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

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




Diminution   /dˌɪmənˈuʃən/   Listen
Diminution

noun
1.
Change toward something smaller or lower.  Synonym: decline.
2.
The statement of a theme in notes of lesser duration (usually half the length of the original).
3.
The act of decreasing or reducing something.  Synonyms: decrease, reduction, step-down.






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 |





"Diminution" Quotes from Famous Books



... criterion, which is of special importance, because it concerns not only her development as an individual, but her development as a woman. That criterion is furnished us by the menstrual function. It may safely be said that that exercise is excessive and must be immediately curtailed which leads to the diminution of this function, much more to its disappearance. I would, indeed, urge this as a test of the highest importance, always applicable to whatever circumstances. Defect in this respect should never be looked upon lightly; it may, indeed, ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... produced in the field of literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency; and, finally, one share to the person who shall have most or best promoted the fraternity of nations and the abolition or diminution of standing armies and the formation or increase of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm, the one for physiology or medicine by the Caroline Medical Institute in Stockholm; the prize for literature ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... juste milieu, young gentlemen. The young dogs of the day are all either unprincipled heathen, like yourself, or Amadisses, like our worthy host." The old gentleman's face and manners were like those of a patriarch, regretting the general decay of virtue, not the imaginary diminution of a single vice. He concluded with a sigh that, "The true preux des dames went out with the full periwig; ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... could be devised. The qualification of an elector is a given amount of direct contribution. This qualification is so high as to amount to representation, and France is already so taxed as to make a diminution of the burdens one of the first objects at which a good government would aim; it follows, that as the ends of liberty are attained, its foundations would be narrowed, and the representation of property would be more and more assured. ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... hundreds of miles, the remains no doubt of a great extension of North America in the direction of Europe which had sunk below the surface ages ago. In this shallow water—the "Banks" of Newfoundland—fish, especially codfish, swarmed in millions, and still continue to swarm with little, if any, diminution from the constant toll of the fishing fleets. Another creature found in great abundance on these coasts is the true lobster,[2] which filled as important a part in the diet of the Beothuk natives, before the European occupation, as the salmon ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... in the most discordant tones, until echo herself grew hoarse and disgusted with the repetition. I was well guarded to be sure, but could have dispensed with the attention, and would have bargained for less honor, with an equal diminution ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... as the light and air, which kept the children in comparative health; but, on the further diminution of rations which took place after Kirk's fleet retired, they began ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty

... administration. Funds are frequently given for a special object, as the foundation of a professorship. But the amount may be inadequate. It is not expedient to decline the gift. Properly to endow the new chair, therefore, revenue must be drawn from the general funds, which thus suffer diminution. Donations are of the greatest advantage to a college, which are free from conditions relative ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... of this vast procession extended, seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious to determine how long this appearance would continue, I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down to observe them. It was then half-past one; I sat for more than an hour, but instead of a diminution of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to increase, both in numbers and rapidity; and anxious to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. About four o'clock in the afternoon I crossed Kentucky River, at the town of Frankfort, at which time the living torrent above ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... a man's reason and intelligence reached perfection when he attained the age of forty, the age of the Prophet when God sent him forth on his mission; but that they undergo alteration and diminution when the man reaches sixty, the age in which God took the Prophet's soul to himself. He said, again, that the intelligence is clearest at the dawn ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... so as gradually to liquidate the whole cost, and then to collect no more toll than would pay to keep the works in repair. Such is the true interest of the States and of the nation. If New York could collect a toll for navigating the Hudson, it would be against her interest, for the diminution and diversion of business, and tax on labor and products, would far exceed the net proceeds of any such toll. The same principle will apply to these canals. As some of them, unfortunately, are owned by private companies, adequate provision should be made, to prevent these ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... cause of barrenness, either in man or woman, be through scarcity or diminution of the natural seed, then such things are to be taken as do increase the seed, and incite to stir up to venery, and further conception; which I shall here set down, and then conclude ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... godly." This was an idea to which he more than once recurred. In March, 1782, in the course of a long letter to Livingston, he said: "A small increase of industry in every American, male and female, with a small diminution of luxury, would produce a sum far superior to all we can hope to beg or borrow from all our friends in Europe." He reiterated the same views again in March, and again in December, and doubtless much oftener.[70] ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... of moisture from which a drier atmosphere would relieve them; and that living bodies, so circumstanced, are threatened with typhus and typhoid fever. It is highly probable, therefore, that narcotics, in such cases, may allay a morbid irritability of the nerves, or effect a salutary diminution of healthful sensibility; under such circumstances, the desiccating and sedative effects of tobacco-smoking may prove beneficial; while, in all ordinary states of the system and of the atmosphere, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various

... times pleasanter to get on in the world. Let the sheepiness be set on one side and the goatiness on the other, and immediately you know where you are. It is not necessary to ask that there be any increase of the one or any diminution of the other, but only that each shall preempt its own territory and stay there. Milk is good, and water is good, but don't set the milk-pail under the pump. Pleasure softens pain, but pain embitters pleasure; and who would not rather have his happiness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... was to shrug his shoulders, and raise the neck of the bottle to his lips. Jacques hastened to imitate him. The thin, yellowish, transparent glass gave a perfect view of the progressive diminution of the liquor. The stony countenance of Morok, and the pale thin face of Jacques, on which already stood large drops of cold sweat, were now, as well as the features of the other guests, illuminated by the bluish light of the punch; every eye was fixed upon Morok and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... improvements in method of production it would entail smaller wages. Improvements, however, might soon obviate that necessity. With machinery growing more and more efficient, the day may be shortened with no diminution of wages; and the natural effect of increasing power to produce has always been some shortening of labor-time coupled with some enlargement of pay. Within the last one hundred years the period of daily labor in some types of manufacturing has come to cover only a little over one third of the twenty-four ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark

