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

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




What   Listen
pronoun
What  pron., adj., adv.  
1.
As an interrogative pronoun, used in asking questions regarding either persons or things; as, what is this? what did you say? what poem is this? what child is lost? "What see'st thou in the ground?" "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!" Note: Originally, what, when, where, which, who, why, etc., were interrogatives only, and it is often difficult to determine whether they are used as interrogatives or relatives. What in this sense, when it refers to things, may be used either substantively or adjectively; when it refers to persons, it is used only adjectively with a noun expressed, who being the pronoun used substantively.
2.
As an exclamatory word:
(a)
Used absolutely or independently; often with a question following. "What welcome be thou." "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?"
(b)
Used adjectively, meaning how remarkable, or how great; as, what folly! what eloquence! what courage! "What a piece of work is man!" "O what a riddle of absurdity!" Note: What in this use has a or an between itself and its noun if the qualitative or quantitative importance of the object is emphasized.
(c)
Sometimes prefixed to adjectives in an adverbial sense, as nearly equivalent to how; as, what happy boys! "What partial judges are our love and hate!"
3.
As a relative pronoun:
(a)
Used substantively with the antecedent suppressed, equivalent to that which, or those (persons) who, or those (things) which; called a compound relative. "With joy beyond what victory bestows." "I'm thinking Captain Lawton will count the noses of what are left before they see their whaleboats." "What followed was in perfect harmony with this beginning." "I know well... how little you will be disposed to criticise what comes to you from me."
(b)
Used adjectively, equivalent to the... which; the sort or kind of... which; rarely, the... on, or at, which. "See what natures accompany what colors." "To restrain what power either the devil or any earthly enemy hath to work us woe." "We know what master laid thy keel, What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel."
(c)
Used adverbially in a sense corresponding to the adjectival use; as, he picked what good fruit he saw.
4.
Whatever; whatsoever; what thing soever; used indefinitely. "What after so befall." "Whether it were the shortness of his foresight, the strength of his will,... or what it was."
5.
Used adverbially, in part; partly; somewhat; with a following preposition, especially, with, and commonly with repetition. "What for lust (pleasure) and what for lore." "Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom shrunk." "The year before he had so used the matter that what by force, what by policy, he had taken from the Christians above thirty small castles." Note: In such phrases as I tell you what, what anticipates the following statement, being elliptical for what I think, what it is, how it is, etc. "I tell thee what, corporal Bardolph, I could tear her." Here what relates to the last clause, "I could tear her;" this is what I tell you. What not is often used at the close of an enumeration of several particulars or articles, it being an abbreviated clause, the verb of which, being either the same as that of the principal clause or a general word, as be, say, mention, enumerate, etc., is omitted. "Men hunt, hawk, and what not." "Some dead puppy, or log, or what not." "Battles, tournaments, hunts, and what not." Hence, the words are often used in a general sense with the force of a substantive, equivalent to anything you please, a miscellany, a variety, etc. From this arises the name whatnot, applied to an étagère, as being a piece of furniture intended for receiving miscellaneous articles of use or ornament. But what is used for but that, usually after a negative, and excludes everything contrary to the assertion in the following sentence. "Her needle is not so absolutely perfect in tent and cross stitch but what my superintendence is advisable." "Never fear but what our kite shall fly as high."
What ho! an exclamation of calling.
What if, what will it matter if; what will happen or be the result if. "What if it be a poison?"
What of this? What of that? What of it? etc., what follows from this, that, it, etc., often with the implication that it is of no consequence; so what? "All this is so; but what of this, my lord?" "The night is spent, why, what of that?"
What though, even granting that; allowing that; supposing it true that. "What though the rose have prickles, yet't is plucked."
What time, or What time as, when. (Obs. or Archaic) "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." "What time the morn mysterious visions brings."






