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Napier   /nˈeɪpiər/   Listen
Napier

noun
1.
Scottish mathematician who invented logarithms; introduced the use of the decimal point in writing numbers (1550-1617).  Synonym: John Napier.



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"Napier" Quotes from Famous Books



... severe an ordeal. But the son of six generations of soldiers, who had commanded in the fever-stricken flats of Walcheren, or followed Wellesley through the jungles of tropical India, or forced their way with Napier into the depths of Abyssinia, was not to be daunted even by the nameless horrors of that South African desert. Granville still endured, for three days and nights, and was ready to march, or crawl on, once ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... from which the British forces had been so disastrously repulsed the year before—remained untaken. Opinions were divided as to the plan of operations. The French were for attacking first the great fortifications on the right or southern bank of the river; but Sir Robert Napier urged that the real key to the enemy's position was the most northerly of the forts, on the left or northern bank. Happily his counsels prevailed. On the 21st this fort was taken by assault, with ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... the money which had been spent upon his education, as Theobald would have said in The Way of All Flesh. He returned home dejected, but resolved that things should be different in the future. While in this frame of mind he received a visit from one of his New Zealand friends, the late Sir F. Napier Broome, afterwards Governor of Western Australia, who incidentally suggested his rewriting his New Zealand articles. The idea pleased him; it might not be creating, but at least it would be doing something. So he set to work on Sundays and in the evenings, ...
— Samuel Butler: A Sketch • Henry Festing Jones

... Central Otago, Christchurch*, Clutha, Dunedin*, Far North, Franklin, Gisborne, Gore, Grey, Hamilton*, Hastings, Hauraki, Horowhenua, Hurunui, Hutt*, Invercargill*, Kaikoura, Kaipara, Kapiti Coast, Kawerau, Mackenzie, Manawatu, Manukau*, Marlborough, Masterton, Matamata Piako, Napier*, Nelson*, New Plymouth, North Shore*, Opotiki, Otorohanga, Palmerston North*, Papakura*, Porirua*, Queenstown Lakes, Rangitikei, Rodney, Rotorua, Ruapehu, Selwyn, Southland, South Taranaki, South Waikato, South Wairarapa, Stratford, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... be to crowd more heroism into the same number of words that I have here quoted from Colonel Medley, an eye-witness of the affair. Between the double archways of the gate is a red-sandstone memorial tablet, placed there by Lord Napier of Magdala, upon which is inscribed the names, rank, and regiment of those who took part in the forlorn hope. All is now peaceful and lovely enough, but the stone bastions and parapets still remain pretty much as when the British ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... his own class. He, and those who were his shipmates and contemporaries during the Russian War, believed that a great act of cowardice and bad treatment had been committed in not allowing Charlie Napier to blow the forts down and take possession of Cronstadt.[2] They knew nothing of the circumstances that led to the withdrawal of the fleet, but their inherent belief was that a dirty trick had been served on Charlie, and Russians, irrespective of class, were told whenever an opportunity ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... from a town, would have his own smithy, just as the laird of Runraurie (now Urrard) had his smithy at the time of the battle of Killicrankie (1689). Mackay's forces left their impedimenta "at the laird's smithy," says an eye-witness. [Footnote: Napier's Life Of Dundee, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... on the Coa, a little to the north-west of Ciudad Rodrigo, and set forward with 70,000 British and Portuguese troops, besides 20,000 Spaniards, to drive the French out of Spain. So confident was he of success that, as Napier relates, he waved his hand in crossing the frontier on May 22, and exclaimed, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... of age, single, was born at Napier, New Zealand. Graduate of the Otago University. Besides being employed on the New Zealand Geological Survey, he acted as Entomological Collector to the Dominion Museum at Wellington. A member of the Macquarie Island Party, of which he was the Biologist for two years, H. Hamilton visited the Antarctic ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... to understand how it was that the king "took great delight to be present at the examinations," but throughout the whole wretched series of trials he was never wanting in zeal. When Barbara Napier, sister-in-law