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By design   /baɪ dɪzˈaɪn/   Listen
By design

adverb
1.
With intention; in an intentional manner.  Synonyms: advisedly, by choice, deliberately, designedly, intentionally, on purpose, purposely.  "I did this by choice"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"By design" Quotes from Famous Books



... instead of the satisfaction of each individual claim was accepted because the only alternatives were a rigorous exaction of the whole amount stated to be due on each claim, which might in some instances be exaggerated by design, in other over-rated through error, and which, therefore, it would have been both ungracious and unjust to have insisted on; or a settlement by a mixed commission, to which the French negotiators were very averse, and which experience in other cases had ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... least Mischief? Do you think, Madam, this a just way of Reasoning? I dare say you do not. Is not this then the very Case I am speaking of? Is the Stage, as 'tis now manag'd, any thing else but a downright Rebellion against God and his Holy Religion? Are not the Plays, (if not by Design) yet by a natural and necessary Consequence, an undermining of his Laws, and an Attempt upon his Government? And must it not then follow, that every one that frequents them, is a Party in the Cause, and ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous

... Whether by design or not, Mary Edwards turned to her Testament and read the next words that followed ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon County is sufficiently evident; and if I have since done anything, either by design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he who knows of that thing and conceals it is a traitor to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... thus spoke, he drew, with the calmness of a man who saw no use in circumlocution, a heavy bag of gold from beneath his frock, and deposited it, without a second look at the treasure, on the table. When this offering was made, he turned aside, less by design than by a careless movement of the body, and, when he faced his companion again, the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... Two round holes pierced its surface—a brick's length dividing them. One can understand the making of the first hole, but the making of the second? Fifteen feet below resounded the busy traffic of the city. Did two tunnels converge by chance? did they converge by design? or was the second made by some colossal rat, stretched at full length, and trusting his life to his superhuman hearing? I can only state the facts. I do not pretend to ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... nobody moved, but there was a murmuring, and all eyes were fixed upon the speaker, who, either by design or accident, leaned upon the haft ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... should be what he thinks What are become of all our brave philosophical precepts? What can they not do, what do they fear to do (for beauty) What can they suffer who do not fear to die? What did I say? that I have? no, Chremes, I had What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design What is more accidental than reputation? What may be done to-morrow, may be done to-day What more? they lie with their lovers learnedly What need have they of anything but to live beloved and honoured ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... Tydides, lest a meaner Greek Should boast that he had smitten Dolon first, And Diomede win only second praise. He poised his lifted spear, and thus exclaim'd. 435 Stand! or my spear shall stop thee. Death impends At every step; thou canst not 'scape me long. He said, and threw his spear, but by design, Err'd from the man. The polish'd weapon swift O'er-glancing his right shoulder, in the soil 440 Stood fixt, beyond him. Terrified he stood, Stammering, and sounding through his lips the clash Of chattering teeth, with visage deadly wan. They panting rush'd on ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... house, and there, by an inspiration, pulled up the mare—glad enough she was to stop, poor thing—for it occurred to me that if I rode to the front I should very probably be assegaied and of no further use. I tried the door, which was made of stout stinkwood planks. By design, or accident, it had been left unbolted. As I thrust it open Hans arrived with a rush, clinging to the roan with his face hidden in its mane. The beast pulled up by the side of the mare which it had been pursuing, and in the faint light I saw that ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... greatness. The Duchess Matilda came over to England, and was hallowed to Queen at Westminster by Archbishop Ealdred. We may believe that no part of his success gave William truer pleasure. But the presence of the Lady was important in another way. It was doubtless by design that she gave birth on English soil to her youngest son, afterwards the renowned King Henry the First. He alone of William's children was in any sense an Englishman. Born on English ground, son of a crowned King and his Lady, Englishmen ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... to be from her lover, one addressed to herself and the other to him, in the former of which he persuades her to meet him at a certain place, and in the latter informs the parent of their elopement and asks forgiveness. Now it strikes me that these notes or letters were placed there by design, and that they are both forgeries. I know the hand-writing of the young man he accuses, and though the manuscript of the two letters is a very good imitation of his, yet it is not the same. Beside, I do not believe him capable ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... into the hall. Fred balanced himself on the footboard of the bed, and watched his brother expectantly. Earlier in the interview Charles had begun to say something as to their father's affairs, but had failed to reach the point, either by design or through the chance drift of their talk. Charles was deeply worried; that was clear; and Fred resolved to give him time to swing back ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... coincidence of pure chance. Is it not conceivable, Louis, that an even more remarkable series might be brought about by design?" ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... we confine our attention to a single structure, how wonderful are the modifications which it is seen to undergo, although never losing its typical character! How are we to explain this? By design manifested in special creation, or by descent with adaptive modification? If it is said by design manifested in special creation, we must suppose that the Deity formed an archetypal plan of certain structures, and that He determined to adhere ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes

... shapes suggested by stone vessels. The same may be said of its use in connection with wood and wicker, or with vessels of other materials. Forms of vessels so derived may be said to have an adventitious origin, yet they are essentially copies, although not so by design, and may as readily be ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes

... of Napoleon which was last placed on the summit of the grand column at Boulogne with extraordinary ceremony, has been turned, by design or accident, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... move a step, you are a dead man." Philip and his followers embarking. Philip in prison. Philip struck him full in the face. Pierre listens at the open window of the inn. Gaspard Vaillant gets a surprise. "You have not heard the news, Monsieur Philip?" "That cross is placed there by design." Philip, Claire ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... the endorsement of such diverse protagonists as Royall and Randolph, the wording of the executive order was in part both vague and misleading. The vagueness was there by design. The failure to mention either segregation or integration puzzled many people and angered others, but it was certainly to the advantage of a president who wanted to give the least offense possible to voters who supported segregation. In fact integration was not the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... at the beginning of the eleventh the Northmen reached the shores of North America. About that time, it is known, they settled Iceland, and from there a colony went to Greenland, where they long remained. From there, either by design or by accident, some of them, it is supposed, may have reached the coast of Labrador, and thence sailed down until they came to the region which they named Vinland. From there they sent home glowing accounts to their countrymen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... to fall into it; she had a mind to know if I was in love, and as she did not ask me who I was in love with, but let me see her intention was only to serve me, I had no suspicion that she spoke either out of curiosity or by design. ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette

... last night they were together, for the evening was close, and all were weary. Grace thought Graham looked positively haggard; but, whether by design or chance, he kept in the shadows of the piazza most of the time. Still she had to admit that he was the life of the party. Mrs. Mayburn was apparently so overcome by the heat as to be comparatively ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... involved in such an act of fanatical vandalism. That the books preserved to us would be by far the most objectionable from Gregory's alleged point of view may be noted for what it is worth in favour of the theory of destruction by chance rather than by design. ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... the inconstant, and the adventurous, may be said to throw themselves by design into the arms of fortune, and voluntarily to quit the power of governing themselves; they engage in a course of life in which little can be ascertained by previous measures; nor is it any wonder that their time is passed between elation and despondency, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... pliable. What is the power you retain over my fate I am unable to discover. You may destroy me; but you cannot make me tremble. I am not concerned to enquire, whether what I have suffered flowed from you by design or otherwise; whether you were the author of my miseries, or only connived at them. This I know, that I have suffered too exquisitely on your account, for me to feel the least remaining claim on your part to my making ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... was sent by the United States Government to the scene of the disaster, and, after a careful investigation of a most thorough character, decided that the explosion was not internal and accidental but external and by design. This finding made war between the United States ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... black and bristling, as was also the thick hair, which lay back like grass before a breeze. The shaggy eyebrows were parted by deep clefts, the dark corrugations of frowning. One wondered if the man did not turn the foreboding scowl on and off by design. But all these were matters that fitted in with the other striking "properties," and Jacqueline was fairly well satisfied with her Fra Diavolo. As she declared to herself, here was the very dramatic presence to ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... ladylike legend, "he made his appearance at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk coat with an expensive pair of ruffles; the coat some one contrived to soil, and it was sent to be cleansed; but, either by accident, or probably by design, the day after it came home, the sleeves became daubed with paint, which was not discovered until the ruffles also, to his great ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... the grass and quite dead. The boys were about to commence skinning them, when Basil and Francois remembered what they had observed just before firing; and, curious to convince themselves whether the big-horn had actually tumbled over the cliff by accident