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

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




Assiduity   Listen
Assiduity

noun
(pl. assiduities)
1.
Great and constant diligence and attention.  Synonyms: assiduousness, concentration.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Assiduity" Quotes from Famous Books



... slow to avail himself of the favor accorded to him. He presented himself at Ethel's next "at home;" and devoted himself to her with curious assiduity. Even the discovery of her engagement to Mr. Trent did not change his manner. It was not so much that he paid her actual attention, as that he paid none to anybody else. When she was not talking to him, he kept silence. He seemed always to be observing her, her face, her manner, her dress, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... he joined constancy and assiduity, and he gave his lessons with an exactitude hardly to be expected of a man given as he was to the freaks of a strolling life, and always carried away by a luck less doctoral than picaresque. This zeal was the effect of his kindness and also of his liking of that good St James's Street, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... of nobility the protector, who affected the love of the commons, was envied and hated; but his brother, on the contrary, had cultivated their friendship with assiduity and success; and he now took opportunities of emphatically recommending it to his principal adherents, the marquis of Northampton (late earl of Essex), the marquis of Dorset, the earl of Rutland, and others, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... "Repertories," which are kept in the muniment-room. The Recorder, the Steward of Southwark, the Clerk to the Lord Mayor, the keepers, governors, chaplains, and surgeons of the different prisons, and other officers of the Corporation, are elected by this Court, which, for assiduity, intelligence, and incorruptibility, yields to no body ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... place in the account. In some of their letters, therefore, which he received soon after, they expressed their surprise at his not having been more urgent in his application, and again recommended the blushless assiduity of successful merit. ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... of success, and in many important causes experience hath shown that the assiduity of the solicitor hath brought a very doubtful suit to a very fortunate issue; but the truth of this maxim is nowhere more evinced than in war, where activity and despatch anticipate the designs of the enemy, and obtain the victory before ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... enough, and often fall down into the rooms below; for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may then be called perchers. In a day or two more they become fliers, but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies: and when a mouthful ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... strenuously opposed them, affirming that such a fortunate opportunity was presented to them and to the commons. There were three, and all very active men, and of respectable families, considering they were plebeians. Two of them choose each a consul, to be watched by them with unremitting assiduity; to one is assigned the charge sometimes of restraining, sometimes of exciting, the commons by his harangues. Neither the consuls effected the levy, nor the tribunes the election which they desired. Then fortune inclining to the cause ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... encountered in boyhood from the use of a miserable epitome and the deep impression of a few mortifying blunders made in public, first gave the author a fondness for grammar; circumstances having since favoured this turn of his genius, he has voluntarily pursued the study, with an assiduity which no man will ever imitate for the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... stages in our ancestral series, I owe the success, not merely to the vast progress that biology has made in the last half century, but largely to the luminous example of the great investigators who have applied themselves to the problem, with so much assiduity and genius, for a century and a quarter—I mean Goethe and Lamarck, Gegenbaur and Huxley, but, above all, Charles Darwin. It was the great genius of Darwin that first brought together the scattered material of biology and shaped it into that ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... exceedingly ill during the autumn, and it became apparent that her illness was mortal. She was attended with great assiduity by Dr. Fyfe. For this reason we remained within reach ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... a doubt but that, by the exertion of your abilities, and the care and assiduity of our servants in the superintendency of the revenues, the collections will be conducted with more advantage to the Company and ease to the natives than by means of a naib dewan, we are fully sensible of the expediency of supporting some ostensible minister in the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... and supper concluded this night of splendor, and Riza Bey was fairly launched at the French court; every member of which, to please the King, tried to outvie his compeers in the assiduity of his attentions, and the value of the books, pictures, gems, equipages, arms, &c., which they heaped upon the illustrious Persian. The latter gentleman very quietly smoked his pipe and lounged on his divan before company, and ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... statesmen of Spanish history. Ximenes was rigorously ascetic in his