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 |





"What" Quotes from Famous Books



... ended there. And as the surgeon inspected the outfit Billie saw that it comprised, in effect, a pair of diminutive air-pumps. There were two tiny dials, a regulating device, some sort of an automatic electric switch, and what looked like a steel storage tank; all on ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... "What little I know, an old white woman taught me. I started to school under this old woman because there weren't any colored teachers. There wasn't any school at Tulip where I lived. This old lady just wanted to help. I went to her about seven years. She taught us a little ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... this information, the Shibprakash estate being one of the best bargains he had ever got. After pondering a while, he asked, "What would you advise me to do? I am afraid it is hopeless to contend against a receipt ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... readers with what surprise and joy my sister received me. She immediately furnished me with money sufficient to appear like the rest of my countrymen; and till that time I could not be properly said to have finished all the extraordinary scenes which a series of unfortunate adventures ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... what you mean by real fighting, squire; but I suppose we shall keep on till half of us on both sides ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... a long time,' said Cadurcis, mournfully, 'a very long time, and one, in spite of what the world may think, to which I cannot look back with any self-congratulation. I wished three years ago never to leave Cadurcis again. Indeed I did; and indeed it was not my fault that I ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... circumstances would tend to indicate. The forty lines comprising the "Lai of Marie," which Chaucer has worked up into the "Nonnes Preestes Tale" of some seven hundred lines, are printed in Tyrwhitt's Introductory Discourse to the Canterbury Tales, and will be sufficient to show what use he made of the raw material at his disposal. We may fairly presume that Emerson never took the trouble to investigate the matter, but contented himself with snatching up his materials from the nearest quarry, and then tumbling them ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... perish, but hath eternal life. He that believeth shall be saved." Faith is the simplest operation of the mind; and may therefore strictly be said to be incapable of definition. Still it is easy to say what is meant by the term when applied to personal salvation. It means the trust of the heart on the atonement of Christ, as the condition of pardon. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." It is however of the highest importance that the ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King

... Ah me! what hand can touch the strings so fine? Who up the lofty diapason roll Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, And let them ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... bother with the horse. We tied him to the corral. And I hunted around for that bum chain, and then we made out we couldn't find the padlock for the door; so we decided, right out loud, that he'd be dead safe for an hour or two, till the bunch of us got back. Not knowing a darn thing about him, except what you boys have told us, we sure would have been in bad if he hadn't taken a sneak. Fact is, we were kinda worried for fear he wouldn't have nerve enough to try it. We waited, up on the hill, till we saw him sneak down to the corral and ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... establishment in a college for the nominal maintenance of what is called a bye-fellow, or a fellow out ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... his father's ghost appears to him, bidding him, before settling in Latium, descend into Hades by way of Lake Avernus, and visit him in the Elysian Fields to hear what ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... thousands of years at the end of this old burial mound. A small wood close by rejoices in the name of "Deadman's Acre." The moon was casting a ghastly light over the great moss-grown stone and the deserted wolds. The words of Ossian rose to my lips as I wondered what manner of men lay buried here. "We shall pass away like a dream. Our tombs will be lost on the heath. The hunter shall not know the place of our rest. Give us the song of other years. Let the night pass away on the sound, and morning return with joy." Then, as the rustling wind spoke in the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... as a neighbor; and I was always very fond of the first Mrs. Darrington, Helena Tracey. What is this wicked world coming to? Robbery and murder stalking bare-faced through the land. It will be a dreadful blow to Mitchell, because he and Luke Darrington have been intimate all their lives. I see the carriage coming ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... lived under a cloud. The breath of the dying medicine-priest of your people has blown away that cloud. I see clearer. I hear him telling the Manitou to do me good, though I wanted his scalp. He was answered in my heart. Then my ears opened wider, and I heard what the Good Spirit whispered. The ear in which the Bad Spirit had been talking for twenty winters shut, and was deaf. I hear him no more. I do not want to hear him again. The whisper of the Son of the Manitou is very pleasant to me. It ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... Augustus Caesar with respect to Rome, the Frenchwoman leaves her obvious mark on Paris. Like the hand in nature, you know it can be none else but hers. Yet sometimes she overdoes it, as nature in the peony; or underdoes it, as nature in the bramble; or—what is still more frequent—is a little slatternly about it, as ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... by being first talkative, and then silent. He reverses the course of Nature too: he was first the gay butterfly, and then the creeping worm.' Johnson laughed loud and long at this expansion and illustration of what he himself had ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... wrote these Memoirs in solitude, to which after the loss of his daughter and his wife he had retired to await death amidst the exercise of a genuine piety. It is not in such a frame of mind that a man is disposed