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Rectify   /rˈɛktəfˌaɪ/   Listen
Rectify

verb
(past & past part. rectified; pres. part. rectifying)
1.
Math: determine the length of.
2.
Reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; separate from extraneous matter or cleanse from impurities.  Synonym: refine.
3.
Bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one.  Synonyms: reclaim, reform, regenerate.  "Reform your conduct"
4.
Set straight or right.  Synonyms: amend, remediate, remedy, repair.  "Rectify the inequities in salaries" , "Repair an oversight"
5.
Make right or correct.  Synonyms: correct, right.  "Rectify the calculation"
6.
Convert into direct current.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rectify" Quotes from Famous Books



... astuteness. Swept along by the current, they had failed to appreciate the true conditions. They began to realize that it had been a mistake to keep such men as Percival in power; behind the hand they went about convincing each other that it was high time to rectify the original error. These, in addition to the ignorant, easily persuaded rabble from the steerage,—who, by the way, could give ample testimony as to Percival's ability to "bluff,"—provided Crust with a decidedly formidable following. The steerage ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... to know Shelley's mind better than he knew it himself. Shelley called himself an Atheist; that is indisputable; but he did so "rashly." He was mistaken about his own opinions; he knew a great many things, but he was ignorant of himself. But the omniscient Mr. Gosse was born (or was he born?) to rectify the poet's blunder, and assure the world that he was a Theist without knowing it—in fact, a ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... they know how, and how far, Christ can love; and will thence be bold to conclude of their own safety, and of the loss and ruin of all that are not in the same notions, opinions, formalities, or judgment, as they. This is the worst [pride] and greatest of all [delusions]. The text, therefore, to rectify those false and erroneous conclusions, says, [the love of Christ] is a love ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... up and spreading abroad slanderous tales about your neighbours. The slanderer is very often an idler, and a busy-body in other men's matters, while his own lie in confusion and tend to ruin. Look at home. Set thy own house in order. Make up thy own accounts. Pay thy own bills. Rectify the disorder of thy own affairs. In doing these things you may find enough to do, without working ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... clearly saw the error he had committed, and exerted his utmost power to rectify it; but he only faultered and stuttered into nonsense and contradiction. To say the truth, it is often safer to abide by the consequences of the first blunder than to endeavour to rectify it; for by such endeavours we ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... ravages, comes the aid of padding to give shape where there is none, stays to compress into form the swelling chaos of flesh, and paints of all hues to rectify the dingy complexion; but useless are these attempts—for, if dissipation, late hours, immoderation, and carelessness have wrecked the loveliness of female charms, it is not in the power of Esculapius himself ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... him, on his entrance at school, if not unsocial, appear so: this was the primary reason of his unpopularity; the second was that he perceived, for he was sensitive (and consequently acute) to the extreme, the misfortune of his manner, and in his wish to rectify it, it became doubly unprepossessing; to reserve, it now added embarrassment, to coldness, gloom; and the pain he felt in addressing or being addressed by another was naturally and necessarily reciprocal, for the effects of sympathy are nowhere so wonderful, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... responsible," Barbara was saying, "I can't begin to imagine. Surely I've done everything I could to simplify matters, to straighten them out, and to give you a chance to rectify your folly. I've effaced myself; I've broken my heart; I've promised Aunt Marion to go in for a job for which I'm not fitted and don't care a rap; and yet you ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... his substance in heaven rather than his name and shadow in the earth. Were there any hopes to outlive vice, or a point to be superannuated from sin, it were worthy our knees to implore the days of Methuselah. But age doth not rectify but brings on incurable vices, and the number of our days doth but make our sins innumerable. There is but one comfort left, that though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... said he, with a sad and melancholy air, "it would be better for us all if we looked back oftener than we do. From the errors of the past, we might rectify our course for the future. Prospective sin is often clothed in very alluring garments; past sin appears in all its naked deformity. Looking ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... operation of social conditions. For in all grades of civilization above the lowest, "there are so many kinds of superiorities which severally enable men to survive, notwithstanding accompanying inferiorities, that natural selection cannot by itself rectify any particular unfitness." In a race of inferior animals any maladjustment is quickly removed by natural selection, because, owing to the universal slaughter, the highest completeness of life possible to a given grade of organization ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... possibility. He knew that Eve had written this thing, and he wished to have the opportunity of correcting one or two small mistakes which he anticipated, and which he felt that he himself alone could rectify. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... to my self; and when I hear of a Satyrical Speech or Writing that is aimed at me, I examine my own Heart, whether I deserve it or not. If I bring in a Verdict against my self, I endeavour to rectify my Conduct for the future in those particulars which have drawn the Censure upon me; but if the whole Invective be grounded upon a Falsehood, I trouble my self no further about it, and look upon my Name at the Head of it to signify no more than one of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... gracious, nor the few words she uttered in answer to what he said, anything but barely audible and civil. Sensitively aware that she had allowed her feelings to get possession of her in the commencement, she tried to rectify matters now, and grew so frigid that there was no thawing her out. Roger Congreve's eyes wore a constant twinkle, and he looked at her so frequently that Olive defiantly felt that he was laughing at her awkward confusion, and the thought made ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... not great; and that, which is not probable, will not delight a reasonable audience. This action, thus described, must be represented and not told, to distinguish dramatic poetry from epic: but I hasten to the end or scope of tragedy, which is, to rectify or purge our ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... Delphian Oracle, Know thy Self: Which certainly is the most important of a Man's Life." Distempers of the mind, he continues, like those of the body, are half cured when well known. Although philosophers of all ages have agreed in their aim to expose human imperfections in order to rectify them, their methods have differed. Those moralists who have inveighed magisterially against man's vices generally have been "abandon'd to the ill-bred Teachers of Musty Morals in Schools, or to the sowr Pulpit-Orators." Those who, by "nipping Strokes of a Side-wind ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay

... of our force today," continued the general, "in order to rectify our line. Our army had advanced too far. Tomorrow we resume our ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... say that it seems to me very hard that a man can't rectify such an important error. The imposition is simply monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut up in society on the distinct understanding, to begin with, that society was to help them to preserve their lives; instead of which, it starves them and hangs them and sends them to be shot ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... laws Of God engraven on the granite hills, Written in every Wrinkle of the earth, On every plain, on every mountain-top,— Nay, blazened o'er all the boundless Universe On every jewel that sparkles on God's throne? And can ye rectify God's mighty plan? O pygmies, can ye measure God himself? Aye, would ye measure God's almighty power, Go—crack Earth's bones and heave the granite hills; Measure the ocean in a drinking-cup; Measure Eternity by the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... research or discovery himself, his envy and jealousy made him detest every one who gave proofs of either. We are assured by Vesalius, who was some time his pupil, that his manner of teaching was calculated neither to advance the science nor to rectify the mistakes of his predecessors. A human body was never seen in the theatre of Dubois; the carcases of dogs and other animals were the materials from which he taught; and so difficult even was it to obtain human bones, that unless Vesalius and his fellow-students had collected assiduously ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... World, and in places the most remote from the Sun, the Skins of the Grapes are much thicker, and carry a Sourness in them which should not be too much press'd to mix with the richer part of the Grape; but in the hotter Climes, the Skins of the Grapes are thin, and the Sourness rectify'd by the Sun, and will bear pressing without injuring the ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... exhaust every resource that justice might be done to him. His next step was to appeal to the legislature for redress, but it was in vain; then he made an application to the Board of Trade, in England, which had the power to rectify the wrong. Here he had so many difficulties to contend with that he was forced to leave the colonists to themselves, who soon after separated. But ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... Hopkins," Master Gridley urged, "if you knew the meaning they have to the ears of scholars, you would see that I did very wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellow-creatures, and that I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean to consult you as to the new names; and if we can fix upon proper and pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my will to these ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... acquaintance with the colonies enables him to invest it judiciously; and meanwhile, if wise, he will spend every shilling as though it were his last; but if his capital consists only of the trifle in his purse, no matter, the way he is setting to work will soon rectify that deficiency, and he stands a good chance in a few years of returning to England a comparatively ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... law, but left it to the next legislature to rectify or revoke the errors of the last. He argued that powers require to be checked in proportion to the danger they present. Now the danger from a power not representative exceeds that from a power that represents, and is better ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... there was our dear les Lupeaulx, for instance, whose position was so deeply compromised. And Desroches stood in need of influence; for when he began, he was anything but well looked on at the court, and he who took so much trouble to rectify the errors of his clients was often in trouble himself. See now, Bixiou, to go back to the subject—How came Desroches to be ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... and I knew they whispered of the loaves and fishes. I went on hastily. 