... supposes a loss of 23 per cent of Germany's industrial undertaking and a diminution of 13 per ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... superior to him in authority, and undermined his influence within his own jurisdiction.[***] It became usual, in creating an earl, to give him a fixed salary, commonly about twenty pounds a year, in lieu of his third of the fines: the diminution of his power kept pace with the retrenchment of his profit: and the dignity of earl, instead of being territorial and official, dwindled into personal and titular. Such were the mighty alterations which already had fully taken place, or were gradually advancing, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... of an extremely low temperature on Mars is based on the law of the diminution of radiant energy inversely as the square of the distance, together with the assumption that no qualifying circumstances, or no modification of that law, can enter into the problem. According to this view, it could be shown that the temperature ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... hallucinatory pictures. On the contrary, it is possible to suggest to our subject that such and such an object is gradually diminishing in size, and finally that it disappears altogether. He sees and describes this diminution, and finally looks in vain for the object which, he asserts, has vanished, but which, as a matter of fact, is perfectly visible to all others not under the influence of the suggestion. We frequently suffer from these "negative hallucinations," ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... wealth of material and is conceived throughout in the utmost spirit of optimistic joy and freedom.[161] The Exposition has a subsidiary theme of its own, beginning at measure 26, which reappears with rhythmic modification (diminution), and most eloquently announced by the bassoons, in the first section of the final Coda. After the brilliant second theme (45-63) there is an impressive closing theme (with some biting fp dissonances) which forms the basis of the Presto portion ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... art—masterhands' work—is wholly out of his reach. And we are so accustomed to look upon this as the natural course and necessity of things, that we never set ourselves in any wise to diminish the evil; and yet it is an evil perfectly capable of diminution. ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... of the Jaw in the Civilised Races is the title of a pamphlet by Mr. F. HOWARD COLLINS. We haven't read it; but if it be in favour of the diminution of "jaw," we heartily recommend its study to all Members of Parliament, actual or intending, and to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various