to invent fables, and there is no middle way. What he says is that which we must believe absolutely, or if we have any doubt that he speaks the truth, he must be considered as the worst of villains. No interested feeling could have directed his pen, for he compiled his Memoirs, or at least he ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... condition, which appears so low, Is for this cause assign'd us, that our vows Were in some part neglected and made void." Whence I to her replied: "Something divine Beams in your countenance, wond'rous fair, From former knowledge quite transmuting you. Therefore to recollect was I so slow. But what thou sayst hath to my memory Given now such aid, that to retrace your forms Is easier. Yet inform me, ye, who here Are happy, long ye for a higher place More to behold, and more in love to dwell?" She with those other spirits gently smil'd, Then answer'd with such gladness, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... short time. It would awaken comment they should close their house against guests on the morrow, and as the true reason could not be given, many would be offended. If, on the contrary, they could resolve to quit the capital for a few weeks, many, it is true, would lament their decision, but what was alloted to all alike could be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had done me what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far from it. The evil was of a deeper, subtler sort; so elusive, so intangible, as to defy clear, definite analysis in words. We all experience such things at some period in our lives. For the first time we see a certain individual, one who the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... wasn't as bad as what I did," said Malcolm. "I guess ain't either one of us going to feel right about Elizabeth ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... of pain and grief was over, the necessity of summoning some further aid, of bearing the sad news to his home, pressed itself upon the mind of Alfred, and he took his homeward road alone, as if he hardly knew what he was doing, but simply obeyed instinct. Arrived there, he could not tell his mother or sister; he only sought the chamberlain and the steward, and begged them to come forth with him, and said something had happened to his father. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... tears of love and pity in his eyes, then sadly answered, "Alas, dear lady, how gladly would I have granted what you ask had you but expressed this wish one short hour ago. But, thinking I could best do honor to my guests by sacrificing what was most dear to me, I slew my gallant falcon to provide you ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... than must necessarily come from preconceived opinions. There is no management to work a conviction in his reader on this side or the other, still less any obvious perversion of fact. He evidently believes what he says, and this is the great point to be desired. We can make allowance for the natural influences of his position. Were he more impartial than this, the critic of the present day, by making allowance for a greater amount of prejudice and partiality, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... the eyes of others. Her step was firm, her head erect, her bearing full of pride and decision. Miss Lavender, who met her with a questioning glance at the door, walked beside her to the room of death, and then—what was remarkable ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... run away from an American whaling vessel, and had landed a little to the southward in a boat, which was shortly afterwards knocked to pieces by the surf. They had now been wandering up and down the coast for fifteen months, without knowing which way to go, or where they were. What a singular piece of good fortune it was that this harbour was now discovered! Had it not been for this one chance, they might have wandered till they had grown old men, and at last have perished on this wild coast. Their sufferings had been very great, and one of their party had lost his ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... be well at the outset to say clearly what is the aim of the present volume. The title is Ancient Art and Ritual, but the reader will find in it no general summary or even outline of the facts of either ancient art or ancient ritual. These facts are easily accessible in handbooks. The point of my title and the real gist of my argument lie ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... after a successful day's march we could set about taking our simple meal, with a pipe of cut plug to follow. The bill of fare was identically the same every day, perhaps a fault in the eyes of many; variety of diet is supposed to be the thing. Hang variety, say I; appetite is what matters. To a man who is really hungry it is a very subordinate matter what he shall eat; the main thing is to have ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... aided them in their nefarious designs. But it seemed that an angel of an all-seeing Providence stretched its protecting wings over the fair city, which was doomed by the rebels and their friends at the North first to see and feel the demoralizing influence of an insurrectionary force. What expression, or what degree of contempt is most appropriate for the citizens connected with these rebel efforts;—persons owing a true and faithful allegiance to the Government, yet aiding and abetting ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... down to the depot this mornin' to fetch her an' her goods up. The old lady come in early, while we were to breakfast, and to hear her lofty talk you 'd thought 't would taken a couple o' four-horse teams to move her. I told John Henry he might take that wagon and fetch up what light stuff he could, and see how much else there was, an' then I 'd make further arrangements. She said 'Liza Jane 'd see me well satisfied, an' rode off, pleased to death. I see 'em returnin' about eight, after the train was in. They 'd got 'Liza Jane with 'em, ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett

... "What!" he exclaimed, impetuously. "Can the grave give up its dead? Do our eyes deceive us? Is this indeed Lioncourt, whom we left dead upon the field of Austerlitz? Advance, man, and satisfy ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... the novel suffered, perhaps deservedly, for what was involved in these intentions—for its quality of unexpectedness in particular—that unforgivable sin in the critic's sight—the immediate precursor of 'Ethelberta' having been a purely rural tale. Moreover, in its choice of medium, and line of perspective, it undertook a delicate task: to excite ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... this found them too enfeebled even for repentance by their habitual insincerity or self-indulgence; which made them incapable of truth even under pain, and of a real conversion to God.(784) All this is discovered to us by the eyes and the mouth of Jeremiah. What in it is arbitrary? The record is awful, nothing like it in literature. Yet every step is real. We follow a master ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... go slowly, for the placing of each foot required study. It is surprising what a quantity of water will stand on the steep sides of a mountain. Some parts of this one were like a marsh, or a saturated sponge, and everywhere a cow had stepped was a small pool. As I proceeded the thrush grew more and more uneasy. She came so near me that I saw she had ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... away in different directions, growling and shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a little black-whiskered chap skipped ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... suspect Major NEWMAN and Mr. REDDY of collaborating, like the "Two Macs" of music-hall fame. No other theory will explain the gallant Major's well-feigned annoyance at what he called "the assumption of military rank by clergymen and members of the theatrical profession" connected with cadet-corps. Mr. MACPHERSON supplied the official answer, namely, that gentlemen holding cadet-commissions ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various

... "What now, Pete?" demanded David, who, with his back to the door, was advancing to the mahogany bureau across the room. He came in line with the tall mirror that surmounted the chest of drawers. His fingers stopped suddenly ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... said Elinor, after his first visit, "for one morning I think you have done pretty well. You have already ascertained Mr. Willoughby's opinion in almost every matter of importance. You know what to think of Cowper and Scott; you are aware of his estimating their beauties as he ought; and you have received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper. But how is your acquaintance to be long supported under such extraordinary dispatch of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... repent?—When you have the boldness to justify yourself in your fault? Why don't you say, you never will again offend me? I will endeavour, sir, said I, always to preserve that decency towards you which becomes me. But really, sir, I must beg your excuse for saying, That when you forget what belongs to decency in your actions, and when words are all that are left me, to shew my resentment of such actions, I will not promise to forbear the strongest expressions that my distressed mind shall suggest to me: nor ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... actually taking place among the molecules of the coal during its sojourn in the earth;(122) certainly not in the stone which is at rest on the eminence to which it has been raised. The true definition of Force must be, not motion, but Potentiality of Motion; and what the doctrine, if established, amounts to, is, not that there is at all times the same quantity of actual motion in the universe; but that the possibilities of motion are limited to a definite quantity, which can not be added to, but which can not be exhausted; and that all actual ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... changed the ethical as well as the physical situation. The policy of silence and concealment concerning evils which are now known to be preventable is no longer justifiable. The thinking public can now learn what these evils are, how destructive they are, and by what measures they may be cured or prevented. With this knowledge goes the responsibility and duty of applying it in defense ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... can here supply the brevity of the historian, and report the whole of what the apostle said to Felix on these important points? It seems to me that I hear him enforcing those important truths he has left us in his works, and placing in the fullest luster those divine maxims interspersed ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... "What other interpretation can be given to this tale I know not. This, and such other tales, the material of which one might collect a volume, must, it may reasonably be supposed, have something of reality for their origin and foundation, before they were dressed out ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson

... of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The British, who had set up a protectorate area around the southern port of Aden in the 19th century, withdrew in 1967 from what became South Yemen. Three years later, the southern government adopted a Marxist orientation. The massive exodus of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis from the south to the north contributed to two decades of hostility between the states. ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... at Bologna; and there is another memorable description in his Rembrandt sketch, in form of a dream, of the silent, unearthly, watery wonders of Venice. This last, though not written until after his London visit, had been prefigured so vividly in what he wrote at once from the spot, that those passages from his letter[90] may be read still with a quite undiminished interest. "I must not," he said, "anticipate myself. But, my dear fellow, nothing in the world that ever you have heard of Venice, is equal to the magnificent and stupendous ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... "What am I to say, ma'am? am I to tell Colonel Wellbred you hesitate?" He protested he came upon the embassy ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... softnesses of comfort. I believe I'll have a small fire for him, June though it is. It's a cold June, and it looks like rain. It is raining." She crossed to the window and looked out. "Why, it's pouring! What a pity! We shall ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... What to do next the Rovers did not know, nor could the two miners suggest anything. Finally, however, Ike Furner mentioned something that ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... reports favorable to the companies sent out during the great insurance investigations in New York. "Collier's" has told the whole story.