life, and absolutely irreproachable in his morals, in an age when the clergy were excessively corrupt. He doubled his fasts, wore a hair shirt, slept on the bare ground, scourged himself with assiduity and ardor; became the confessor of Queen Isabella, and therefore of great political importance, inasmuch as she followed his counsel, not alone in things spiritual, but also in things temporal. Severe in his sanctity, he demanded the same of his brethren, and reformed ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... followed by the most salutary effects at Munich. The commissaries of districts flattered by this distinction have exerted themselves with uncommon zeal and assiduity in the discharge of the important duties of their office. And very important indeed is the office of a commissary of a district in the Establishment for ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... the time of Mungo Park's birth, the father had for many years practised farming with assiduity and success on the estate at Fowlshiels, where he died in 1792, after a long and exemplary life, at ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... simplifying, although surrounded by circumstances which rendered such a result difficult of attainment. His own feelings, his own impressions, were his events; more important in his eyes than the chances and changes of external life. He constantly gave lessons with regularity and assiduity; domestic and daily tasks, they were given conscientiously and satisfactorily. As the devout in prayer, so he poured out his soul in his compositions, expressing in them those passions of the heart, those unexpressed sorrows, to which the pious give vent in their ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... Brougham, Mackintosh, Huskisson, and others,—all trained in the school of Pitt, Fox, or Burke, who had passed away. Among these great men Peel made his way, not so much by force of original genius—blazing and kindling like the eloquence of Canning and Brougham—as by assiduity in business, untiring industry, and in speech lucidity of statement, close reasoning, and perfect mastery of his subject in all its details. He was pre-eminently a man of facts rather than theories. Like Canning and Gladstone, he was ultra-conservative ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... industry than logic. It consists rather of abundant materials for others to use, than of materials worked up by the collector. It gives evidence of learning, research, and a comprehensive study of the subject. It is a thesaurus of pneumatological knowledge, collected with German assiduity. It will set many to thinking, though it may convince but few, except of the one truth, that the faith in the supernatural has been a universal faith, pervading all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... ragtime songs and dances, which he rendered to his own accompaniment on an old battered banjo. He was a contortionist of quite unusual cleverness, while his fund of stories never ran dry throughout the seven days' journey to Winnipeg. He set himself with the greatest assiduity to impart his accomplishments to the boys, and by the time the party had reached the end of the first stage in their westward journey, Sam had the satisfaction of observing that his pupils had made very satisfactory progress, both with the clog dancing and with the ragtime songs. Besides this, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... conception and its completeness of finish, rendered the picture a study requiring time to comprehend and appreciate all its many excellences. It was finished, and the work of half a year, pursued with the utmost assiduity in secret, had proved successful. All his pains and self-denials were now forgotten; he was doubly paid for all his sufferings-he even looked back upon them with a conscientious pride, and deemed that he ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... went out into the garden, but it looked dreary; the autumn flowers were few and far between—the lawn was soaked and sodden with yesterday's rain. I wandered into Owen's room. He had returned to his painting, but was not working, as it struck me, with his customary assiduity and his ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... from which his hand was lifting her. Her gratitude was akin to that of a lost soul saved, and that was all she had involuntarily expressed. She sat down again and quietly dried her eyes, while in her heart she purposed to show her gratitude by patient assiduity in learning to ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... if an apt pupil, she was an instructive teacher of the wealth of charity and purity that dwells in an untainted woman's heart. And she had another friend: the hermit watched over her with touching care and assiduity. He appeared strangely attracted to her; the holy fathers marvelled to see this rough being, who had seemed to them an animal to be feared while pitied, caring for the maiden's comfort with a woman's ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... French Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctive beings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his own customs, his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with an assiduity and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man of the home, of the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctive philosophy and temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada he is not surpassed by any of the other citizens ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and Gerald drilled their men with great assiduity, astonishing the Portuguese soldiers with their energy