or leaped off by design, they walked forward to the spot. On looking over the edge, they saw a tree shaking violently below them, and among its branches a large red body was visible. It was the cimmaron; and, to their astonishment, they perceived that he was hanging suspended ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... Comique just after reading the Grand Cyrus came into the present plan partly by design and partly by accident; but I had not fully anticipated the advantage of doing so. The contrast of the two, and the general relation between them could, indeed, escape no one; but an interval of a great many years since the last reading of Scarron's work had ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... aside a curtain in their mad rush, and had come face to face with the silence and blackness of an abyss. Miss Wycliffe rose from the chair as if starting back from such a vision, and though her tone, when she spoke, was light, it was apparently so by design. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... Whether by design or accident is not known, but the fact remains that in or about the year mentioned a cross took place between these same hounds and terriers. It was found that a handier dog was produced for the business for which he was required, and it did not take many years to populate ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... by design, drawn off from Caliban the elements of whatever is ethereal and refined, to compound them in the unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever more finely conceived than this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the gross and delicate. Ariel is imaginary ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... proposed to me. I refused him again and again. He persisted; my mother his advocate. I told him my dislike of all men—of him—of matrimony—still he persisted. I used him with tyranny—led, indeed, partly by my temper, partly by design; hoping thereby to get rid of him; till the poor man (his character unexceptionably uniform) still persisting, made himself a merit with me by his patience. This brought down my pride, [I never, Sir, was accounted very ungenerous, nor ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... by accident but by design that an aristocratic class was created in French Canada. The perpetual contrast between the English and the French systems of colonisation was but the difference between natural evolution and artificial construction. The Canadian ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... eventful year of 1914, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, for the truth may never be known, the review had a different aspect. There was no gaiety. The number of ships assembled this time was greater than ever before—216 actual fighting ships passed slowly before the royal yacht—there were no flags, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... forgetfulness or negligence of the workmen, or want of time, that they have not put the finishing stroke to so beautiful a piece of architecture?" "Sir," answered Alla ad Deen, "it was for none of these reasons that your majesty sees it in this state. The omission was by design, it was by my orders that the workmen left it thus, since I wished that your majesty should have the glory of finishing this hall, and of course the palace." "If you did it with this intention," replied the sultan, "I take ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... he left us, I remember, by the mail tonga of the third of June. He dropped into my office to say goodbye, but I was busy with the Member and could see nobody, so he left a card with 'P.P.C.' on it. I kept the card by accident, and I keep it still by design, for the sake ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... death of a few animals, many of whom are themselves carnivorous, when the infant who has lived for a single day has killed an infinitely greater number of human beings than the longest life would suffice to murder by design? Or, if we sacrifice either our lives or our comforts by scrupulously denying ourselves the use of animal food, can we derive much consolation from considering that we spare a few scores of beings, when we involuntarily, but knowingly, are every moment massacreing more ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... some treachery designed? I went to the door, and found that it was locked. This heightened my suspicions. I was alone, a stranger, in an upper room of the house. Should my conductor have disappeared, by design or by accident, and some one of the family should find me here, what would be the consequence? Should I not be arrested as a thief, and conveyed to prison? My transition from the street to this chamber would not be more rapid than my ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... her. I gazed at her small, slim figure reclining in the deck chair. Her long, gray robe parted by design, I have no doubt, to display her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled in a heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmine lips were parted with a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... side of the brook were filled with troops, the French on the right and the Prussians on the left. The firing had ceased, a few shots were still heard from time to time, but they were evidently by design. We looked at each other as if to say, "Let us breathe awhile now, and we will commence ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... they could, into it, and with the result of death or mutilation when they could not. What proportion cleared the trench is nowhere stated. Those who did, closed up and went down upon the enemy with such divinity of fervor—(I use the word divinity by design: the inspiration of God must have prompted this movement to those whom even then he was calling to his presence)—that two results followed. As regarded the enemy, this 23d Dragoons, not, I believe, originally ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... whom I have known there have been several who did not accept