[2] One of the agents employed testified on the witness-stand that a great insurance company agreed to pay a dollar a line for what he could get into the papers. He made his own arrangements with the journals that took his stuff, and the difference between the price he had to pay and the dollar a line he got from the insurance company was to be his private rake-off. He succeeded ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... across the sensitive strings of that choice harp, strung to the breaking-point. To dance before Michaud, to shine at the Soulanges ball and inscribe herself on the memory of that adored master! What glorious thoughts! To fling them into that volcanic head was like casting live coals upon straw dried in ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... "What's wrong?" I asked, facing him with curiosity, if not with alarm. "I never saw you look like this before. Has the old lady taken ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... of our indebtedness upon a plan which would yield them a fair remuneration and at the same time be just to the taxpayers of the nation. Our national credit should be sacredly observed, but in making provision for our creditors we should not forget what is due to the masses of the people. It may be assumed that the holders of our securities have already received upon their bonds a larger amount than their original investment, measured by a gold standard. Upon this statement of facts it would seem but just and equitable that the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... where heat and drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of insects, and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the upper portion only with your knife, and not one, but several, plants will likely sprout from what remains; and, however late in the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at naught. "Never say die" is the dandelion's motto. An exceedingly bitter medicine is extracted from the root of this dandelion, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... think that I should have married a Puritan! What would my great-great-great-great-grandfather say, who was such a stanch Royalist? Why, I think I can see him frowning at me now, from the door, in his blue velvet ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... belief my hypothesis justifies. We all feel that art is immensely important; my hypothesis affords reason for thinking it so. In fact, the great merit of this hypothesis of mine is that it seems to explain what we know to be true. Anyone who is curious to discover why we call a Persian carpet or a fresco by Piero della Francesca a work of art, and a portrait-bust of Hadrian or a popular problem-picture rubbish, will here find satisfaction. He will find, too, that to the familiar counters of criticism—e.g. ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... Erromango, were a race between the natives of the Friendly Islands and those of Mallicollo; but a little acquaintance with them convinced us that they had little or no affinity to either, except it be in their hair, which is much like what the people of the latter island have. The general colours of it are black and brown, growing to a tolerable length, and very crisp and curly. They separate it into small locks, which they woold or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... of Cipriana; what her end was I never heard, nor what was done with the Paja Brava after the death of Don Evaristo, who was gathered to his fathers a year or so after my visit. I only know that the old place where as a child I first knew him, where his cattle and ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... attend divine service at the cathedral, where they receive the sacrament and listen to a sermon of admonition. Then they march in a body to the royal palace, where they are received by the king's ministers with great formality, and escorted to what is known as the throne room. As they enter, each man bows reverently to a silver throne which stands upon a dais at the other end of the apartment. The members of the first chamber are seated on the right side of the great hall, and those of the ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... weapons of their own accord. Sung was not advancing to the attack, but Cho said: 'It is a principle of war not to pursue desperate men and not to press a retreating host.' Sung answered: 'That does not apply here. What I am about to attack is a jaded army, not a retreating host; with disciplined troops I am falling on a disorganized multitude, not a band of desperate men.' Thereupon he advances to the attack unsupported by his colleague, and routed the enemy, Wang ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... its inability to judge of the one part makes it derange the proportions of both, and the judgment of the whole is vitiated. For example, the understanding examines a miraculous history; it judges truly of what I may call the human part of the case; that is to say, of the rarity of miracles,—of the fallibility of human testimony,—of the proneness of most minds to exaggeration,—and of the critical arguments affecting the genuineness or the date of the narrative itself. But it forgets the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... she had told an untruth about it to Fanny's father, Sir John Crawford. We were very much stunned and distressed at her revelation, and we begged of her to go with the story to you, and also to put the packet in your charge, and tell you what she had already told us. This she emphatically refused to do, saying that she would never give the packet up under any conditions whatever. We had a special meeting of the club on the following night, when we again asked Betty what she meant to do. She said her intention was to keep firmly ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... the servant question to hang his argument on. "Just proves what I was saying" he said. "If the cleaning of one room causes all this trouble and worry, where'll she be when she's got four to look after? What with white ants, and blue mould, and mildew, and wrestling with lubras, there won't be one minute to ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... Trollope. "I was conscious, even