and authoritative manner, Tom and Reuben occupied themselves in superintending the felling of the trees; and their carriage, by means of a large number of natives, to the top of the road. Preparations were also ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... dear, nothing. But I was in for a list of blunders, and could not help making you a subscriber. My stupidity saw everything the wrong way. I mistook your assiduity for assurance, and your simplicity for allurement. But it's over. This house I no more show ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... and biscuit, never troubling himself whence they had come; and while Salesa waited and waited with a suffocating heart, he looked at dead fish through bits of glass. But day by day she returned to his camp with the assiduity of a mother to her nursing child; and by degrees growing bolder with custom, she no longer watched until Professor No No had departed, but moved here and there about his land, secure by reason of his blindness and preoccupation. Like a wild animal to whom one approaches with gentleness ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... particular in his attention to her, had he not been apprehensive of doing her a prejudice in the suspicious mind of Mr. Tyrrel. All this she considered as the ravishing condescension of a superior nature; for, if she did not recollect with sufficient assiduity his gifts of fortune, she was, on the other hand, filled with reverence for his unrivalled accomplishments. But, while she thus seemingly disclaimed all comparison between Mr. Falkland and herself, she probably cherished a confused feeling as if some event, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... any employer under the above prices, they must abide by the consequences." Usually the consequences were a fine imposed by the union, but sometimes they were more severe. Coercion by the union did not cease with the strike. Journeymen who were not members were pursued with assiduity and energy as soon as they entered a town and found work. The boycott was a method early used against prison labor. New York stonecutters agreed that they would not "either collectively or individually purchase any goods ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... in love with access to princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment. So some measure things according to the labour and difficulty or assiduity which are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that they must needs advance and proceed; as Caesar saith in a despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose, Haec omnia magno studio ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... Innerleithen, in the county of Peebles, on the 28th of September 1769. Having acquired the elements of classical knowledge under Mr Tate, the parochial schoolmaster, he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he pursued study with unflinching assiduity and success. On completing his academical studies, he was licensed as a probationer by the Presbytery of Peebles. His first professional employment was as an assistant to the minister of Traquair, a parish bordering on that of Innerleithen; and on the death of the incumbent, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... cast upon me. I read the look aright, and knew, from that moment, that he was deserving of better things than a continued persecution for having unfortunately misapplied an expression. I immediately made a vow that I would read the "Tour up and down the Rio de la Plate," with exemplary assiduity. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... is going to a party he should ask for the flower in her hair, or for the flower in her hand. If he himself gives her a flower it should be a sweet smelling one, and marked with marks made by his nails or teeth. With increasing assiduity he should dispel her fears, and by degrees get her to go with him to some lonely place, and there he should embrace and kiss her. And finally at the time of giving her some betel nut, or of receiving the same from her, or at the ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana

... enjoyed internal tranquillity, began in the time of Hyginus, who succeeded Telesphorus, to be disturbed by false teachers. Valentine, Cerdo, and other famous heresiarchs, now appeared in Rome; [332:2] and laboured with great assiduity to disseminate their principles. The distractions created by these errorists seem to have suggested the propriety of placing additional power in the hands of the presiding presbyter. [332:3] Until this period every teaching elder had been accustomed to baptize and administer the Eucharist ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... sustained by the House. In fact, Mr. Clay's speech was totally unworthy of the occasion. Instead of argument and fact, he gave the House and the galleries beautiful declamation. The evidence was before him; he had it in his hands; but, instead of getting up his case with patient assiduity, and exhibiting the damning proofs of Jackson's misconduct, he merely glanced over the mass of papers, fell into some enormous blunders, passed over some most material points, and then endeavored ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... does not belong to him, which does not fit him and which will not stay on his head in a high wind. The consequence was that his talk lacked interest, and that he often did not talk at all. Nevertheless, he managed to show enough assiduity to keep himself continually in the foreground of Beatrice's thoughts. Being almost constantly present she could not easily forget him, and he held his ground with a determination which kept other men away. When a man can make a woman think of him ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... vain pleasure in my own successes which, after all, were only the lawful performances of my duty, but then, it is a very plausible thing for people to do what is expected of them now-a-days, and I had reaped a bountiful harvest of recompense for my diligence and assiduity. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... persevering assiduity, Mr. Smirkie succeeded in reaching Mr. Caldigate himself, and expressed himself with boldness. He was a man who had at any rate the courage of his opinions. 'You have to think of her future life in this world and in the next,' ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... governor—who ranked next to the provincial governor (kokushi)—filled as far as possible by former kuni no miyatsuko, but also these latter were entrusted with the duty of observing and reporting upon the conduct of the new officials as to assiduity and integrity, to which duty there were also nominated special officials called choshu-shi. By the aid of these and other tactful devices, the operation of the new system was guaranteed against disturbance. Nothing was deemed too trivial to assist in promoting that ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... I would retort, plying my own pen with great assiduity. "Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... negative test was a seriously imperfect one; and it was quite as possible that a man who unhappily had broken many prohibitions might yet exhibit positive excellencies, as that he might walk through life picking his way with the utmost assiduity, risking nothing and doing nothing, not committing a single sin, but keeping his talent carefully wrapt up in a napkin, and get sent, in the end, to outer darkness for his pains, as an unprofitable servant; and this appeared the more important to us, as it was very little dwelt upon by religious ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... of his business was either amongst the poorer classes, who couldn't pay, the dishonest, who wouldn't, or the thoughtless and dilatory, who, if they did so, took a very long time about it. In spite, therefore, of all his labour and assiduity, the actual amount he received from his practice fell short of his yearly expenditure, which obliged him to dip into his small independent property, consisting of a few houses in an obscure part of the town; which, as he became every year more heavily involved, he was erelong ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... now unfortunately beginning to take up an opposite opinion, and though he still went through the duty devolving upon him with assiduity and cheerfulness, it was evident that his mind was ill at ease, and that he had many gloomy anticipations of the future. He fancied there were no sand-hills ahead, that we should never reach any water in that direction, and that there was ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... youngest of the family and had no right to take the initiative in the matter of improvements. The time hung very heavily upon her hands. She tried to teach herself something about painting by looking at the pictures on the walls, spending a quarter of an hour before each with conscientious assiduity. But this did not succeed either. The men in the pictures all took the shape of Monsieur Gouache in his smartest uniform and the women all looked disagreeably like Flavia. Then she thought of the library, which ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... that I can give, doubting nothing but you shall speedily be a man accomplished to see the right and to give it expression, if you will henceforth abide by what you now hear from me, practise it with assiduity, and go confidently on your way till it brings you to the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... thing.' We could not help admiring her commodiousness when she accompanied Lord P. and her daughter to Drury-lane Theatre, the last time the King was there. It was almost equal to his Lordship's assiduity, and the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has won a special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the manifestations ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... well into the Park, Lyveden made for a solitary chair and sat himself down in the sun. For a while he remained wrapped in meditation, abstractedly watching the terrier stray to and fro, nosing the adjacent turf with the assiduity ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... struggled to his feet and was now staggering after her along the deck, as she slowly and carefully induced him to take a little exercise. Then, after the lapse of about an hour, she fed him again, somewhat more liberally than at first; until by dint of care and assiduity on her part the poor beast was once more able to walk ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... apparently he learned the multiplication table for the first time in July, 1661. We see from the particulars given in the Diary how hard he worked to obtain the knowledge required in his office, and in consequence of his assiduity he soon became a model official. When Pepys became Clerk of the Acts he took up his residence at the Navy Office, a large building situated between Crutched Friars and Seething Lane, with an entrance in each of those places. On July 4th, 1660, he went with Commissioner Pett to view ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... means whereby he lived, and he continued to practise it with great assiduity; but his heart was in alchymy. The philosopher's stone and the elixir of life haunted his daily thoughts and his nightly dreams. The Talmudic mysteries, which he had also deeply studied, impressed him with the belief, that he might hold ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... pains in pursuit of it. At the Record Office, in the British Museum, at Hatfield, among the priceless archives preserved in the Spanish village of Simancas, he toiled with unquenchable ardour and unrelenting assiduity. Nine-tenths of his authorities were in manuscript. They were in five languages. They filled nine hundred volumes. Excellent linguist as he was, Froude could hardly avoid falling into some errors. ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... and gossips, both male and female, are the labouring classes. Norwich boasts of the durability of her stuffs; the manufacturers I allude to weave a web more flimsy. The stuff of tomorrow will seldom be the same that is publicly worn to-day; and were it not for the zeal and assiduity of the labourers, we should want novelties to replace the stuff that is worn ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... died lamented. A victim to the pestilence which ravaged England about the year 1630, she fell in the prime of life; a proof that length of days and exemption from sorrow are no sure marks of Divine favour. Her assiduity in ministering to the afflicted, exposed her to the infection which deprived Dr. Beaumont of all his numerous family except one daughter; while the household of Sir William Waverly, closely barricadoed by every contrivance which caution could suggest, enjoyed ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... I suffered terribly. Three times a day I called at Madame Pierson's and was each time refused admittance. I received one letter from her; she said that my assiduity was causing talk in the village and begged me to call less frequently. Not a word about Mercanson or ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... with loud applause: for with the king once in its power, it could employ him in the works of regeneration. The most perfect harmony appeared to reign in the council. The king astonished his new ministers by his assiduity and his aptitude for business. He conversed with everyone on the subject that most interested him. He questioned Roland on his works, Dumouriez on his adventures, and Claviere on the finances, whilst he avoided the irritating ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... the living model for the St. Catherine which Signor Raphael the Painter did so well in Oils. I don't think I loved her; but she took my Fancy immensely, and meeting her in the houses of divers Honourable Families in Amsterdam, 'tis not to be concealed that I courted her with much assiduity. This, by some mischief-making Persons, was held to be highly compromising to the Fair Beguine. For all that I had become a Grave Merchant, there was yet somewhat of the Gentleman of the Sword and Adventurer on the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... and Jane's dress came next in turn. Ellen applied herself with even greater assiduity than she had used on the preceding day; but, as Jane's dress required more trimming, and less assistance was given her on it, the progress she made towards its completion was in no way promising. After dinner her head began to ache, and continued its throbbing, almost blinding ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... though always so called in the family from the places of their birth in barracks—are respectively employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing and romping plant their ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Broadway and which concludes ungrammatically with the words "Harrigan—that's me." The Eskimo in question seemed fascinated by this song and in time learned those three words and practised them with so much assiduity that he was ultimately able to sing them in ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... Nothing is more repulsive than the beggarly pride of such stupid laboriousness. One should not endure for a moment to have the pupil, seeking for distinction, begin to pride himself on an extra industry. Education must accustom him to use a regular assiduity. The frame of mind suitable for work often does not exist at the time when work should begin, but more frequently it makes its appearance after we have begun. The subject takes its own time to awaken us. Industry, inspired by a love and regard for work, has in ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... ended in kissing; it must end in nothing. As she danced sparks of beauty fell from her on all around but him; she did not see him; it was clear she never would see him. One gentleman was particularly assiduous; she smiled on his assiduity; he was ugly, but she smiled on him. Dolignan was surprised at his success, his ill taste, his ugliness, his impertinence. Dolignan at last found himself injured; who was this man? and what right had ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... died when approaching his eighty-fourth birthday, devoted the last twenty-five years of his life with equal assiduity to his Genera Plantarum. See a curious anecdote of his persistence in the Dictionary ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maule and Mr. Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr. Spooner's assiduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about Trumpeton Wood, and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong because he did not take the matter up. "You know it's the keepers do it all," said Mr. Spooner, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... man, one of those, probably, who, through his application, intelligence, honesty and economy, had proved the most prosperous, some master-workman or farmer that had gained experience through long years of assiduity, familiar with details and precedents, of good judgment and repute, more interested than anybody else in supporting the interests of the community and with more leisure than others to attend to public affairs.