without modification the theory of natural selection, and supplemented it by design, amongst whom I may mention the great American botanist, Asa Gray,—one of the most distinguished of Darwinians,—who accepted the method of evolution as the modus operandi of the Supreme Intelligence. Professor Jeffries Wyman, the associate of Agassiz in the University, who was one of the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... thoughts if she had known that he was steadily regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by design, was so adjusted that his sight was free, and that it never wandered from her face face an instant That when she looked towards him' In the obscure dark corner, her speaking eyes, more earnest and pathetic in their voiceless ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... quoted there is, of course, again to be found the cloven-hoof: by all means no teleological principle! But why in the world should we not accept a teleological principle, since it is clearly evident that the whole world of life is permeated by teleology, that is, by design and finality? Why not? Forsooth, because then belief in God would again enter and create havoc in the ranks of ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... to his feet again from behind the rock where he had crouched, for one or two bullets, either by design or accident, had come very near him indeed. Quickly the towel at the end of the stick waved the message to the officer in command. Just as he was going to supplement it, a bullet passed clean through his impromptu flag and grazed his serge. He went on with his message as if nothing had happened. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... after the little affair in Marseilles I don't trust them," replied The Sparrow. "When anyone makes a slip, either by design or sheer carelessness, or perhaps by reason of inordinate avarice, then I always have to safeguard myself. I suspect—and ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... manifestly convinced and relieved. This action seemed to be a magnet for Pearce. He detached himself from the group, and, approaching Kells, tapped him significantly on the shoulder; and whether by design or accident the fact was that he took a position where Kells was ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... once. Saunders, I learnt to know well. It was by chance, however, and not by design, that I met a third person of the story, Morton the butler. Saunders and I were walking in the Zoological Gardens one Sunday afternoon, when he called my attention to an old man who was standing before the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... The supposed body of Constantine was disinterred at Carnarvon, and received honorable burial in a church. The crown of Arthur and a piece of the holy Cross, once the property of the Welsh princes, were added to the King's regalia. It was probably by design that Queen Eleanor was confined at Carnarvon, April 25, 1284, of a prince whom the Welsh might claim as a countryman.[74] At last, having lingered for more than a year about the principality, Edward celebrated the consummation of his conquests, August 1, 1284, by a splendid tournament ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... But in modern terms there are not really enormous numbers of them yet, and for their pleasure and fulfillment a great deal of varied and handsome and historic landscape has been more or less preserved, by design or ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... superior talents, we have not the smallest doubt. In a letter written many years later to Villiers, he expresses himself thus: "Countenance, encourage, and advance able men in all kinds, degrees, and professions. For in the time of the Cecils, the father and the son, able men were by design and of purpose suppressed." ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the house, and whenever they went out to dine they almost invariably met him. She had begun to have a feeling that people eyed them covertly, with significant glances, that they were thrown together by design. Wherever they met, he always fell to her lot as dinner-partner, and he had begun to affect an attitude of proprietorship towards her which was yet too indefinite for ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... haunted him in their meek appealing tenderness ever since. He did not meet her anywhere by accident, and he did not try to meet her by design. He only thought of her constantly. But what had he to do with the banker's wealthy heiress, the future mistress of Lone? If he were so unwise as to seek her acquaintance, the world would be quick ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... for generosity has come again. Any man or woman who, whether by design or carelessness, attempts to mar this growing friendship is perpetrating a crime against humanity as grave as that of the first armed Hun who stepped across the Belgian threshold. It were better for them that mill-stones ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... established fact that parts of North America were seen centuries before, though no permanent settlement nor continuity of intercourse ensued, has been used to discredit him, though he was undeniably the pioneer who set out with a plan to discover, and did discover by design, what others found only by accident. His geographical ideas were derived, they say, from Behaim and Toscanelli; his nautical skill from Pinzon; his certainty of finding new lands from Alonzo Sanchez; his courage and daring from some of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... a quantity of arsenic has been swallowed, by design or mistake, its effects may be counteracted by immediately drinking plenty of milk. The patient should afterwards take a dram of the liver of sulphur, in a pint of warm water, a little at a time as he can bear it; or he may substitute some soap water, a quantity of common ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said. "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers

... silver, and diamonds, rubies, and emeralds composing the windows? But what most surprises me is, that a hall of this magnificence should be left with one of its windows incomplete and unfinished." "Sire," answered Aladdin, "the omission was by design, since I wished that you should have the glory of finishing this hall." "I take your intention kindly," said the sultan, "and will give orders about ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... the balls, and were not created to answer this special deflection. We are required, by the hypothesis, to confine attention in point of time, from the instant preceding the impact of the balls, to the time of their arrival at the opposite corners of the table. The cues aremoved by design. The impacts are acts from design. The first half of the motion of each ball is under the direction of design. We mean by this the particular design of each player. But, at the instant of the collision ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... The three were left alone, Ernestine and Francis remained apart as though by design. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... under the paymaster for the northern district of Inverness. I believe that such pensioners do receive payment of their pensions in goods. Of course that may be done by consent of the pensioners themselves. I don't say that it is done by design of the merchants, but I am aware that it ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... first time he came into the assembly was upon occasion of a largess of money which he made to the people. This was not done by design, but as he passed along he heard a shout, and inquired the cause; and having learned that there was a gift-making to the people, he went in among them and gave money also. The multitude thereupon applauding him, and shouting, he was so transported at it, that ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... youngster but six months older than me, the son of a friend of my family. I told him the story of my affair with the nun. We used to get leave to go to the water closet from different masters, so as not to be supposed to go together by design. From feeling our cocks and frigging ourselves until we spent, which we both now could do, my friend suggested that I should put it into his bottom, which a young usher in his first school had taught him to do. He was a plump, good-looking lad, with wonderfully large buttocks, and with an arsehole ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... morally sure that after you had written it some other person had forbidden your making use of it in any way, and instinctively—anyhow, I suppose you might say it was by instinct—I knew that it had reached me, of all persons, by accident and not by design. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... his men, and there was no purpose in stopping the refugees in that flight from New York which so aroused the pity of Washington. As it was Howe took sixty-seven guns. By accident, or, it is said, by design of the Americans themselves, New York soon took fire and one-third of ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... is a sketch of what I remember; the guests divided up the room, blacks on one side, whites on the other, whether by accident or by design I know not, I should think and hope by intention. (So sorry this is not reproduced ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... after day, she met Alan Merrick, half by accident, half by design, on the slopes of the Holmwood. They talked much together, for Alan liked her and understood her. His heart went out to her. Compact of like clay, he knew the meaning of her hopes and aspirations. Often as he sketched he would look up and wait, expecting to catch the faint sound of ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... been generally something found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct of government. The people have no interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and not their crime. But with the governing part of the state, it is for otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as by mistake. "Les revolutions qui arrivent dans les grands etats ne sont point un effect du hazard, ni du caprice des peuples. Rien ne revolte les grands d'un royaume comme un gouvernement foible et derange. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and his pistol; and since his own horse was travelling still faster than the chaise, he must withdraw all of them again in the inside of the fraction of a minute. He did so, but he left the charge of the pistol behind him—whether by design or accident I shall never know, and I dare say he has forgotten! Probably he had only meant to threaten, in hopes of causing us to arrest our flight. In the same moment came the explosion and a pitiful cry from Missy; and my gentleman, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his prosecution was ordered; it must be, therefore, by design that he was included in the general oblivion. He is said to have had friends in the house, such as Marvel, Morrice, and sir Thomas Clarges: and, undoubtedly, a man like him must have had influence. A very particular story ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... to Henley that as his store was on the most direct way to her home Dixie would naturally drive past it on her return, so he went to the front, taking pains to stand back a few feet from the entrance that his position might not appear to be by design. He was glad that Cahews and Pomp were busy in the rear, and he became conscious of the hope that no stray customer would interrupt him at what seemed such a grave and important moment. Time passed, and still old Bob and the ramshackle wagon ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... consent, to share the life of a Canadian of Anderson's type. What would it be to fail in such a venture! To dare it, and then to find life sinking in sands of cowardice and weakness! Very often, and sometimes as though by design, Anderson had spoken to her of the part to be played by women in Canada; not in the defensive, optimistic tone of their last walk together, but forbiddingly, with a kind of rough insistence. Substantial comfort, a large amount ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that his search had not been wholly in vain, leading as it did to what might be called the shadow of a clue, and he resolved to continue it. There had been leaks before in the Confederacy, some by chance and some by design, notably an instance of the former when Lee's message to his lieutenant was lost by the messenger and found by a Northern sympathizer, thus informing his opponents of his plan and compelling him to fight the costly battle of Antietam. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... occasional flare or star-shell would go up. One of these came unusually close to the swiftly moving Fokker. Immediately after that came bombing from Archies stationed along the enemy front. Among these some, either accidentally or by design, sent bursting shrapnel all around him. He heard the wings being struck repeatedly but, knowing his great speed, he hoped to be out of ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... In the midst of this damaging criticism Doederlein quotes Walther, who has also commented upon the Annals, but in terms of enthusiastic commendation, for he praises such writing as first-rate workmanship—"adjustments by design," says the ingenious German; not, of course, the unconscious errors, that a modern European might make in a case of forgery: the discovery reminds me of Mr. Ruskin's unqualified eulogies of everything ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... by design or accident Sclamowsky kept his hand for a moment longer on my aunt's necklace, and as he took his finger away, I fancied that he looked at her fixedly for a second, and muttered something either to himself or her, the meaning of which ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... Wallace's essay on. Darwin and Wallace's joint paper on. Sudden. Governed by design. Cause of. Mimetic, of butterflies. Governed by design. Mimetic, of plants. In colours of insects. Transmission of. Analogical. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... degrees of common inflammation, it follows, that upon a higher excitement being superinduced upon it, the serous effusion should cease. This, therefore, is found to happen in every case, where such higher excitement is brought on. This increased inflammation is sometimes occasioned by design or accident, and at other times, it occurs in the natural and progressive course of some disease, formed within the cavity, which is the seat of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... asked, and have attempted to answer, such questions as these: What are we? what was our origin? what is our destination? Whence came this stupendous fabric of Nature? Is it self-existent and eternal? or did it come into being at some definite time? If not eternal, how was it produced? by chance or by design? by inevitable fate or by spontaneous will? Whence the order which pervades it, and the beauty by which it is adorned? Whence, above all, the evil, moral and physical, by which it is disfigured and cursed? And, in reply to these thoughtful questionings, various theories ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... intellect and will are duly and properly brushed up, they exact their penalties in default from the stupid and the invertebrate, but the feeling and emotional side of the nature is too often ignored. It is left to develop by chance instead of being nurtured by design. As a consequence a vast amount of distorted feeling exists in the world, and a very great deal of emotion is repressed. Music is at once a means of cultivating the rightful feelings towards life, and an outlet for the repressed ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and criticks, and that he at last deliberately persisted ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... officers of the regular army, but also of eminent civilians to high command and military responsibility in the immense volunteer force authorized by Congress. Events, rather than original purpose, had brought McClellan into prominence and ranking duty; but now, by design, the President gave John C. Fremont a commission of major-general, and placed him in command of the third great military field, with headquarters at St. Louis, with the leading idea that he should organize the military strength of the Northwest, first, to hold Missouri ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... the decisive moment for action had come, and feeling, as by instinct, that a miscalculation on his part would be fatal to poor Mollie, poised his weapon, and made a vigorous lunge at the savage fish. By accident, rather than by design, the boat-hook struck the shark in the eye; and with a fearful struggle he disappeared beneath the surface. Grasping the extended arm of Mollie, he dragged her into the boat before another of ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... the Greenland settlement is historical fact which cannot be doubted. Partly by accident and partly by design, the Norsemen had been carried from Norway to the Orkneys and the Hebrides and Iceland, and from there to Greenland. This having happened, it was natural that their ships should go beyond Greenland itself. During the four hundred years in which the Norse ships went from Europe ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock

... painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... "Nay, by design, guest Holly. My trade of physician includes the study of future events, for I am the chief of the Shamans or Seers of this land, and, having been warned of your coming quite recently, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... bright water of a natural spring which he can never manufacture. We can sometimes form what is humorous by imitation, but not by following any rules or directions; we even seem to be led more to it by accident than by design. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange



Words linked to "By design" :   unintentionally, accidentally



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