then," he afterward wrote in his reminiscences of this lovely Florentine life, "of coming away from Casa Guidi a better man, with higher views and aims. The effect was not produced by any talk of the nature of preaching, but simply by the perception and appreciation of what Elizabeth Browning was: of the purity of the spiritual atmosphere in ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... "What could stop us, even under State Socialism. The basis of all slavery and all slavish thought is necessarily the monopoly of the means of working, that is of living. If the State monopolises them, not the State ruled by the ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... like a butterfly. I went to picnics and dances and parties with the fellows, and tried to carry on and talk nonsense with the girls, but it wasn't any use; I couldn't take to it—fact is, it was an awful bore. What I wanted was early to bed and early to rise, and something to DO; and when my work was done, I wanted to sit quiet, and smoke and think—not tear around with a parcel of giddy young kids. You can't think what I suffered whilst I ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain

... "gone coon" if I let this sort of thing go on; so I asked them what they were doing in Sydney, dined with them the same evening, and by that day week we had made up a picnic to Parramatta, where we could have the pleasure of a boat on the salt-water creek that people there call the Parramatta River, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... Mother! What in Heaven's name——! [Seeing BORKMAN, who is standing beside the doorway leading into the garden-room, he starts and takes off his hat. After a moment's silence, he asks:] What do you want with ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen

... his forthright appeal weakened towards its end. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of passion in his voice, as well as by surprise that he, so soon after his bitter loss, could turn to another—to her daughter, a child. And, at last, she whispered, "What will ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... my dear boy, but remember the advice of our good Monsieur Godeschal. Ah! by the bye, I was nearly forgetting! Here's a present our friend Moreau sends you. See! what a pretty pocket-book." ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... out of the house calling for her child. Out in the snow sat a woman in long black garments, and she said to the mother, "Death has been with you in your room. I saw him hastening away with your little child; he strides faster than the wind, and never brings back what he has taken away." ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... it is not necessary to broach this fundamental matter. I do not doubt that the American people know what the war is about, and what sort of an outcome they will regard as a realization of their purpose in it. As a nation we are united in spirit ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... had been left to the Jews in their own land. The Sanhedrin, the native court, exercised still very considerable power. And the Sadducean minority possessed a predominating influence in its consultations. What political power could be wielded in a subject state of the Empire was in their hands. Incidentally, a large and flourishing business was conducted under their control and management in the very Temple Courts, in "the booths of the sons of Hanan." Our Lord struck a blow at ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz

... Do you know what St. Peter would say to you if he heard you talk about lying? He'd up and jam his halo down over his ears and he'd say, 'You can't come in here, Sarah Jane Appleby. You're a liar. And you know what you can do, don't you? You ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... book is characterized by directness of treatment, by the selection, so far as possible, of the most interesting and practical matter, and by the omission of what is unessential. ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell

... then he pushes with all his might until his head having passed the entrance most of his body follows, leaving only his hind legs and the tip of his abdomen sticking out as he makes the circuit. He has much sense as well as muscle, and does not risk imprisonment in what must prove a tomb by a total and unnecessary disappearance within the bottle. Presently he backs out, brushes the pollen from his head and thorax into his baskets, and is off to fertilize an older, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... 'Oh, I do try, Mr. Gower. I think I do a little. I do more while you're talking. You are good to talk so to me. You should have seen her the night she went to meet my lord at those beastly Gardens Kit Ines told me he was going to. She was defending him. I've no words. You teach me what's meant by poetry. I couldn't understand ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... generation are to have a parallel authentication of Joshua's commission. It is noteworthy that this is not the purpose of the miracle which the leader announces to the people in verse 10. It was a message from God to himself, a kind of gracious whisper meant for his own encouragement. What a thought to fill a man's heart with humble devotion, that God would work such a wonder in order to demonstrate that He was with him! And what a glimpse of more to follow lay in that promise, 'This day will I begin ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... severely punished for my temerity, and almost overcome by the detestable compound of tastes and smells that at once assailed both nose and palate: it was a pungent, sour, bitter, and particularly greasy mouthful; but what chiefly astonished me, so much as to prevent my swallowing it for some time, was the perfume of Colonel Dhere Shum Shere, the fat brother, which I was immediately sensible of, as overpowering everything else. Not that I would for a moment wish to insinuate that it was a nasty smell; on the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... to his reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours. And certainly the whole edifice sinks to the ground immediately if you refuse on that account to give us any further assistance.... It is not possible for any one to be more sensible than I am of what I and every American owe to the king for the many and great benefits and favors he has bestowed upon us.... The English, I just