'So I was made aware of my foolishness and of Moosu's wisdom; of my own unfitness and of Moosu's fitness. And because of this, being no longer mad, I make acknowledgment and rectify evil. I did cast unrighteous eyes upon Kluktu, and lo, she was sealed to Moosu. Yet is she mine, for did I not pay to Tummasook the goods of purchase? But I am well unworthy of her, and she shall go from the igloo of her father ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... apt to shame us out of any particular Vice, or animate us to any particular Virtue, to make us pleased or displeased with our selves in the most proper Points, to clear our Minds of Prejudice and Prepossession, and rectify that Narrowness of Temper which inclines us to think amiss of those who ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... to delay his projected union, thus a second time granting his brother the honor of obedience. In accordance with his strict demands, he resolved to rectify the frontier separating Holland from Belgium, and by taking the Waal as the future limit to form two new French departments on this side the river, called Bouches-du-Rhin and Bouches-de- l'Escaut. Zealand and its islands, North Brabant, part of Guelder, and the towns Bergen-op-Zoom, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... and in the cheek furrows lay uneffaced, and the dark hands and wrists, disposed, lumplike, on the front of the greyish-blue shroud, seemed to have had their fingers twisted in a manner which even death had failed to rectify. And ever and anon, streaming from door to window, came a draught variously fraught with the odours ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... play-fellow and monitress to her younger sisters and brother, to make and to mend, and to study economy under her careful aunt. Thus we see that, while her imagination received vivid impressions, her excellent understanding had full power to rectify them before her fancies became realities. On a scrap of paper, she has ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... earnest soul, to attract its attention and occupy its strength and thought. Sometimes it is a little irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody else's business in which we become interested, and which we feel bound to rectify, and before we know, we are absorbed in a lot of distracting cares and interests that quite turn us aside from the great purpose of ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... the failure of intellect it is doubtless to rectify the valuations of the ego. Now the compass, which is in itself very inferior to the hand which fashions it and appropriates it to its own use, nevertheless implies a defect in that hand which directs it. So there is between the eye and the telescope, which comes to its aid, all the distance that ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... be," I said to myself, "that I am not especially responsible for this by the luxury of my life, but that it is the indispensable conditions of existence that are to blame. In truth, a change in my mode of life cannot rectify the evil which I have seen: by altering my manner of life, I shall only make myself and those about me unhappy, and the other miseries will remain the same as ever. And therefore my problem lies not in a change of my own life, as it had first seemed to me, but ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... contrite heart." And he said if we did this with good and true devotion, God would so handle the matter, that it should be to the comfort of all England, and so show us mercy as he showed unto the children of Israel. And surely, brethren, there will come to us a good man that will rectify these monasteries again that be now supprest, because "God can of these stones raise up children ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... rather a problem with this book, because the copy we worked from had pages 15 and 16 missing (sheet was missing) and also the bottom half of pages 283 and 284 has been torn out. Eventually, when I can see another copy of the book I will be able to rectify this, but at the moment there does not seem to be a copy in sight: it doesn't even seem to be listed ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... justum suadet et lene,' or the quality of this people, apt to mutiny by reason of long liberty, and not having learned to be imperiously commanded,—in which argument the clergy should not have read their first lesson. The synod, therefore, to whom it is not now in integro to go back and rectify what is amiss, without disparagement, must now go forward and leave events to God, and for the countenance of their actions do the best they may." Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... hero is French and takes up his residence in an English cathedral town in order to rectify our British prudery and show us how to make love, there is practically nothing here that is calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of modesty. It is true that from time to time Captain le Briquet kisses various outlying portions of his "ange adore," but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various