... corrupted the people by his example, and ruined them by his expence, knew no diminution of the loyalty, whatever he might of the affection, of his people, and ended his days in the practice of the same vices, and surrounded by the same luxury, in which he ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... the report sufficiently to be annoyed by it during the excitement and pleasure of the evening, and at present her principal vexation was caused by the rapid diminution of the company. She and her brother were the very last to depart, even Florence had gone to bed, and Lady Rotherwood, looking exceedingly tired, kissed Lily at the foot of the stairs, pitied her for going home in an open ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... steam flowing from a vessel at 15.6 lb. per square inch absolute pressure through an orifice into another vessel at 15 lb. pressure absolute is 366 ft. per second, the drop of pressure of 0.6 lb. corresponding to a diminution of volume of 4 per cent. in the opposite direction. The whole 45 turbines are so proportioned that each one, starting from the steam inlet, has 4 per cent. more blade area or capacity than that preceding it. Taking the pressure at the exhaust end to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... speech on this interesting subject,"my servants, who have had their share of my fortune, begin to think there is little to be made of me in future. But while I am the scoundrel's master I will be so, and permit no neglectno, nor endure a hair's-breadth diminution of the respect I am entitled to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... to judge by the wrinkles on her face and the white of her eyebrows, though her hair was hidden under a gaudy and dirty cotton plaid handkerchief and her tall form seemed little bowed by age. Two coal-black eyes, showing no diminution of their natural fire, gleamed from under those white eyebrows; and on the portions of the cheeks yet left smooth enough to show the texture of the skin, there were deep gashes that had once been the tattooing of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... with his characteristic energy and enthusiasm. But how far the latter was damped by his prompt discovery that the whole project of the Thames defences was faulty and unsound it is impossible to say, but his attention to his work in all its details certainly showed no diminution or falling off. There were five forts in all to be constructed—three on the south or Kent side of the river, viz., New Tavern, Shornmead, and Cliffe; and two, Coalhouse and Tilbury, on the north or Essex ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... Prescott Spofford (Houghton, Mifflin Company). Mrs. Spofford has collected in this volume the best among the short stories which she has written since 1904, and the collection shows no diminution in her powers of accurate and tender observation of New England folk. These fourteen prose idyls have a mellow humanism which portrays the last autumn fires of a dying tradition. They rank with the best work of Miss Jewett and Mrs. Spofford herself in the same kind, and are a permanent ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... known to the Government, who hoped, however, that the demand would not be pressed after the effective assistance rendered by the Rumanian army. 'If this be not a ground for the extension of our territory, it is surely none for its diminution,' remarked Cogalniceanu at the Berlin Congress. Moreover, besides the promises of the Tsar, there was the Convention of the previous year, which, in exchange for nothing more than free passage for the Russian armies, guaranteed Rumania's integrity. But upon this stipulation ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... they contrary, that by the impairing and diminution of the true faith, the distresses and servitude of their country, aspire to high dignity, rule and promotion here, after a shameful end in this life (which God grant them), shall be thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulf of Hell, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... the morrow is very well known among us also. The distinction between our saving and the anxious thrift of other peoples lies merely here, that our saving is intended net to guard us against want, but simply against the danger of a future diminution of the standard of our accustomed enjoyments; and that we pursue this aim in our saving with the same calm certainty as we do our aim in working. A contradiction between this and what was said just now is found ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... had to encounter, it is not surprising that when we arrived at the place of embarkation our stock had been reduced to forty-three head of cattle, with a proportionate diminution in our sheep, though our two carts with the pigs and poultry arrived all safe. We embarked at seven o'clock in the evening on board some vessels sent to carry us and the result of our foraging ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... on successfully for three months, and with very little diminution of interest. The whole school went regularly through the lessons in coarse hand, and afterwards through a similar series in fine hand, and improvement in this branch was thought to be greater than at any former period in the same length ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... domain of the savages. The suspension of the world's commerce had diminished the amount of their traffic in furs, and the rapid extension of American settlements northward of Ohio was narrowing their hunting grounds and producing a rapid diminution of game. The introduction of intoxicating liquors among the savages by white traders and speculators had widely spread demoralization, with ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... at an entertainment ostensibly offered to a "foreign visitor" that Mrs. van der Luyden could suffer the diminution of being placed on her host's left. The fact of Madame Olenska's "foreignness" could hardly have been more adroitly emphasised than by this farewell tribute; and Mrs. van der Luyden accepted her displacement with an affability which left no doubt as to her approval. There ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... carefully the effects produced on your temper by every habit of your life. If you do not abandon such of these as produce undesirable effects, you deserve to experience the consequences in the gradual diminution of the respect and affection of ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... at the same Time it threw me into deep Thought upon the Subject of Fame in general; and I could not but pity such as were so weak, as to value what the common People say out of their own talkative Temper to the Advantage or Diminution of those whom they mention, without being moved either by Malice or Good-will. It will be too long to expatiate upon the Sense all Mankind have of Fame, and the inexpressible Pleasure which there is in the Approbation of worthy Men, to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... by the Lord, at the creation, as suited to the state of man as a social being, and necessary to the design for which he was created. Whoever, therefore, wilfully neglects it, contravenes the order of nature, and must consequently expect a diminution of those enjoyments which arise from the social state. There is a sweetness and comfort in the bosom of one's own family, which can be enjoyed nowhere else. In early life, this is supplied by our youthful companions, who feel in unison ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... or indirectly in religion. When the religious influence with which irreligious society is saturated, has exhausted itself, and idealism is no more, the unrestrained egoistic pursuit of enjoyment must tend to its steady diminution in quantity, and its depreciation in kind. The sorrow and pain entailed by fidelity to the Christian ideal is, on the whole, immeasurably less in the vast majority of cases than that attendant on the struggles of unqualified selfishness, while the capacities for the higher ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... had been hanged and burned, there seemed no diminution in the number of criminals to be tried. Many of the latter were asked upon the rack what Satan had said when he found that the commissioners were proceeding with such severity? The general reply was, that he did not seem to care much about it. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... afterwards) did not happen to be made safe by exorcism. And now the gaslights bracketed round the room were put as low as possible, making a dim, religious semi-darkness; however, as there was a bright fire in the grate, and some small scintillae of gas, and one's eyesight soon gets accustomed to any diminution of light, we could soon see nearly as well as usual. This "gloaming" is a common condition in seances, and for aught any one knows may be an electrical sine qua non as needed for animal magnetism; albeit some paid professionals may possibly find darkness a very useful veil ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... his powers have withered, and that there is no remedy available for their recovery but incessant prayer and sacramental ordinances. Our reading of history is exactly the reverse. With the progress of time we discern the advance of man, and with the diminution of sacerdotalism and a mechanical religion we think we note an accelerated progress; that in those countries in which men are nobly self-reliant, and look within instead of without for the source of their inspiration and power, the course of moral life takes a ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... lady, with a considerable diminution of interest in "the handsome Mr. Wynne!" "You have left your little ones too, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... worshipped the head of a four-footed beast instead of Thee; turning in heart back towards Egypt; and bowing Thy image, their own soul, before the image of a calf that eateth hay. These things found I here, but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger: and Thou calledst the Gentiles into Thine inheritance. And I had come to Thee from among the Gentiles; and I set my mind upon the gold which Thou willedst Thy people to take from Egypt, seeing Thine it was, wheresoever ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... local usurpations, ephemeral tyrannies, urban seditions, rural jacqueries, brigandage, famines, and invasions along the whole frontier, with such a ruin of agriculture and other useful activities, with such a diminution of public and private capital, with such a destruction of human lives that, in twenty years, the number of the population seems to have diminished one half.[2332] There is, finally, as after 1799, in France, the re-establishment ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... was made. The many families that have small mills, of course, supply their own wants fully before they sell, and they commonly prefer selling the surplus among their neighbors to taking it down to the exporters. Thus it appears that the diminution in the exports of Jamaica is not wholly owing to the decrease of production. Mr. Underhill says he was assured by an overseer that the present consumption of sugar by the people of Jamaica was much greater proportionately than its use by the English, and there can be no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... "Besides, what addition or diminution will it make to our existence, to answer yes or no to all these chimeras? Hitherto neither our fathers nor ourselves have had the least knowledge or notion of them, and we do not perceive that we have had on this account either ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... should find absolution for her sins against society in unfailing happiness. Sweet stirrings of life when life is at the full! The man that is strong enough to steep his soul in the colour of one emotion, feels infinite joy as glimpses open out for him of an ardent lifetime that knows no diminution of passion to the end; even so it is permitted to certain mystics, in ecstasy, to behold the Light of God. Love would be naught without the belief that it would last forever; love grows great through constancy. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... consider well, that the estate and rank he now assumes, depend upon my will and pleasure—that, if I prosecute the claims of which that scroll makes you aware, he must descend from the rank of an earl into that of a commoner, stripped of by much the better half of his fortune—a diminution which would be far from compensated by the estate of Nettlewood, even if he could obtain it, which could only be by means of a lawsuit, precarious in the issue, and most ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... infinity is not predicable either of 'diminution without limit,' 'augmentation without limit,' or 'endless approximation to a fixed limit,' for these mathematical processes continue only as we continue them, consist of steps successively accomplished, and are limited by the very fact ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... a year and a half older than Dr. Johnson. His age, office, and character had long given him an acknowledged claim to great attention in whatever company he was, and he could ill brook any diminution of it. He was as sanguine a Whig and Presbyterian as Dr. Johnson was a Tory and Church of England man; and as he had not much leisure to be informed of Dr. Johnson's great merits by reading his works, he had a partial ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... appeared sound, except the liver, which had its tunic inflamed, its substance indurated and filled with blood. The vestiges of inflammation in the coat of the liver were traced in every instance already related, while at the same time the liver, in all, appeared shrunken. The diminution of size in the liver, after death, cannot at present be well explained; for it is very certain that such a diminution is not an attendant of this disorder, during most of its stages, but that on the contrary a state exists precisely opposed to it. The indications of distention ...
— Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart • John Collins Warren

