will stop talking about this until the question is settled. Let us consider the character ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... the conversion of iron into steel—"What! You would have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it will come forth a horse." And Indian Steel again seems to have been regarded as a distinct natural species from ordinary steel. It is in fact made by a peculiar but simple process, by which the iron is converted directly into cast-steel, without passing through any intermediate stage analogous to that of blister-steel. When specimens were first examined in England, chemists concluded that the steel was made ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... look like coral at all," said Tom Strachan. "If I had not been told I should have thought they were the ordinary sun-dried brick affairs whitewashed." ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... a rock which formed the highest part of the headland. Even under ordinary circumstances she would have watched the two vessels with much interest, but the intensity of her feelings may be supposed, as she thought of one who was on board the British ship; for although the gallant lieutenant had not yet spoken, she fully believed that he had given her his heart, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... the cooking outfit and supplies, was not forgotten. Drawn by a team of four mules, the party seldom allowed it to get far away from them, and never, under ordinary circumstances, out of their sight. The driver walked beside the mules, while the grinning face of Pong was always to be seen in the front end of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin

... bankrupt; his debts amount to above 40,000, and it is said his creditors will not get above three shillings in the pound. All the world allows him to have been diligent and industrious; but his misfortunes are ascribed to the extravagance of his wife, a very ordinary case in this city.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 64. He must soon have recovered his position, for Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 434) met Millar at Harrogate in 1763. In the inn were several baronets, and great squires, members of parliament, who paid Millar civility for the use of his two ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... rocky promontory, shrouded by green trees, facing the N.W. side of the lake. Mahaya received me with great courtesy, arranged a hut comfortably, and presented a number of eggs and fresh milk, as he had heard that I was partial to such fare. He is a man of more than ordinary stature, a giant in miniature, with massive and muscular but well-proportioned limbs: he must number fifty years or more. His dress was the ordinary barsati; his arms were set off by heavy brass and copper ornaments encircling ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... its steadiness. There was not a sign of tears in her shining eyes. She followed him to the door as though his going were an ordinary incident in their day's routine, and stood there, while he passed out, the very embodiment of that stoicism for which her race ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... consenting to, the results and consequences. But there is still another sound principle according to which every man is accountable, at least indirectly, for the evil consequences of his actions, even though they be unforeseen and involuntary, in the measure of the want of ordinary human prudence shown in his conduct. A man with a loaded revolver in his hand may not have any design on the lives of his neighbors; but if he blazes away right and left, and happens to fill this or that one with lead, he is guilty, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... had a complete control; if, indeed, his entire insensibility to violent language on the part of an opponent was not organic. All acknowledged his courtesy, and both sides sympathised with a young man who proved himself equal to no ordinary difficulties. In a word, Endymion was popular, and that popularity was not diminished by the fact of his being the brother of Lady Roehampton, who exercised great influence in society, and who was ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... those turbines that have been spoken of lately, which, fitted into a submerged tube, are destined to replace the ordinary screw, it being claimed that they utilize the resistance of the water better than the latter and give increased speed ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... many of the soups afterwards mentioned, and this will be found quite strong enough for ordinary purposes. Keep it in small jars, in a cool place. It makes a good gravy for hash meats; one tablespoonful of it is sufficient to impart a fine flavor to a dish of macaroni and various other dishes. Good soups of various kinds are made from it at short notice; ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... forcibly brought home to Miss Bird's consciousness. The Peak towered above her, two thousand feet of solid rock, with smooth granite sides, affording scarcely a foothold, and patches of re-frozen snow, presenting no ordinary obstacle to the advance. She was by no means an expert mountaineer, having "neither head nor ankles," and, in reality, she was dragged or hauled up the ascent by the patience, skill, and strength of "Mountain Jim." Up a deep ravine they attained ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... disobeying her. But even then (unless accompanied with a detail of extraordinary circumstances), if transferred to her monument, it would have been misplaced, as being too peculiar, and for reasons which have been before alleged, namely, as too transitory and poignant. But in an ordinary case, for a man permanently and conspicuously to record that this was his fixed feeling; what is it but to run counter to the course of nature, which has made it matter of expectation and congratulation that parents should die before ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... replied; but the way in which he went about the task showed that for him, at least, a gift monkey from the Conjure man of Siargao was no ordinary animal. The monkey, after gravely inspecting the hand which Filipe respectfully extended to him, condescended to step from the footboard of the bed upon it, and be ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... even Burgos itself—could vie with the church at Montmartre. Its race-course could well hold its own against that at Pentelique; its reservoir would throw the Mediterranean into the shade; its forests had flourished long before the invasion of the Celts; and its very mill produced no ordinary flour, but provided material for cakes of world-wide renown. To crown all, Montmartre boasted a mountain—a veritable mountain; envious tongues indeed might pronounce it little more than a hill; but Ben Zoof would have allowed himself to be hewn in pieces rather than admit that it was ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... Thomas Pepys, where we, with my father, Dr. Thomas, cozen Stradwick, Scott, and their wives, dined. Here I saw first his second wife, which is a very respectfull woman, but his dinner a sorry, poor dinner for a man of his estate, there being nothing but ordinary meat in it. To-day the King dined at a lord's, two doors from us. After dinner I took my wife to Whitehall, I sent her to Mrs. Pierces (where we should have dined today), and I to the Privy Seal, where Mr. Moore took out all his money, and he and I went to Mr. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... an ordinary kick," said Bannon sharply. "It isn't just a case of us having to pay a big delay forfeit. There's a reason why our job's got to be done on time. I want to know the reason why the G.&M. won't give you cars. It ain't because ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... are said to have been the largest ships hitherto built in Portugal, and to have carried 1200 men; perhaps soldiers, besides their ordinary crews.—Astl. I. 57. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... first began to be a part of their family affairs the conventional standards of Father Gerhardt proved untrustworthy. He had no means of judging such a character. This was no ordinary person coquetting with his pretty daughter. The manner in which the Senator entered the family life was so original and so plausible that he became an active part before any one thought anything about it. Gerhardt himself was deceived, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... concluded that the establishment of our factory would lower the price of such commodities as they had to sell, and would inhance the value of the spiceries, drugs, and jewels which they took in exchange. On this account they thwarted Correa in all his transactions, offering higher prices than ordinary for every article, by which he was constrained to buy every thing at a very dear rate. If at any time he wished an audience of the zamorin, the Moors always contrived to be present, that some of them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... spiritual teachers, was to bring his wandering fellow-mortals into obedience to the commandments, even while he insisted on the worthlessness of it. He sounded the strings to others which had sounded loudest in himself. When he passed from mysticism into matters of ordinary life, he showed the same practical good sense which distinguishes the chief of all this order of thinkers—St. Paul. There is a sermon of Bunyan's on Christian behaviour, on the duties of parents to ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... clothes of the servants of any other gentleman, or the servants of one gentleman from getting their clothes washed by any other person than their own master's washerman. This enables them sometimes to raise the rate of washing to double the fair or ordinary rate; and at such places the washermen are always drunk with one continued routine of feasts from the fines levied.[13] The cost of these fees falls ultimately upon the poor servants or their masters. This ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... entirely of ash. Common salt is a mineral substance; another example is the white scaly substance which sometimes forms on the inside of a teakettle or on any pan in which water has been heated. Soda is still another familiar mineral substance. The condiment salt—ordinary table salt—(see Condiments) must not be confused with the term "salts"; the latter applies to many ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer

... have someone out of the ordinary run! There are so many bores in the world, it is quite refreshing to meet with a little originality. Dear Mrs Asplin, you really must tell me how you manage to look so happy and cheerful in this dead-alive place? I am desolate at the idea of staying here all winter. ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... sort of a boat he really had. She skipped over the waves like a sea-mew; not so much as a splash came into the boat, and he therefore calculated that he would have no need to take in all his clews[7] against the wind, which an ordinary Femboering would have been forced to ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... end of the flat, and she began to fail. I had over-pressed her; the pace was too tremendous. Her speed lessened to an ordinary fast gallop as she faced the gentle rise that led to the brow. And now, behind me, once more I heard the sound of the hoofs of the roan. The tireless beast was coming up. By the time we reached the edge of the plateau he was quite near, not fifty ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... in the form of creed: but if we do not thus receive it, we are committed to the building of our own City of God. And to-day, that world-view, that spiritual landscape, must harmonize—if it is needed to help our living—with the outlook, the cosmic map, of the ordinary man. If it be adequate, it will inevitably transcend this; but must not be in hopeless conflict with it. The stretched-out, graded, striving world of biological evolution, the many-faced universe of the physical relativist, the space-time manifold of realist philosophy—these great constructions ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... gates of Constantinople may be compared with those of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the artificial island may be encompassed, like Athens, [2] by land or water." Two strong and natural causes are alleged for the perfection of the model of new Rome. The royal founder reigned ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... before been prevented mentioning anything respecting those of my shipmates who had escaped with their lives. The first person I saw below was old Cole. He was unhurt, and seemed to take matters as coolly and quietly as if they were of ordinary occurrence. He had, as I afterwards discovered, directly he saw the pirate brig running us aboard, gone below and stowed himself away. I ventured to ask him, on a subsequent occasion, how it was that he had not remained on deck and fought on like the rest. "Why, I will tell ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... girl, but apparently she remained unconscious of anything out of the ordinary. Her face was still turned forward, and still the wind-veil trembled ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... an ordinary-looking package. The station will be under a guard and all the roads coming in, too. They are expecting the revolution and ..." She paused and grew red. Dorn's eyes were looking at her banteringly. "You are thinking I have tricked you," she cried, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... day after Sophia's funeral he set to work to design a simple stone for his aunt's tomb. He said he could not tolerate the ordinary gravestone, which always looked, to him, as if the wind might blow it over, thus negativing the idea of solidity. His mother did not in the least understand him. She thought the lettering of his tombstone affected and finicking. But she let it pass ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... knight, thou lack'st a cup of Canarie: when did I see thee so put downe? An. Neuer in your life I thinke, vnlesse you see Canarie put me downe: mee thinkes sometimes I haue no more wit then a Christian, or an ordinary man ha's: but I am a great eater of beefe, and I beleeue that ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... quietly to withdraw. Ten minutes more passed, and Natasha finally drew out a little bag of various colored silks, in which the old princess always kept her keys, and from which she never parted, carrying it by day in her pocket, and by night keeping it under her pillow. One of the keys was an ordinary one, that of her wardrobe. The other was smaller and finely made; it was the key ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... man in many respects. Judged by the standards of Lincoln and Grant, he was not a great man. In some respects he was a man of far more than ordinary ability. He was a wonderfully eloquent speaker, and I have heard him on occasion move audiences to a greater extent than almost any orator, aside from the late ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... utmost care and attention of a philosophic genius to discover and observe them. Animals, therefore, are not guided in these inferences by reasoning: Neither are children: Neither are the generality of mankind, in their ordinary actions and conclusions: Neither are philosophers themselves, who, in all the active parts of life, are, in the main, the same with the vulgar, and are governed by the same maxims. Nature must have provided ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al



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