... Sinclair to deny it. He reviewed his situation with the swift calm of an old gambler. He had tried his desperate coup and had failed. There was nothing to do but accept the failure, or else make a still more desperate effort to rectify his position, risking everything on a ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... limitless enterprise of groups of men. It is great, also, very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... to rectify the matter in the fourth edition, i. p. 536, but the reader is nowhere told that Mr. Gladstone disavowed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... Estevan had left his wife, Dona Ana de Osseguera, and his two small daughters, with his house and property, to persuade Dona Ana to marry him. This resolution appeared injurious in many respects, and the attempt was made to rectify matters. But in order not to disturb the affairs of Mindanao, the matter was left alone for the present, until time should show the course to be followed. And so it happened that when Juan de la Xara left the camp and settlements of Mindanao, and came hurriedly to Oton to negotiate his ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... favourite with the men. Accordingly, my appearance as manager in his stead was not very agreeable to the employed. On inquiry I found that the rate of wages paid was above the usual value, whilst the quantity as well as quality of the work done were below the standard. I proceeded to rectify these defects, by paying the ordinary rate of wages, and then by raising the quality of the work done. I was met by the usual method—a strike. The men turned out. They were abetted by the former manager; and the leading hands hung about the town ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... its proper application. The method which I am about to submit for the suppression of this alarming state of anarchy and danger, will, it must be confessed, occasion a very considerable immediate addition of expence; but this is necessary to rectify the great and increasing evils of the ticket of leave system, and to insure the honest and laborious colonist that security of person and property which the injudicious extension, within these few years, of this narrow-minded system has so greatly endangered. Without the enjoyment ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... they wrote presupposedly a highly industrialized, technical economy. Neither Russia nor, later China had this. The, ah, excesses that occurred in both countries, in the mid-Twentieth Century, were the result of efforts to rectify this. You follow me? The Party, in power as a result of the confusion following in one case the First World War, and in the second case, the Second World War, tried to lift the nations into the industrial ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... up there will still be little places which will require deepening and filling up. A little tow, pushed in any interstices which maybe left between the stitches, will soon rectify this, and also help to shorten the fish, which, in a first attempt, is almost sure to be made too long. This is important, as a well-fed pike should be of some considerable depth, and not a lanky monster like a snake. A little gentle tapping with the handle ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... and informed the Peloponnesians that it would no longer listen to them, and that they might do what they chose (572). This was natural enough, but it was not right; situated as the Romans were, they were under a moral and political obligation earnestly and steadfastly to rectify this melancholy state of things. Callicrates the Achaean, who went to the senate in 575 to enlighten it as to the state of matters in the Peloponnesus and to demand a consistent and calm intervention, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... followed, you will obtain sweet, tender and wholesome bread. If by any mistake the dough becomes sour before you are ready to bake it, you can rectify it by adding a little dry super-carbonate of soda, molding the dough a long time to distribute the soda equally throughout the mass. All bread is better, if naturally sweet, without the soda; but sour bread you should never eat, if ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... telling them not to commit murder; and that would be absurd. Do Christians cheat and tell lies? I have a great aversion to writing about such things; if children are not trained at home to be upright and full of integrity, it can't be that books can rectify that loss. You may reply that home-training is defective in thousands of cases; yes, that is true, but I have a feeling that truth and honesty must spring from a soil early prepared for them, and that a young person who is in the habit of falsehood is not a Christian and needs to ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... courses of action which have been commented upon as errors. And nothing like a true conception of him can be formed, unless, along with dissent from them, there goes recognition of the fact that they resulted from the eagerness of a noble nature impatient to rectify injustice ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... quantity of wrath for the use of Sophia; but she now transferred it all to the squire. "Brother," said she, "it is astonishing that you will interfere in a matter which you had totally left to my negotiation. Regard to my family hath made me take upon myself to be the mediating power, in order to rectify those mistakes in policy which you have committed in your daughter's education. For, brother, it is you—it is your preposterous conduct which hath eradicated all the seeds that I had formerly sown in her tender mind. It is you yourself who have taught her disobedience."—"Blood!" ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... displeased you; by deciding to teach. Eugene, it pains me very much that he should treat me as he does, but it is utterly out of my power to rectify the evil." ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... to rectify his notions on the subjects we had been talking about, and to give him those just ideas which religion teaches us, and the sacred writings have transmitted to us. He hearkened to me with great attention, and promised to repeat all that I had told him to the old men of his nation, who ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... the same mind. They did not fancy taking any chance of having that concealed six-pounder discharged point-blank at them. Mistakes are hard to rectify after a fatal volley has been fired. The best way is to avoid running ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... speak some indiscreet words, which I beg you to pardon. Oh, do not you think I am so unjust, replies Sindbad, to resent such a thing as that; I consider your condition, and, instead of upbraiding you with your complaints, I am sorry for you; but I must rectify your mistake concerning myself. You think, no doubt, that I have acquired, without labour or trouble, the ease and conveniency which I now enjoy. But do not mistake yourself; I did not attain to this happy ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... poetess." So I wish that the first opportunity you have you would correct the mistake, and if you feel the matter too delicate to write upon, you can tell the Miss Frickers when they next call upon you. For he will most likely change the E. L. E. to L. E. L. which I shall not be able to rectify if he does not send me a proof sheet, and I would much rather that they should stand as written. Proud as I am of brother Allan's commendation, and proud as I should be of Miss Landon's commendation also, I feel much ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... discretion, to re-examine the principles early infused into their minds. They cannot in their riper age conquer by reason those superstitions terrors, or bigoted prejudices, which render their victims miserable, or perhaps criminal. To attempt to rectify any errors in the foundation after an edifice has been constructed is dangerous: the foundation, therefore, should be laid with care. The religious opinions of Sister Frances were strictly united with just rules ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

... Louis is a man of strict honour; he must have acted on hasty information. To do you entire justice, I shall make it my duty to look over these documents, which are doubtless entirely correct, and will then do the best in my power to rectify this injury so painful and regrettable. A ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... to do business as slowly as you please; but when my friend was in prison, I thought the quicker I did his business the better. Now tell me what mistake I have made, and I will rectify ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... perhaps, but, as he would have told you, "ready for anything." There being no bell, he had raised and let fall the great knocker, and then stood still in the sunshine looking placidly about him. The desolation of the park left him unmoved. Money, judiciously expended, could rectify that. And the house seemed sound enough. They knew how to build in the old days. Colonel Winchester was probably using only one wing for the present. In time to come, possibly ... Mr. Plowman had straightened ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... weakened, M. Ader decided to make his first trial; the machine was taken out of its hangar, the wings were mounted and steam raised. M. Ader in his seat had, on each side of him, one man to the right and one to the left, whose duty was to rectify the direction of the apparatus in the event that the action of the rear wheel as a rudder would not be sufficient to hold the machine in a ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... soil with an acid, and determining in the solution all that is dissolved. Such analyses are often useful for practical purposes, as for example, when they show the absence of lime, or any other individual substance, by the addition of which we may rectify the deficiency of the soil; but they are of comparatively little scientific value, and throw but little light on the true constitution of the soil, and the sources of its fertility. Nor is it likely that much satisfactory ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... the rest of the whole of England entirely to him and his heirs. Also, should any battle, riot, or discord fall out between two of the said Lords, (may it never be!) then the third of the said Lords, calling to himself good and faithful counsel, shall duly rectify such discord, riot, and battle; whose approval or sentence the discordant parties shall be held bound to obey. They shall also be faithful to defend the kingdom against all men; saving the oak on the part of the said Owyn given to the most illustrious Prince Charles, by the grace of God King of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... containing it had been delivered it was at the request of his excellency, and expressly declared to be a private communication, not an official one. I further stated that I made this communication without instructions, merely to counteract misapprehensions and from an earnest desire to rectify errors which might have serious consequences. I added that it was very unfortunate that an earlier call of the Chambers had not been made in consequence of Mr. Serurier's promise, the noncompliance with which was of a nature to cause ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... form a separate Government. The establishment of so powerful a kingdom on the confines of France was, he added, not in accordance with the traditions of French foreign policy, and in self-defence France must rectify its military frontier by the acquisition of Nice and Savoy (Feb. 24th). Cavour well understood that the mention of Tuscan independence, and the qualified recognition of the Pope's rights in the Romagna, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... creeks and sounds of the north-east, or north-west passages, and all