[4183] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... those mysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London teem in every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided himself as a practised explorer of such obscure mazes and byways of London life, and in this unprofitable pursuit he displayed an assiduity which was worthy of more serious employment. Thus he stood by the lamp-post surveying the passers-by with undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity known only to the systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind the formula: ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... connected line I ever saw during my service at sea." Howe, who held higher ideals, conceived through earnest and prolonged study and reflection, was less well satisfied. It seems, however, reasonable to infer that the assiduity of his efforts to promote tactical precision had realized at least a ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... pains had left not a hair on the great horse's tail, Sertorius arose and said to his army, "You see, fellow-soldiers, that perseverance is more prevailing than violence, and that many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield readily when taken little by little. Assiduity and persistence are irresistible, and in time overthrow and destroy the greatest powers. Time being the favorable friend and assistant of those who use their judgment to await his occasions, and the destructive enemy of those who are unseasonably ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... at the moment dinner was announced. This was certainly a failure even in American etiquette, every woman being more disposed to appreciate the delicacy and respect which should have induced such a person to give place to one of higher claims, than to prize the head-over-heels assiduity that caused the boy to forget himself. Sentiment should be the guide on such occasions, and no man is a gentleman until his habits are brought completely in subjection to its dictates, in all matters of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... only served to make the miller unhappy. He discontinued his former assiduity; he was quite disgusted with small gains; and his customers began to forsake him. Every day he repeated the wish, and every night laid himself down in order to dream. Fortune, that was for a long time unkind, at last, however, seemed ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... for her chance, scanning the duller columns of the journals, morning and evening with an assiduity which at first puzzled old Jolyon; and when her chance came, she took it with all the promptitude and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... touch, and lend to scenes, already clothed with immortality by nature and by history, the no less durable associations of undying song. On his leaving Brussels, an incident occurred which would be hardly worth relating, were it not for the proof it affords of the malicious assiduity with which every thing to his disadvantage was now caught up and circulated in England. Mr. Pryce Gordon, a gentleman, who appears to have seen a good deal of him during his short stay at Brussels, thus relates ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... expedients to retrieve himself from ruin. All was in vain; he became more and more cruelly involved, and found his honour lost at the same moment with his fortune. About this period, Northmour had been courting his daughter with great assiduity, though with small encouragement; and to him, knowing him thus disposed in his favour, Bernard Huddlestone turned for help in his extremity. It was not merely ruin and dishonour, nor merely a legal condemnation, that the unhappy man had brought upon his head. It seems he could have gone to prison ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Rosenbaum for the ability and zeal he has shown in editing the book and in preparing it for publication. I wish also to acknowledge my personal debt to Mr. G. Locker Lampson, M.P., who, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee, has shown so much zeal and assiduity in connection ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... now in high employment at court, and attended by him with the most abject assiduity; and his sister being gone off with child to a private lodging, my lord continued his graces to Corusodes, got him to be a chaplain in ordinary, and in due time a parish in town, and a dignity in ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... than most men of the same type of character; and there is not a real moral or intellectual blemish upon his reputation. His aim was fixed when he commenced to teach at Halle; and he prosecuted it with undivided assiduity until the close of his useful life. The story of his conversion is beautifully told in his own language. Like Chalmers, he was a minister to others before his own heart was changed. He was about to preach from the words, "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... could she control her father begetting her forty years ago in the suburbs of Manchester? and once begotten, how could she do other than grow up cheese-paring, ambitious, with an instinctively accurate notion of the rungs of the ladder and an ant-like assiduity in pushing George Plumer