to the laird of Carshoggil, was to be executed, a postponement had been granted on account of her approaching accouchement. Afterwards, "nobody insisting in the pursute of her, she was set at libertie." It seems also that the jury that had before condemned ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... find several tribes in which the children now follow the FATHER'S class, and thus paternal kin takes the place of the usual early savage method of reckoning kinship by the mother's side, elsewhere prevalent in Australia. In one of these tribes, dwelling between the Glenelg and Mount Napier, headmanship is hereditary, but nothing is said of any worship of the ghosts of chiefs. All this social improvement denotes advance on the usual Australian standard.(3) Of degeneration (except when produced recently by European vices and diseases) I know no trace ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... This, however, was owing to a cause which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion that Goldsmith had this scene in view when he wrote his poem of The Deserted Village. The then possessor, General Napier, turned all his tenants out of their farms that he might inclose them in his own private domain. Littleton, the mansion of the general, stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolating spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... Montefiore felt somewhat better, and the doctor entertained hopes of her speedy recovery. Early in the morning Sir Moses called on Colonel Hodges, and remained with him fully two hours. Captains Napier and Walker were off the coast of Syria with six thousand Albanians, and had summoned Beyrout. A serious occurrence took place in the forenoon, which added greatly to the already troubled state of the town. The Dutch Vice-Consul, whose horse had accidentally kicked one of the ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... war on the Spanish peninsula, which resulted from the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain, have been most admirably traced by Napier, in the best military history that has been written in modern times. The great hero of that war was Wellington; and, though he fought under the greatest disadvantages and against superior forces,—though ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... Napier was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. After the war in Africa Lord Napier was here for a few days, at the invitation of Mrs. Gladstone and myself, and we walked as we are walking now. He told me this story. I cannot remember his exact words. He said that just when the troops ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... telegraphic codes employed in the transmission of news by electric wire, partakes somewhat of the cryptographic character, the writer employing certain words or figures, the key to which is in the possession of his correspondent. The single-word despatch sent by Napier to the Government of India, was a sort of cryptographic conundrum—Peccavi, I have sinned (Scinde); and in the agony column of the 'Times' there commonly appear paragraphs which look puzzling enough ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... is not more difficult to be got over, nor the logarithms of Napier so hard to be unravelled, as many of Hoyle's Cases and Propositions.—The ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... making faces at him. Some of their caricatures on their enemies were very clever. Fortunately for such artistic efforts, the British had given them a fine opportunity during the previous year, when Sir Charles Napier, the commander of the Baltic fleet, having made a boastful speech at a public dinner in London, and invited his hearers to dine with him at St. Petersburg, had returned to England, after a summer before Cronstadt, without even a ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... looking over the field, he discovered that all his leaders were old men, and forthwith, though the oldest of old fellows himself, he laid all his mishaps to the account of the years of his upper servants. Sir Charles Napier, who never got into St. Petersburg, was old, and had been a dashing sailor forty years before. Admiral Dundas, who did not destroy Sweaborg, but only burned a lot of corded wood there in summer time, was another old sailor. Lord Raglan, who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... at once one of the most inoffensive and (in one sense) offensive of our few remaining British Carnivora. He is described by NAPIER of Merchiston, in his Book of Nature and of Man, as a "quiet nocturnal beast, but if much 'badgered' becoming obstinate, and fighting to the last, in which it is a type of a large class of Britons, who like to be let alone, but when ill ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various