... window—people of ordinary size looking out from the first floor, people a shade smaller from the second, people that look a little smaller yet from the third—and from thence upward they grow smaller and smaller by a regularly graduated diminution, till the folks in the topmost windows seem more like birds in an uncommonly tall martin-box than any thing else. The perspective of one of these narrow cracks of streets, with its rows of tall houses stretching away till they come together in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and heroism of the firemen were rewarded. The fire began to succumb to the copious floods with which it was deluged, and, towards midnight, there was a perceptible diminution in the violence of the flames. There were, however, several temporary outbursts from time to time, which called for the utmost watchfulness and promptitude on the ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne

... large extent the gender is a phenomenon of growth, indicating the stage to which the language has attained. A proper case system may not have been established in a language by the fixing of case particles, or, having been established, it may change by the increase or diminution of the number of cases. A tense system also has a beginning, a growth, and a decadence. A mode system is variable in the various stages of the history of a language. In like manner a pronominal system undergoes changes. Particles ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... for his own ransom, if he had the means; or if not, his town must ransom him and, failing that, the state. But he could not raise money on his benefice. Moreover, while it could descend to his son, it was inalienable. No diminution by bequest to his female relatives, no sale of part of it, no mortgage on it, nor even its exchange for other like estate, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... Increase and Diminution of Velocity.—Twisting the fibres of wool by the fingers would be a most tedious operation; in the common spinning-wheel the velocity of the foot is moderate; but, by a very simple contrivance, that of the thread is most rapid. A ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various

... hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and what is the consequence? The madness ceases, and all is quiet again. Why? Not because there is any diminution in the charms of the lady, but because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows that love may and therefore ought to be under the guidance of reason; for, although we can not avoid first impressions, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... ourselves entirely to keeping warm, and during the ride of six hours suffered very little except from the gradual diminution of our bodily temperature. It was a dreary journey, following the course of the Muonio between black, snow-laden forests. The sun rose to a height of seven or eight degrees at meridian; when we came over the same road, on ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... cried, but it was an outburst of anger. And it had a peculiar twist, too. She was furious because both father and son were partly correct; and yet there was no diminution of that trust she was putting in Cunningham. "Next you'll be hinting that I'm in ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... Venice, bringing with him the practice of painting in oil, effected a revolution, in which Giovanni, if not one of the foremost, was certainly one of the most successful in adopting the new method. His later works, so far from showing any diminution of power, may be said to anticipate the Venetian style of the sixteenth century in the clearest manner. One of the chief, dated 1488, is the large altar-piece in the sacristy of S. Maria di Frari, a Madonna Enthroned with two angels and four saints. The two little angels ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... of polarity, recently put forward by Professor Edward Forbes to account for the abundance of generic forms at a very early period and at present, while in the intermediate epochs there is a gradual diminution and impoverishment, till the minimum occurred at the confines of the Palaeozoic and Secondary epochs, appears to us quite unnecessary, as the facts may be readily accounted for on the principles already laid down. ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... be told by the motion, there was no diminution in the strength of the wind, and they experienced great difficulty in making ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... become smaller and smaller at each division. This is the direct, and, as it were, the physical effect of the law. It follows, then, that in countries where equality of inheritance is established by law, property, and especially landed property, must have a tendency to perpetual diminution. The effects, however, of such legislation would only be perceptible after a lapse of time, if the law was abandoned to its own working; for supposing a family to consist of two children (and in a country peopled ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... of Scandalous Ministers" was appointed, and proceeded to discipline the clergy and to harass the universities. Demands for the harsher treatment of priests and Jesuits were soon followed by plans for the diminution of the power of archbishops and bishops of the established church. The Court of High Commission was abolished July 5, 1641. [Footnote: 16 Chas. I., chap. ii.] The archbishops and bishops were removed from the House of Lords and the Privy Council by ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... Nor is there any evidence, unless the meal has been excessive, that mental exercise after a meal does any harm. The amount of mental tissue used up in the ordinary processes of mental work is not great enough to call for any large diminution of the supply of blood to other parts of ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... all probability a body, a portion of whose surface had been relatively darkened in some manner akin to that in which sun spots mar the face of the sun; and that when its axial rotation brought the less illuminated portions in turn towards us, we witnessed a consequent diminution in the star's general brightness. Herschel, indeed, inclined to this explanation, for his belief was that all the stars bore spots like those of the sun. It appears preferably thought nowadays that disturbances take place periodically ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... truth of God's Word is the narrow gate. It admits of no increase, and it allows no diminution. He that addeth to or taketh from the words of the prophecy of this book (the Bible), God shall take away his part out of the book of life. This is a fearful warning to all who would seek to make the gate and the way of eternal life any broader ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... crowded into the little strip of land called Province Wellesley, which is altogether under British rule, and sixty-seven thousand into Malacca, which has the same advantage. I suppose that slavery and polygamy have had something to do with the diminution of the population, as well as small-pox. Formerly large armies of fighting men could be raised in these States. Islamism is always antagonistic to national progress. It seems to petrify or congeal national life, placing each individual in the position ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... to proof as a tentative solution of the problem remains incomplete until the course has been tested to determine its consequences as to costs, so far as these can be visualized in advance. The process involves an evaluation of the diminution in total advantage which will result in the event of failure, and a comparison of gains with losses in the event of success. The situation to be expected, if the course of action is carried out, is visualized in order to determine the ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a progressive diminution. They might never be able to ascertain this fact with regard to the Projectile, but the moment was now rapidly approaching when the loss of weight would become perfectly sensible, both regarding themselves and the tools and instruments surrounding them. Of course, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... perhaps a remote one, of the gradual loss of internal heat from the earth. As this terrestrial heat is gradually declining, it follows from the law that we have already so often had occasion to use that the bulk of the earth must be shrinking. No doubt the diminution in the earth's diameter due to the loss of heat must be exceedingly small, even in a long period of time. The cause, however, is continually in operation, and, accordingly, the crust of the earth has from time to time to be accommodated to the fact that the whole globe is lessening. The ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... tax reaches the funds, and the Irish, and the parsimonious, and the rich—so far it is good, but it likewise reaches the man of 100L a year. It tends to diminution of establishments, to diminished demand for labour. To create an alteration ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... of ease and softness in the angular lines of the stucco, which are never sharp or harsh, like those of stone; and it receives shadows with great beauty, a point of infinite importance in this climate; giving them lightness and transparency, without any diminution of depth. It is also agreeable to the eye, to pass from the sharp carving of the marble decorations to the ease and smoothness of the stucco; while the utter want of interest in those parts which are executed in it prevents the humility of the material from being offensive: for this passage ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... centre of their gyrations was not Mary now, but Clara. What could have induced her to play me false? All my vanity, of which I had enough, was insufficient to persuade me that it could be out of revenge for the gradual diminution of my attentions to her. She had seen me pay none to Mary, I thought, unless she had caught a glimpse from the next room of the little passage of the ring, and that I did not believe. Neither did I believe she had ever cared enough about ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... all being are bodies which are only perceptible by reason; they admit not of a vacuity, nor of any original, but being of a self-existence are eternal and incorruptible; they are not liable to any diminution, they are indestructible, nor is it possible for them to receive any transformation of parts, or admit of any alterations; of these reason is only the discoverer; they are in a perpetual motion in vacuity, and by means of the empty space; for the vacuum itself is infinite, and the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... and lo, I become as a bat which wanders about on the wing. Suppose I omitted all words of seeing, hearing, colour, light, landscape, the thousand phenomena, instruments and beauties connected with them. I should suffer a great diminution of the wonder and delight in attaining knowledge; also—more dreadful loss—my emotions would be blunted, so that I could not be touched by ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... without the cooling and diluting action of the nitrogen; when, however, a certain proportion is added, it begins to burn up the heavy hydrocarbons, and although the temperature goes on increasing, the light-giving power is rapidly diminished by the diminution of the amount of free carbon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... fears—for they went together—that all his household were not in a conformable state of mind, had hitherto gone to sleep at his bidding; but lately they had been more difficult to manage. He was uneasy about his sister, Mrs Collenwood; and with no diminution of his affection for her, was beginning to realise that his mind would be relieved when she ended her visit and went home. He feared her influence over Pandora. For Gertrude he had no fears. He knew, and so did the priest, that Gertrude was not the sort of girl to indulge in abstract speculations, ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... sedulous efforts made and making to improve it—an opinion which we could not share after examining some of the best specimens, in which a clean blood-like head and increased size seemed to have been given, without any diminution of the enduring ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... themselves on the Scotch model. Melvill and M'Neile are examples: so, in a different walk, is Ryle, so well known by his tracts. We believe that Melvill in his early days delivered his sermons from memory, and of late years only has taken to reading, to the considerable diminution of the effect he produces. We may here remark, that in some country districts the prejudice of the people against clergymen reading their sermons is excessive. It is indeed to be admitted that it is a more natural thing that a speaker should look at the audience he is addressing, and ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... which crowded into my imagination after perusing Susan's letter to you, and which instantly occurred to Matilda when she had perused it likewise. The same ideas, the same fears, immediately occupied her Mind, and I know not which reflection distressed her most, whether the probable Diminution of our Fortunes, or her own Consequence. We both wish very much to know whether Lady Lesley is handsome and what is your opinion of her; as you honour her with the appellation of your freind, we flatter ourselves that she must be amiable. My Brother is already in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... with all the talk of Griffith's valuation, there has been, except in a few cases, no hint of paying that sum "without prejudice" into court or into any bank whatsoever; and the cash held by both farmers and peasants runs, in the opinion of many well qualified to judge, sore risk of diminution before any comprehensive measure can pass through Parliament. Even the well-to-do farmers will be called upon to expend their balance in hand in many ways which they will find difficult to resist. Not only the provision merchants, ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... strange to read in the life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, that his lordship's court enemies, "hard put to it to find, or invent, something tending to the diminution of his character," took advantage of his going to see a rhinoceros, to circulate a foolish story of him, which much annoyed him. It was in the reign of James II. his biographer thus records it. The rhinoceros, referred to, was the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... piety of Pope was in the highest degree amiable and exemplary. His parents had the happiness of living till he was at the summit of poetical reputation—till he was at ease in his fortune, and without a rival in his fame, and found no diminution of his respect or tenderness. Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has, amongst its soothing and quiet comforts, few things better to ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... In regard to the diminution of the number of salmon on the coast. In Puget's Sound, Frazer's River, and the smaller streams, there appears to be little or no evidence of this. In the Columbia River the evidence appears somewhat conflicting; the catch during the present year (1880) has been ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... published in twenty parts, which is equal in length to five such volumes. I have occasionally, I think, received something more than this, never I think less for any tale, except when I have published my work anonymously. [Footnote: Since the date at which this was written I have encountered a diminution in price.] Having said so much, I need not further specify the prices as I mention the books as they were written. I will, however, when I am completing this memoir, give a list of all the sums I have received for my literary labours. I think that Brown, Jones and Robinson was the hardest bargain ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... his improvement grows continually more incommensurate to his life. Yet, as no man willingly quits opinions favourable to himself, they who have once been justly celebrated, imagine that they still have the same pretensions to regard, and seldom perceive the diminution of their character while there is time to recover it. Nothing then remains but murmurs and remorse; for if the spendthrift's poverty be embittered by the reflection that he once was rich, how must the idler's obscurity be clouded by remembering that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... time came, he was no longer disposed for sentimental confessions; it would be better to wait until he could announce a settled project of marriage. Through the evening, his sister recurred to the subject of Janet with curious frequency, and on the following day her interest had suffered no diminution. Christian had always taken for granted that she understood the grounds of the breach between him and his uncle; without ever unbosoming himself, he had occasionally, in his softer moments, alluded to the awkward subject in language which he thought ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... diminution of true Catholic faith is visited upon you while you suffer, and those that loved you in life might help you, and do not, for want of ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... that among highly civilized races generally, and not least among the English-speaking peoples who were once regarded as peculiarly prolific, a great diminution of reproductive activity has taken place during the past forty years, and is in some countries still taking place. But before we proceed to consider its significance it may be well to look a little ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that, in withdrawing the tender of service which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest; no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness; but am supported by a full conviction that the ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... journeying through heaven, or the appearance of the moon afterward, with any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The great poet has less a mark'd style, and is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution, and is the free channel of himself. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance, or effect, or originality, to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... industries the expanding size of the market or area of competition keeps pace with this movement, so that the total number of the larger competitors within the market may be as great as before. But in most of the markets the growing scale of the business is attended by an absolute diminution in the number of effective competitors, or at any rate by an increase which is very much smaller than the increase in the amount of trade ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... than at certain others; she was the American girl as, still more than then, he had seen her on the day of her meeting him in London and in Kate's company. It affected him as a large though queer social resource in her—such as a man, for instance, to his diminution, would never in the world be able to command; and he wouldn't have known whether to see it in an extension or a contraction of "personality," taking it as he did most directly for a confounding extension of surface. Clearly too it was the right thing ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... conscious of the social gulf that, in reality, lay between her and them; she was, also, aware that they were inclined to patronise her, particularly Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs: the high hopes with which she had commenced the day had already suffered diminution. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... 10th Jan. 29, '01. DEAR JOE,—I'm not expecting anything but kicks for scoffing, and am expecting a diminution of my bread and butter by it, but if Livy will let me I will have my say. This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth—ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... battle of Kernstown, and yet the ranks were as full as when McClellan first marched on Richmond. Many generals had disappeared; but those who remained were learning their trade; and the soldiers, although more familiar with defeat than victory, showed little diminution of martial ardour. Nor had the strain of the war sapped the resources of the North. Her trade, instead of dwindling, had actually increased; and the gaps made in the population by the Confederate bullets were more than made good by a constant ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... gratified. In all this violation of moral harmony, there is no derangement of the ordinary exercise of judgment. In the most remarkable example that can be furnished by the history of human depravity, the man may be as acute as ever in the details of business or the pursuits of science. There is no diminution of his sound estimate of physical relations,—for this is the province of reason. But there is a total derangement of his sense and approbation of moral relations,—for this is conscience. Such a condition of mind, then, appears to be, in reference ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... Spitzbergen, and in this way destroyed the hunting. It cannot however be denied that they themselves in recent times have often followed the bad example, and many consider that this is one of the main reasons of the great diminution in the numbers of the walrus of late years. Should an international code be established for hunting in the Polar sea, all shooting of unharpooned walruses ought to be ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... 1st, the writing; 2nd, the communication, called by the lawyers the publication; 3rd, the application to persons and facts; 4th, the intent and tendency; 5th, the matter,—diminution of fame. The law presumptions on all these are in the communication. No intent can make a defamatory publication good, nothing can make it have a good tendency; truth is not pleadable. Taken juridically, the foundation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... so violently, a pretty page ran headlong into the room—saw—and; without an instant's diminution of speed, described a curve, and ran ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... readily in those semi-matured, and can with almost infallible certainty point out, not only what work can be undertaken with fair hope of success, but also what slight modification or addition and diminution will more than double the personal power."[10] The true psychological specialists surely ought to decline this flattering confidence. Far from the "almost infallible certainty," they can hardly expect even a moderate amount of success in such directions so long as specific methods have not ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... commensurate with that embraced at a glance by the eye. How, then, have I my conception of the earth as a whole—of the solar system as a whole—nay, of many systems as a whole? Just as I have my conceptions of a school-globe or of an Orrery—by diminution. It is through the diminution induced by distance that the sidereal heavens only co-extend, as seen from the top of Tor-Achilty, with a portion of the counties of Ross and Inverness. The apparent area is the same, but the colouring is different. Our ideas of greatness, then, are much less ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... inspection of Leonard's invention sufficed to show Richard Avenel how invaluable it would be to him. Armed with a patent, of which the certain effects in the increase of power and diminution of labour were obvious to any practical man, Avenel felt that he should have no difficulty in obtaining such advances of money as he required, whether to alter his engines, meet the bills discounted by Levy, or carry on the war with the monster capitalist. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of arguing from your having done any thing in a certain line to the necessity of doing every thing has political consequences of other moment than those of a logical fallacy. If no man can propose any diminution or modification of an invidious or dangerous power or influence in government, without entitling friends turned into adversaries to argue him into the destruction of all prerogative, and to a spoliation of the whole patronage of royalty, I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... these figures to Mrs. Staines, and asked her if she could suggest any diminution of expenditure. Could she do with ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... sad discovery. The islanders were quite welcome to the pigs, thought the brother crusoes; but the flesh of the goats was so delicate and needful besides, as a change of diet to their ordinary salt provision, that any diminution of their numbers was a serious loss ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... breakfast. The Queen and the Prince are much pleased with the draft of your Despatch to Naples; they think it good and dignified. With respect to the draft to Lord Stratford, instructing him to recommend to the Porte an application to the Austrian Government for the withdrawal or diminution of the Austrian troops in the Principalities, I have been commanded to write what the Queen has not time this morning to put on paper. Her Majesty does not feel that the objects of this proposed Despatch have been sufficiently ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... Decrease. — N. decrease, diminution; lessening &c. v.; subtraction &c. 38; reduction, abatement, declension; shrinking &c. (contraction.) 195; coarctation|; abridgment &c. (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... from an unexpected quarter. The great fur-trading company that had for so long a time held despotic power in the land, in their short-sightedness,—fearing a diminution in the returns of the fur by the hunters if one-seventh of the time was to be, as they put it, spent in idleness,—sneered at the actions of the missionaries, and by bribes and threats, endeavoured to induce the Indians to ignore their teachings ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... intoxicated, never to lose the power over himself. I shall not begin to drink wine again, till I grow old, and want it.' BOSWELL. 'I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life.' JOHNSON. 'It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of happiness. There is more happiness in being rational.' BOSWELL. 'But if we could have pleasure always, should not we be happy? The greatest part of men would compound for pleasure.' JOHNSON. 'Supposing we ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating with violence, particularly when lying down at night, the pulse always moderately increased in frequency, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... followed in 1552. From that time may be dated the third and last period of his life, which was marked by his literary activity, for, though he never again visited America, his vigilance and energy in defending the interests of the Indians underwent no diminution. His writings were extraordinarily luminous; and all he wrote treated of but one subject. He himself declared that his sole reason for writing more than two thousand pages in Latin was to proclaim the truth ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... the Nervous Temperament.) Animal flesh, in its effects on the human stomach, is analogous to a dram. It is similar in the kind, though differing in the degree, of its operation. The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to expect a temporary diminution of muscular strength. The subtraction of a powerful stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... are either supervised by the student council, the members of which are elected by the students, or by a joint body of student and faculty members. The effect in almost every instance has been the diminution of friction between the faculty and students and the development of better relations between them. In some colleges the honor system is found, under which even proctoring at examinations does not exist, as all disciplinary ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... passed on, each day furnishing new evidence that those prayers were heard. There was less of excitement, but no diminution of interest, to the close of the term. The uniform and sustained prayerfnlness of those months surprised the beholders. The voice of supplication was the latest sound of evening, the watchword of midnight, and the lark song of the dawn. One pupil, nine years of age, after spending two ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... telegraph. That was Morse's achievement, but the discovery of the great fact, which startled Morse into activity, was Henry's achievement. In Henry's own words: "This was the first discovery of the fact that a galvanic current could be transmitted to a great distance with so little a diminution of force as to produce mechanical effects, and of the means by which the transmission could be accomplished. I saw that the electric telegraph was now practicable." He says further, however: "I ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... into a melancholy train of reflection. It has been more than once remarked that the particular day now under consideration was the one in which the plague exercised its fiercest dominion over the city; and though at first its decline was as imperceptible as the gradual diminution of the day after the longest has passed, yet still the alteration began. On that day, as if death had known that his power was to be speedily arrested, he sharpened his fellest arrows, and discharged them with unerring aim. To pursue the course of the destroyer from house to house—to show ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... blame the crafty, greedy, extortionate foreigners, who shamelessly tempt the lords of the soil with false promises, and bring about their utter ruin. [Change to a safer basis.] As a general rule, the "crafty foreigner" experiences a considerable diminution of his capital. It was just so that one of the most important firms suffered the loss of a very large sum. At length, however, the Americans, who had capital invested in this trade, succeeded in putting an end to the custom of advances, which hitherto had prevailed, erected stores ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... held all connection with her as disgraceful. She desired not to be the wife even of Delvile upon such terms, for the more she esteemed and admired him, the more anxious she became for his honour, and the less could she endure being regarded herself as the occasion of its diminution. ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... traffic, the want of geneva may be supplied by spirits distilled from sugars and molasses. After all, it must be owned, that the good and salutary effects of the prohibition were visible in every part of the kingdom, and no evil consequence ensued, except a diminution of the revenue in this article: a consideration which, at all times, ought to be sacrificed to the health and morals of the people: nor will this consideration be found of any great weight, when we reflect that the less the malt-spirit is drunk, the greater ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... diminution in the number of fibers of the branches and roots of the ramus superior and ramus medius of the eighth nerve, and the fiber bundles are very ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... retires into himself and finds it there. There is a difference, however, in the two cases, because Intelligence always knows its ideas without thought or reflection, for it exists always and its ideas are not subject to change or addition or diminution; whereas in the smith a difficulty may arise, and then his soul is divided and he requires searching and thinking and discrimination before he ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... for the crew, composed of sixteen men only, exclusive of petty officers, could hope to make hut a poor resistance, despite of all the resolution they might bring into the contest, against a squadron of well armed boats, unless some very considerable diminution in the numbers and efforts of these latter should be made by "old Sally," before they actually came to close quarters. The weakness of the crew was in a great degree attributable to the schooner having been employed as a cartel; a fact which must moreover explain the want of caution, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... exertions, the citizens in the towns, the women and children, were in constant danger of being shivered to atoms by the fearful shells, or of being buried under falling walls and roofs; and the poorer part of the population saw with dismay the gradual diminution of the necessaries of life, and were often compelled to pacify their hunger with the flesh of horses, ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... gratifying record of reduced submarine losses, as to which there is abundant testimony—notably from the great maritime and naval power of the world—Great Britain—that our navy has played a vital part in the diminution of ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... anticipate every thing, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions. For being more bent upon action and glory than upon either pleasure or riches, he esteemed all that he should receive from his father as a diminution of his own future achievements; and would have chosen rather to succeed to a kingdom involved in troubles and wars, which would have afforded him frequent exercise of his courage, and a large field of honor, than to one already flourishing and settled, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... met with in a pure state. It may be assayed by the same tests as the common magnesia. It ought not to effervesce at all, with dilute sulphuric acid; and, if the magnesia and acid be put together into one scale of a balance, no diminution of weight should ensue on mixing them together. Calcined magnesia, however, is very seldom so pure as to be totally dissolved by diluted sulphuric acid; for a small insoluble residue generally remains, consisting chiefly of silicious earth, derived from the alkali employed ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum

... Majesty in any military capacity, in consequence of his conduct at the battle of Minden. To such proceedings as these Walpole refers, when he observes at this time that "the power of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished; and it is diminished a good deal indeed." The diminution of its power, however, was visible only in the spirited resistance of Parliament, in the motion of Lord Carmarthen in the Upper House, that it was derogatory to the honour of the House of the Lords, ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... which, though inconsiderable in size, being only about three hundred feet high, is worthy of mention. It is a rounded mass of solid granite, and, though extensively quarried for many years, seems to have suffered very little diminution in size. It is called Rollstone Hill, and the name is said to have originated from an event that occurred over two centuries ago. When, in 1676, the Indians sacked Lancaster, among the captives carried off by them towards Canada was Mrs. Rowlandson, the wife of the minister at Lancaster. It is ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... variety of resources, not so much adapted to a case of that nature already existing, as to the prevention of future cases. Every mode of trust or delegated duty would suggest its own separate improvements; but all improvements must fall under two genuine heads—first, the diminution of temptation, either by abridging the amount of trust reposed; or, where that is difficult, by shortening its duration, and multiplying the counterchecks: secondly, by the moderation of the punishment in the event ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... bright, clean, and even magnificent. On the huge rafters hung their usual store of dried hams, beef, mutton, and flitches of bacon. In the store-room, great chests were filled to the brim with oatmeal and flour. All wore the aspect of plenty, and an hospitality that feared neither want nor diminution. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... forge of Comets from whence they were sent, like so many spies, that they might in some short space returne againe, but this cannot be, since if so much matter had proceeded from him alone, it would have made a sensible diminution in his body. The Noble Tycho therefore thinkes that they consist of some such fluider parts of the Heaven, as the milkie way is framed of, which being condenst together, yet not attaining to the consistency of a Starre, ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins

... and it cannot be with any force alleged, in opposition to this definite appointment, that scarlet is used incidentally to illustrate the stain of sin,—"though thy sins be as scarlet,"—any more than it could be received as a diminution of the authority for using snow-whiteness as a type of purity, that Gehazi's leprosy is described as being as "white as snow." An incidental image has no authoritative meaning, but a stated ceremonial appointment has; besides, we have ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... thus, at last, for there seemed no end of her weeping, or any diminution of its bitterness, he touched her. She started, and turned her streaming eyes to him, then, seeing who it was, threw her arms around his neck, and, as he sat beside her, laid her head on his shoulder clinging to ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... lower castes eat locusts, but they are not sought after by Indians in general. Monkeys, dogs, and some birds eat them, but their numbers are so vast that none of their enemies produce any appreciable diminution. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... the far-off cry of some little suffering animal buried in the thicket, to a merry cavalcade in the sunny plain. When, for the second time that day, Tito was hastening across the Ponte Rubaconte, the thought of Tessa caused no perceptible diminution of his happiness. He was well muffled in his mantle, less, perhaps, to protect him from the cold than from the additional notice that would have been drawn upon him by his dainty apparel. He leaped up the stone steps by two at a time, ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... of the leadsman were satisfactory, and the steamer went ahead for an hour. Then they began to give a diminution of the depth of water, indicating, as Christy stated it, that the vessel was approaching the land. He looked over the log slate, and found that the course had been due east till the order had been given to head her in the opposite direction. She had ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... siege of Stralsund. Thus the possession of a superior sea-power enabled Denmark to tide over her worst difficulties, and in May 1629 Christian was able to conclude peace with the emperor at Luebeck, without any diminution of territory. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... either end and a central tower. Yet, although it is more or less oblong as a whole, there is hardly a right angle or two parallel walls throughout the church. In most cases these discrepancies are not apparent, nor do they appear likely to have been intended to produce a studied effect. Thus a diminution in width towards the east (as at Manchester) may be expected to add to the apparent length, but here the south aisles of both nave and chancel expand instead of contracting. By standing within either transept and looking up at the roof ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse

... becomes accelerated to 25 or 30 in a minute, and the pulse is quickened to 70, 80, or even 100, moderate in volume and in force. There is great depression of muscular force; the animal stands limp, as if excessively fatigued. There is diminution, or in some cases total loss, of sensibility of the skin, so that it may be pricked or handled without attracting the attention of the animal. On movement, the horse staggers and shows a want of coordination of all the muscles of its limbs. The senses of hearing, sight, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... the Leader of the Opposition say, in a concise and cogent sentence, that he could easily conceive many sweated trades in which the wages of the workers could be substantially raised without any other change except a diminution of price. Sir, the wages of a sweated worker bear no accurate relation to the ultimate price. Sometimes they vary in the same places for the same work done at the same time. And sometimes the worst sweating forms a part of the production of articles of luxury sold at the very highest price. ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... of the "Anglo-Saxon Race." The term "Anglo-Saxon" slovenly and misleading. Statements relating to the "English Race" have a common interest for Americans and for Englishmen. Work of the English race in the world. The prime feature of civilization is the diminution of warfare, which becomes possible only through the formation of great political aggregates in which the parts retain their local and individual freedom. In the earlier stages of civilization, the possibility of peace can be guaranteed only through war, but the preponderant military ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... of 'coherer action.' It was hitherto believed that the electric waves, by impinging on iron and other metallic particles in contact, brought about a sort of fusion—a sort of 'coherence'—and that the diminution of resistance was the result of that 'coherence.' To satisfy himself as to the correctness of this theory, Dr. Bose engaged himself in a most laborious investigation to find out the action of electric radiation not only on iron particles but on all ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... irritation and the restoration of friendly relations between the two republics was a great relief to the finance of Chile. Had it not been for the political instability of the country, the effects of the diminution of expenditure on military and naval preparations would have effected a rapid improvement in its financial position. The constant change of ministry (there being no stable majority in the congress) prevented during 1903 any settled policy, or that confidence in the government which is the basis of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... the two friends wound. Now and then they stopped to listen, but the rain was heavy enough to drown all other noises. Encountering fresh tracks finally, Dave leaned from his saddle and studied them. What he saw caused him to push forward with no diminution of stealth. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... suffered no diminution, either in quantity or quality; and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was; and he had not the same temptation to dine at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... walk, now watching the smoking brow of the eminence, now picking their way among dead and wounded. Suddenly there was a shout above them and a sudden diminution of the firing; and looking upward they saw the men of the Fourteenth running confusedly toward the summit. Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his horse and dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest



Words linked to "Diminution" :   subtraction, increase, tax credit, declassification, wane, decrement, devitalisation, shelter, contraction, amortization, minimisation, erosion, depreciation, extenuation, deflation, palliation, ebbing, split down, slippage, easing, easement, shortening, discount, amortisation, tax shelter, devitalization, decline in quality, price reduction, moderation, statement, devaluation, lowering, augmentation, cutback, cut, loss, alleviation, deterioration, weakening, declension, worsening, reverse stock split, mitigation, diminish, relief, detumescence, shrinking, rollback, deduction, change of magnitude, minimization, nosedive, ebb, depletion, reverse split, sinking spell, de-escalation



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com