ahead of her to the top of the ladder? What was at the top of the ladder? A sense that all the rungs were beneath one apparently; since by the time that George Plumer became Professor of Physics, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... Gentleman's Magazine) he had been made a major-general in December 1735. Of discrepancies like these it is idle to attempt any explanation. But, if Murphy is to be believed, Fielding devoted himself henceforth with remarkable assiduity to the study of law. The old irregularity of life, it is alleged, occasionally asserted itself, though without checking the energy of his application. "This," says his first biographer, "prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... and earnestly upon his studies, and more than a year was devoted to mathematics; but whenever it was possible he rambled about the country, using his eyes and fingers, collecting more specimens, and 15 sketching with such assiduity that when he left France, only seventeen years old, he had finished two hundred drawings of French birds. At this period he tells us that "it was not the desire of fame which prompted to this devotion; it was simply the enjoyment of ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... brains began to grow. Fortunately, Mrs. Ricketts, Maggie's mother, was not obliged to meet her rent every day of the week, therefore no more of Polly's four pounds went in that direction. And Polly read Mrs. Beaton's Cookery-book with such assiduity, and Maggie carried out her directions with such implicit zeal and good faith, that really most remarkable meals began to grace the Doctor's board. Pastry in every imaginable form and guise, cakes of all descriptions; vegetables, so cooked and ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... accumulation of titles and employments did not in the least diminish his assiduity in fulfilling the duties of each. Several very wholesome edicts were passed by his command, tending to suppress corruption in the senate, and licentiousness in the people. 21. He ordained that none should exhibit a show of gladiators without ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... monotony of northern existence; amusements are raised into duties, duties are softened into amusements, and every object being considered as equally making a part of the business of life, is announced and performed with the same earnest indifference and gay assiduity. The Venetian gazette constantly closes its columns ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... conscious of possessing both the requisite courage and the abilities. Whilst the prince was engaged in rounds of pleasure, his young favorite buried himself among archives and books, and devoted himself with laborious assiduity to affairs of state, in which he at length became so expert that every matter of importance passed through his hands. From the companion of his pleasures he soon became first councillor and minister, and finally the ruler of his sovereign. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... General Managership of Post Office affairs, was as a youth a disciple of his predecessor, and assisted him in the development of the Mail Coach system. He was apprenticed to the Post Office in Bristol, where his talents, rectitude of conduct, and assiduity in the duties assigned him gained for him the esteem and respect of all those connected with the establishment; and, on the introduction by Mr. Palmer of the new system of Mail Coaches, Mr. Freeling was appointed in 1785 his assistant to carry the improvements into effect. He was introduced ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... the sea-lion may have been in the matter of evolution, I am at a loss to guess, unless there is anything in the slug theory; but if he keep steadily on, and cultivate his moustache and his stomach with proper assiduity, I have no doubt of his one day turning up at a seaside resort and carrying on life in future as a fierce old German out for a bathe. Or the Cape sea-lion, if only he continue his obsequious smile and his habit of planting his fore-flappers ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... scratching of the shovels in the coal, and the crash of the coal thrown far into the ship were heard. It is, from the American contemplation, shocking for women to do such work, but they did their share with unflinching assiduity, and without visible distress. When the night work was going on they were evidently fatigued, and at each change that allowed a brief spell of waiting, they were stretched out on the planks of the boats, the greater ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... circle, thanks to the assiduity of Hiller, was considerably widened, and it now became a sort of club whose object was to meet freely every week in a room at Engel's restaurant at the Postplatz. Just about this time the famous ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... occasion, the judgment of the stewards being without appeal, the company sat down. The obnoxious guest made no more attempt to obtrude his conversation on those about him, but appeared to listen to the table-talk with peculiar assiduity, as if some inestimable secret, otherwise beyond his reach, might be conveyed in a casual word. And in truth, to those who could understand and value it, there was rich matter in the upgushings and outpourings of these initiated souls to whom sorrow had been a talisman, ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... contrary is really the case. I earnestly therefore entreat men of this description, not to meddle with any of the profound speculations of the Platonic philosophy, for it is more dangerous to