... her sprightly way through memories of that romantic past, when she danced and chattered in the fulness of her bellehood, bringing out a multitude of treasured mementoes, compliments she had compelled, witticisms she had prompted, pranks she had played, delectable repasts she had eaten at Lady Napier's or another's, the splendor of pageants she had witnessed. And though she was back in an elder day, she glowed young as she talked, whether recalling official solemnities or a once-cherished gown of embroidered tulle, caught up with bunches of grapes. The girl's mouth was her's—fresh ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... great folks in the course of my travels and time: Louis Philippe coming out of the Tuileries; his Majesty the King of Prussia and the Reichsverweser accolading each other at Cologne at my elbow; Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus once), the Duke of Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late benevolent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in this world—the whom whenever one looks at, one has a mild shock of awe and tremor. ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... any British subject was free to engage in the trade, and the Home Government sent out Lord Napier to act as Chief Superintendent, and to enter into regular diplomatic relations with the Chinese authorities. Lord Napier, however, even though backed by a couple of frigates, was unable to gain admission to the city of Canton, and after a demonstration, the only result of which was to bring all ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... an ensign is flying, Which stout hearts are banded till death to uphold; And bold is their crying, and fierce their defying, When trench'd in their ramparts, unconquer'd of old. But lo! in the offing, To punish their scoffing, Brave Napier appears, and their triumph is done; No danger can stay him, No foeman dismay him, He conquers or dies by his colours ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... of the Great Mogul, the Prince was met by Lord Napier of Magdala at the head of fifteen thousand troops, and at Lucknow an address and a crown set with jewels were ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... Ramsay was often accustomed to retreat to the labour of his abstruse calculations; for he aimed at improvements and discoveries in his own art, and sometimes pushed his researches, like Napier, and other mathematicians of the period, into abstract science. When thus engaged, he left the outer posts of his commercial establishment to be maintained by two stout-bodied and strong-voiced apprentices, who ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... know, Helen, I may not see him. We never were chums. I have often wondered why I asked him here. It was all done in a moment. I had thought of asking Walter Napier, and then I asked Selwyn. I have often thought it would have pleased me better if ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... English Mailcoach,' where his exaggerated patriotism leads him into what strikes me at least as a rather vulgar bit of claptrap. If any reader will take the trouble to compare De Quincey's account of a kind of anticipation of the Balaclava charge at the battle of Talavera, with Napier's description of the same facts, he will be amused at the distortion of history; but whatever the accuracy of the statements, one is a little shocked at finding 'the inspiration of God' attributed ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... for the loss of the Romp immediately took place; when not only was he honourably acquitted, but next day he was appointed to the command of the Gauntlet, ordered to proceed with the squadron under Sir Charles Napier to the Baltic. Jack, taking it into his head that he was to be placed on the shelf, proposed to marry at once; but the very next day he was appointed to a new steamer ordered to be brought forward with all despatch for the Mediterranean squadron. He had time, therefore, only to run home ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns were pouring shot into his regiment, Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He at once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The men yielded at once, and then marched three miles under a heavy cannonade as coolly as if it were ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... Marquis the story of Kincardine Castle ends. In 1646, being Montrose's principal house, it was besieged and taken by Middleton, the Covenanter. We have a full account of the siege in Bishop Guthrie's Memoirs. Learning that the castle was fortified with a company of foot under Lord Napier, Middleton "brought a number of great ordnance from Sterlin Castle to batter the walls." After ten days the besieged were distressed from want of water. Lord Napier, guided by his page, who was a Graham, managed to escape. The ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... caused himself to be elected king, till May 1834, when he was finally defeated at Evora Monte and forced to leave the country. The chief events of his usurpation were the siege of Oporto and the defeat of his fleet off Cape St. Vincent in 1833 by Captain Charles Napier, who fought for Dona Maria under the name of ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... slight materials and uncomfortable surroundings has Boswell produced a masterpiece of descriptive writing. The memory of Johnson has lingered where that of the Jacobite Pretender has well-nigh completely passed away. Mr Gladstone, proposing a Parliamentary vote of thanks to Lord Napier for 'having planted the Standard of St George upon the mountains of Rasselas;' Sir Robert Peel, quoting, in his address to Glasgow University as Lord Rector, Johnson's description of Iona; Sir Walter Scott finding in Skye that he and his friends had ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... the overthrow of Boneypart is owing to MADAME DE STAEL! What nonsince for Colonel Southey or Doctor Napier to write histories of the war with that Capsican hupstart and murderer, when here we have the whole affair explaned by the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... he says that this is a twenty mongrel—only a four-cylinder engine; and nobody drops to what she is till Henery goes out one Sunday and waits for the big Napier that Scotty used to drive—it belonged to the same bloke wot owned that big racehorse wot won all the races. So Henery and Scotty they have a fair go round the park while both their bosses is at church, and Henery beat him out o' sight—fair lost him—and so Henery was ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... food, and having no reserve of ammunition and no means of carrying the wounded. The upshot was that Major Forbes decided to return, but was prevented from doing so by a letter received from Dr. Jameson, stating that he was sending forward a reinforcement of dismounted men under Captain Napier with food, ammunition, and wagons, also sixteen mounted men under Captain Borrow. The force then proceeded to a deserted Mission Station known as Shiloh. On November 25 the column, three hundred strong and carrying ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... an ex-Senator of the United States, a colored man, Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, was honored by having created for him the office of register of the treasury. Subsequently the honor was conferred as a political favor upon Judson W. Lyons, of Georgia; William T. Vernon, of Kansas, and J.C. Napier, of Tennessee. The democratic executive was good enough to offer this position, created as a direct result of the Negro's activities during and after the Civil War, to Adam E. Patterson, of Oklahoma. But so great was the pressure from opposing ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... want of faith in these infinite resources of daring, it is a common thing for persons of eminent courage to be stigmatized as rash. This has been strikingly the case, for instance, in modern times, with the Marquis of Wellesley and Sir Charles Napier. When the Duke of Wellington was in the Peninsula in 1810, the City of London addressed the throne, protesting against the bestowal of "honorable distinctions upon a general who had thus far exhibited, with equal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... giving the designation to the Court, which still survives. Tallies, from the French word tailler to cut, were another of the mechanical methods employed to record computations, though in a very rude way. Step by step improvements were made; the most important being that invented by Napier of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms, commonly called Napier's bones, consisting of a number of rods divided into ten equal squares and numbered, so that the whole when placed together formed the common multiplication table. By these means various operations in multiplication ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... facts—those entities called by Quintilian the bones of truth, the more by token, I fancy, that they so often stick in the throat—which might contribute to my legends, I came to some sheets whereon his lordship had written some hasty remarks, to the effect that the case Napier versus Napier was the most curious puzzle that ever he had witnessed since he had taken his seat on the bench. The papers were fragmentary, consisting of parts of a Reclaiming Petition and some portion ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... intelligence to what he termed the "stupid aristocracy," then returning from the Boston celebration, where there was a fair opportunity of comparing the intellect of their chief magistrate, his excellency, Lord Elgin, governor-general of the Canadas, and Sir Allen Napier McNab, knight baronet with that of some of the "plain republicans" who were present on the occasion, were extravagant. The Canadians generally were perfectly carried away with delight at their reception. They reminded us of some of our poor brethren, who had just made their escape from Southern ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... England and Austria covered the Syrian sea-coast with their sails and guns. Beyrut, Latakia, Tortosa, Tripoli, Saida, Tyre, St. Jean d'Acre were bombarded and fell. This formidable coalition despatched Lord Napier to Alexandria as negotiator. Mehemet Ali accepted the overtures, and a convention guaranteed to him, as Pasha of Egypt, rights of succession unknown to all other pashalics of the empire. The hatti-sherif of January 12, 1841, consolidated ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... wont to ride on their white mules. Lydia reminds us that it was upon this dim corkscrew of a road winding upward that Brown performed his remarkable feat in The Lightning Conductor. Brown might have made this dizzy ascent and perilous descent in his Napier; but it could be done by no other chauffeur, "live or dead or fashioned by my fancy," although kings and princes once rode their horses up these inclines, which answered the purpose of porte cochere and stairway. By this way Francis I and ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... from debating his merits and demerits. From his own age to the present the fascination of his career, and at once the copiousness of information on it, and its mysteries, have attracted a multitude of commentators. His character has been repeatedly analysed by essayists, subtle as Macvey Napier, eloquent as Charles Kingsley. There has been no more favourite theme for biographers. Since the earliest and trivial account compiled by William Winstanley in 1660, followed by the anonymous and tolerably industrious narrative attributed variously to John, Benjamin, and James, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... crotchets, did (it is true) make a pet of Pompey; and he was encouraged in this caprice (which had for its origin the doctor's political[E] animosity to Caesar) by one military critic, viz., Sir William Napier. This distinguished soldier conveyed messages to Dr. Arnold, warning him against the popular notion, that Pompey was a poor strategist. Now, had there been any Roman state-paper office, which Sir William could be supposed to have searched and weighed against the statements of surviving ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... there were five daughters of all ages, who were always ready to play with the boy. To be sure, the two eldest, Lilias and Margaret, married early, and before two years had passed by one was lady Colquhoun and the other lady Napier of Merchiston. Still Dorothy and Katherine were left, and Beatrix, who was only three years younger than her brother, and the one ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... Raphael or Titian had refused to paint a Madonna simply because other people had painted Madonnas before them. Some subjects, no doubt, were treated once for all; if Southey had written his history of the Peninsular war after Napier, he would have done a silly thing, and his book would have been damned unread. But what reason was there why we should not have half a dozen books on English thought in the eighteenth century? Would not Grote have inflicted ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley

... daughters. Heal, John, boarding-house, two sons. Heathorn, William, bootmaker, three sons and three daughters. Heisterman, H., Exchange reading room, sons and daughters. Heywood, Joseph, butcher, wife and daughter. Hibben, Thomas Napier, widow, two sons and two daughters. Huston, Guy, gunsmith, two daughters. Irving, William, captain steamer Reliance, son and daughters. Jackson, Doctor William, three sons and daughters. Jungerman, J. L., watchmaker, daughter (Mrs. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... meed of praise, were John Lawrence, the saviour of the Punjab, who later, as Lord Lawrence, was Viceroy of India, Major Herbert Edwardes, now Commissioner of Peshawur, who as a subaltern had won two pitched battles before Mooltan, and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Napier, afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala and Commander-in-Chief of the Army ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband



Words linked to "Napier" :   mathematician, John Napier, Napier's rods



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