out as good a discovery as that hungry [172]Spaniard's of Terra Australis Incognita, as great trouble as to perfect the motion of Mars and Mercury, which so crucifies our astronomers, or to rectify the Gregorian Calendar. I am so affected for my part, and hope as [173]Theophrastus did by his characters, "That our posterity, O friend Policles, shall be the better for this which we have written, by correcting and rectifying what is amiss in themselves by our examples, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... checked the savage, and made him turn in self-defence. He had run to finish his horrible work, and secure the usual trophy of war without taking time to re-load his gun, and was thus almost unarmed. Grasping his powder-horn he attempted to rectify this error—which would never have been committed by an experienced warrior,—but before he could accomplish half the operation, the well-aimed spear of Cheenbuk went whistling through the air, and ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... had to be confided to them all.[176] The Hungarian Dictator pleaded that if his troops had gone out of bounds it was because the frontiers were unknown to him. The Czechoslovaks respectfully demurred to one of the boundaries along the river Ipol which it was difficult to justify and easy to rectify. But the Rumanian delegation, confronted with the map, met the decision with a frank protest. For it amounted to the abandonment of one of their three vital irreducible claims which they were not empowered to renounce. Consequently they felt unable to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... (among other matters left to the luck of events) a metropolitan play upon the Saxon tongue, hard of understanding to the leeky cocks until their ready store of native pepper seasons it; which may require a corresponding English condiment to rectify the flavour of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... his power. He is responsible to God; and where our opinions, in regard to the manner in which any of the duties, arising from the relation, are to be performed, differ from his, we have no right to interfere, without his consent, to rectify what we thus imagine to be wrong. I know of but one exception, which any man whatever would be inclined to make, to this principle; and that is, where the parent would, if left to himself, take such a course, as would ultimately make his children unsafe members of society. The ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... look upon not merely as false but as preposterous and absurd. But I am too familiar with the hydra of error to expect that by lopping off one of the monster's heads I can prevent another, or even the same, from sprouting again. I can only trust to the candour and intelligence of my readers to rectify this serious misconception of my views by a comparison with my own ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... The first criticism suggested by the David is that Donatello betrays the great effort it cost him. Like the unfinished Faith by Mino da Fiesole,[59] it is laboured and experimental. They set to work hoping that later stages would enable them to rectify any error or miscalculation, but both found they had gone too far. The material would permit no such thing, and with all their skill one sees that the blocks of marble did not unfold the statues which lay hidden within. As hewers of stone, Donatello and Mino cannot compare with Michael Angelo. Jacopo ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... o'clock boat for Stockton. On my way to the wharf I thought that pile of slugs looked large and I took them out and counted them. I found that I had twelve instead of eight. I turned around and went back to the office, to the same counter and clerk, and said to him, "Do you rectify mistakes here?" He said, "Not after a man leaves the office." I said, "All right," and left the office and made the Stockton boat all right. But there were no insane ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley

... to exploit and exaggerate the differences between us and our allies, particularly with reference to the peoples who have been liberated from Fascist tyranny. That is not the way to secure a better settlement of those differences or to secure international machinery which can rectify ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... words in confessing his error, but ran up on to the bridge to rectify it as far as he could at once. The helm was put hard over, the port screw was reversed, and the steamer swung round in a wide sweep, and was soon speeding back westward over her own tracks. An ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... reduce contending forces to our requirements. Patience is not half a virtue when it simply implies an uncomplaining endurance because one thinks he must endure. The patience that will not endure, but tries and tries again to rectify the ill is the best patience. It never turns aside, never lays down its tools, always has a new plan when the old is crushed out—that is the real patience! You call me a despot—you are unjust! It is only that you don't understand, I do not want ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... best account; profit by, reap the benefit of; make good use of, make capital out of; place to good account. render better, improve, mend, amend, better; ameliorate, meliorate; correct; decrassify[obs3]. improve upon, refine upon; rectify; enrich, mellow, elaborate, fatten. promote, cultivate, advance, forward, enhance; bring forward, bring on; foster &c. 707; invigorate &c. (strengthen) 159. touch up, rub up, brush up, furbish up, bolster ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting, and adapt it to its end. The sight of a Deing who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... consequence of neglect, or injury, for which the woman herself is