now learn, flatter themselves they have already divided us. I hope this little misunderstanding ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... against all the powers of evil, be held in check any longer, as with a leash of straw, by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty? No, no, he would stand forth in his true angelic shape, and show these martinets what form they had ignorantly taken for mere Michael Trevennack ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... that, and I also grasp the fact that too close economy is not the best thing; but, on the other hand, George, how are we to perform our part with Longworth? His ideas of economy and yours may be vastly different. What is a mere trifle to him would ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... myself to a flat "no comment." But soon, pinned to the wall, I had to explain myself straight out. And in this vein, "the honorable Pierre Aronnax, Professor at the Paris Museum," was summoned by The New York Herald to formulate his views no matter what. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... premises, I turned the channel of a brook, surrounding the garden with a perfect canal; and, as its sides were completely laced with an elaborate wicker-work of willows, the aged king and crowds of his followers came to look upon the Samsonian task as one of the wonders of Africa. "What is it," exclaimed Fana-Toro, as he beheld the deflected water-course, "that a white man cannot do!" After this, his majesty inspected all my plants, and shouted again with surprise at the toil we underwent to satisfy our appetites. The use or worth of flowers, of which I had a rare and beautiful ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... of a thing by what is in it accidentally, but by what is in it essentially. Hence, everything is said to be true absolutely, in so far as it is related to the intellect from which it depends; and thus it is that artificial things are said to be true as being related to our intellect. For a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... you didn't catch them at it." Mrs. Red House took some money out of her purse. "You might just give this to your subordinates to console them for the mistake they've made. And look here, these mistakes do lead to trouble sometimes. So I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll promise not to tell Sir James a word about it. So ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... Inclose.—"Brief Declaration of the Plantation," &c., giving the whole title of this paper, verbatim, and a copious abstract of its contents. The earliest account of the horrors it relates is to be found in Smith's History, p. 105, in what is called "the examinations of Doctor Simons." This writer gives full details of the straits to which the Colonists were reduced and the expedients to which they resorted to appease hunger in 1609; adding, after the statements in regard to eating ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... about his fleets, and that the most active step he has taken during his whole reign was to visit the port of Cherbourg. Pitt had served the cause of the French Revolution from the first disturbances; he will perhaps serve it until its annihilation. I will endeavour to learn to what point he intends to lead us, and I am sending M.——- to London for that purpose. He has been intimately connected with Pitt, and they have often had political conversations respecting the French Government. I will ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... and gives people to understand that, by their paying it, the whole district will be free to them; such at any rate he told me, and so it appears he told Masudi. If you are the sultan, and will take my advice, I would strongly recommend your teaching Ruhe a lesson, by taking from him what the Arabs paid, and giving ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... are preserved and extended, and no considerable improvement made by an individual is ever lost to society. You see living forms perpetuated in the series of ages, and apparently the quantity of life increased. In comparing the population of the globe as it now is with what it was centuries ago, you would find it considerably greater; and if the quantity of life is increased, the quantity of happiness, particularly that resulting from the exercise of intellectual power, is increased in a still higher ratio. ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... "What!... that thing again!... I'm beginning to feel like those old ghosts about it. The same moth-eaten tune for three or four thousand years. I'd like ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... to-night is, 'To what extent has Ibsen contributed to the Cause (if any) of Female Emancipation?' and being a total ignoramus up to date of the sheer existence of said hon'ble gentleman, I shall abstain from scratching my head over so Sphinxian a conundrum, and confine myself to knuckling ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... organization show them to be really closely allied. They appear like actors or masqueraders dressed up and painted for amusement, or like swindlers endeavouring to pass themselves off for well-known and respectable members of society. What is the meaning of this strange travesty? Does nature descend to imposture or masquerade? We answer, she does not. Her principles are too severe. There is a use in every detail of her handiwork. The ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... had a description of Yette sent to each and every one, with the minutest particulars concerning her and her disappearance, but no word came back in response. A year passed, and we were compelled at last to give over the search. It seemed as if every means of finding out what had become of the child had been exhausted, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... farthing towards the ransom of the said castle, and the English might do with it as they pleased. Hereupon the dividend was made of all the spoil made in that voyage; every company, and every particular person therein, receiving their proportion, or rather what part thereof Captain Morgan pleased to give them. For the rest of his companions, even of his own nation, murmured at his proceedings, and told him to his face that he had reserved the best jewels to himself: for they judged it impossible that no greater share should belong to them ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... grace, and spontaneity! So far it is Greek;—but then add, O! what wealth, what wild ranging, and yet what compression and condensation of, English fancy! In truth, there is nothing in Anacreon more perfect than these thirty lines, or half so rich and imaginative. They ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... sufficiently for what you have already done," she said with emotion, moving to one side to make room ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... now, and the Heavenly Father revealed many wonders to them which are now quite concealed, or but rarely manifested to a child of fortune. It is true that the birds sing and the beasts converse as of old, but unhappily we no longer comprehend their speech, and what they say brings us ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... the great law of Nature. Many years afterwards I met R. Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke) at dinner. He was speaking of Winchester, and said with much animation that he had learnt one great lesson there, namely, that a man can count on nothing in this world except what lies between his hat and his boots. I learnt the same lesson at Eton, but alas! by conjugating not pulso but vapulo.' As I have intimated, I think that his conscience must have rather exaggerated ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... Sphinx and Pyramids. And that the Mother and Babe rested between the outstretched forepaws of the mighty Sphinx, which held them safe and secure, while Joseph threw himself on the base before them, and slept on guard. What a scene—the Master as an infant protected by the Sphinx, that ancient Occult emblem and symbol, while close by, reared like mighty watchful sentinels, stood the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the master work ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... earth. One lit boldly on the carapace of the inert Throg, shuffling ungainly along that horny ridge. Cradling the blaster, the Terran continued to wait. His patience was rewarded when that investigating clak-clak took off uttering an enraged snap or two. He heard what might be the scrape of boots across rock, but that might also have come from horny ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... remarked that the researches, by means of which science has recently elucidated the causes of fermentation, have raised the art of brewing from being an art founded on empirical observation—that is to say, on the observation of facts apart from the principles which explain them—into what may be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... found fault with me then for forgetting the past. But let that pass, dear; it is not OUR affairs I wanted to talk to you about now," he said, stifling a sigh, "it's about your friend. Please don't misunderstand what I am going to say; nor that I interpose except ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... Francis of Assisi, and that Francis, though he loved France, was as far as possible from being French; though not in the least French, he was still the finest flower from the French mediaeval garden; and though the French mystics could never have understood him, he was what the French mystics would have liked to be or would have thought they liked to be as long as they knew him to be not one of themselves. As an Italian or as a Spaniard, Francis was in harmony with his world; as a Frenchman, he would have been out of place even ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... and what folly, Marquise!" cried Dumaresque. "It is a speech of folly only because it is I whom you ask to be the missionary, and because it is the pretty Kora you would ask me to convert—and to what? Am I so perfect in all ways that I dare preach, even ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... [With sudden fierceness.] What are you all staring at? Haven't any of you ever slept in ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero

... the ranks of the traitorous foe, And bright in the sunshine bayonets glow! Breathe a prayer, but no sigh; think for what you would fight; Then charge! with a will, boys, and God for the right! And ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... everything, the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big dear world. Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here. Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They're always laughing. Even in winter-time I've heard them under the ice. I'm so glad there's a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn't make any difference to me when ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... grown such a coward, I am so knocked up and weakened by what I suffered in Rome, that I find I cannot face the idea of going on to Germany and Switzerland alone, without Ned to take care of me. You are a perfect angel, dear, and I know that you would do all you could to make it easy for me, but I am such a fool that ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... "What nonsense it is," he would angrily say, "to have words sounded in one way, and spelt in another. I wish that the fellow who made that ladder had been well ducked ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... the sun-spattered aisles of the forest; in the faces of our friends; in the turbid stream of our poor burdened humanity. They shine out and are gone—these flashes of eternal truth. The two worlds cannot be far apart when the travel from one to the other is so heavy! No, I do not know what heaven is like, but it could not seem strange to me, for I know so many people now who are there! Sometimes I feel like the old lady who went back to Ontario to visit, and who said she felt more at home in the cemetery than anywhere else, ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... eminently a judicious missionary, and such a revision of national laws would obviously be no slight support to the advancement of national Christianity. It is also remarked, that St. Patrick may not necessarily have assisted personally in writing the MS.; his confirmation of what was compiled by others would be sufficient. St. Benignus, who is known to be the author of other works,[156] ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... Magus, indicating the salon, every bristle of his white beard twitching as he spoke. "But the riches are here! And what riches! Kings have nothing ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com