urge them to such an employment, than to advise them to follow their sordid avocations with unwearied assiduity, and toil for wealth with increasing alacrity and vigor; as they will by this means give free scope to the base habits of their soul, and sooner suffer that punishment which in such as these must always precede mental illumination, and be the inevitable consequence ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... been raised and educated there, if one might except the two years in which he had studied law at Columbia University. He knew common and criminal law, perhaps, as well as any citizen of his State, but he had never practised with that assiduity which makes for pre-eminent success at the bar. He had made money, and had had splendid opportunities to make a great deal more if he had been willing to stultify his conscience, but that he had never been able to do. And yet his ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... accorded a generous and helpful sympathy to those who were workers in the field in which he laboured himself with so great assiduity and success; and he was not only a member both of the Scottish History Society and of the Scottish Text Society, but took an active interest in their affairs. He was also one of the representatives of the Church of Scotland in the General Presbyterian Alliance from the date of its ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... of such value, both inside and out, both in flesh and wool, is hunted by the mountain Indians with great assiduity. It is an animal most difficult to approach, and there is rarely any cover on these naked plains by which ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... to answer him. A rush of memories came over her. The time on board ship when she had so systematically avoided him, and cultivated with assiduity the one who had ruined her, stood up before her with awful distinctness. But she pulled herself together, and tried to ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... my friend on guard until I return from the cells. You must not attempt to summon assistance, or cry out, or move from your chair. My friend does not understand either Russian or German, so there is no use in making any appeal to him, and much as I like you personally, and admire your assiduity in science, our case is so desperate that if you make any motion whatever, he will be ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... His assiduity was all in vain. He grew gray in his ineffectual attempt; and was at length found dead at his post. His grave is still shown in the island of Palma, and a cross is erected on the spot where he used to sit and look out upon the sea, in hopes of the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... only the source from which various subsequent writers, and especially Robert Morison (1620-1683) derived their ideas of botanical arrangement but it was a mine of science to which Linnaeus himself gratefully avowed his obligations. Linnaeus's copy of the book evinces the great assiduity with which he studied it; he laboured throughout to remedy the defect of the want of synonyms, sub-joined his own generic names to nearly every species, and particularly indicated the two remarkable passages where the germination of plants and their sexual distinctions ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... who had been gradually rising in the social scale for many years, saw no reason why he should not win the hand of Donna Tullia as well as any one else, if only Giovanni Saracinesca could be kept out of the way; and he devoted himself with becoming assiduity to the service of the widow, while doing his utmost to promote Giovanni's attachment for the Astrardente, which he had been the first to discover. Donna Tullia would probably have laughed to scorn the idea that Del Ferice could think of ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... and thoughtful. Though a celibite in his own person, Myndert had not now to learn that the infant god as often does his mischief through this quiet agency, as in any other manner. He became, therefore, mute in his turn, watching the slow movement of the periagua with as much assiduity as if he saw his ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... de Cl****** T******* had been brought to Madame de T.'s by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, former Bishop of Senlis, and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was notable for his lofty figure and his assiduity at the Academy; through the glass door of the neighboring hall of the library where the French Academy then held its meetings, the curious could, on every Tuesday, contemplate the Ex-Bishop of Senlis, usually standing erect, freshly powdered, in violet hose, with his back turned to the door, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... and of James VI. until his Accession to the Crown of England. This is undoubtedly his best work, but not of such general interest as his others. His materials were scanty, and he did not consult such as were in his reach with much assiduity. The invaluable records of the archives of Simancas were not then opened to the world, but he lived among the scenes of his narrative, and had the advantage of knowing all the traditions and of hearing all the vehement opinions ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. and the good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these matters gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various



Words linked to "Assiduity" :   assiduous, singleness, intentness, engrossment, diligence, industry, industriousness



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com