responsible,—it is not a natural accompaniment of, or a physiological sequence to pregnancy. Find out, therefore, wherein you are at fault, rectify it, and it ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... its possessor good, and his work good likewise." Now good may be understood in a twofold sense: first, materially, for the thing that is good, secondly, formally, under the aspect of good. Good, under the aspect of good, is the object of the appetitive power. Hence if any habits rectify the consideration of reason, without regarding the rectitude of the appetite, they have less of the nature of a virtue since they direct man to good materially, that is to say, to the thing which is good, but without considering it under the aspect ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... have looked into my accounts. I find this wrong and this wrong. But, with God's grace, I will rectify this and this. I ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... to see everything topsy-turvy. Whether it be that their antipodal situation has affected their brains, or whether it is the mind of the observer himself that has hitherto been wrong in undertaking to rectify the inverted pictures presented by his retina, the result, at all events, is undeniable. The world stands reversed, and, taking for granted his own uprightness, the stranger unhesitatingly imputes to them an obliquity of vision, a state of mind outwardly typified ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... takes away all hesitation and gives them a precocious air of maturity. If this decorative lad engages in some profession like medicine or engineering there is hope for him, even as others of his age rectify their perspective by contact with crude facts—groceries and calicoes and carburettors and so forth. Otherwise, his doom is sealed. He remains a doctrinaire. This country is ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... this. I have endeavoured both in public and in private to fight against it. But selfishness has diffused itself thro' the whole mass of our people, and hinc illae lacrymae. You mistakenly conceive, as do many others, that I am biassed by personal affection for Mr. Pitt. When we meet, I will rectify ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... conceited Revelation; but the People of this World convince us, that it may be all Natural, by obtaining it in a Mechanick way, viz. by forming something suitable to the sublime Nature, which working by Art, shall only rectify the more vigorous Particles of the Soul, and work it up to a suitable Elevation. This Engine is wholly applied to the Head, and Works by Injection; the chief Influence being on what we call Fancy, or Imagination, which by the heat of strong Ideas, is fermented to a strange heighth, and ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... Madrid. There is the Jewish and also the Mahommedan Calendar, but I see nothing about the Greek Kalends. I am not quite sure that the Bulgarians will be quite satisfied, and I should say, that the Aborigines of Central Africa will have a distinct grievance, which M. FREDERIC MAYER will rectify after an interview with Mr. STANLEY. It's a wonderful production, and as it gives postal rates and cab-fares in ever so many languages, it will be of great practical value to the traveller. But no list of cab-fares ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various

... and the feet directed outward so as to press on the sides of the passages. They become retarded in their progress as compared with the more rapidly advancing head, and may bruise or even lacerate the walls of the vagina. It would seem easy to rectify this by extending the legs, but the already tense and overstretched muscles operate against extension in the present position, and it is not easy to rotate the limbs so as to apply the shoulder flat against the side of the chest. Under these circumstances ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... Standard Oil Company case and the American Tobacco Company case were delivered late in May and were unexpectedly reassuring to business. This was another evidence that the best thought of the Nation everywhere was seeking to rectify the looseness of the past without killing business initiative and continued endeavor. So matters see-sawed in the business world. It was indeed in a state of unstable equilibrum. Stocks declined now abruptly; then, after some slight recovery, gently; ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... though they may have large properties, are not always in possession of any number of loose hundreds which they can throw away without feeling the loss. Nor was the Marquis of Trowbridge so circumstanced now. But that trouble did not gall him nearly so severely as the necessity which was on him to rectify an error made by himself. He had done a foolish thing. Under no circumstances should the chapel have been built on that spot. He knew it now, and he knew that he must apologise. Noblesse oblige. The old lord was very stupid, very wrong-headed, and sometimes very arrogant; ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... reached the garden gate, not many metres from the door, I had decided to try the town way; and lest I should be doing the wrong thing and have to rectify my mistake later, I ran as a lamplighter is popularly supposed to run, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... "after to-night's imbroglio I have nothing to observe concerning the possibility of anything; but if this marriage prove a legal one, I am most indissuadably resolved to rectify matters without ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... better come now than after long-drawn-out bickerings and bitterness. If we are so diametrically opposed where we thought we stood together we have made a mistake that no amount of adjusting, nothing but separate roads, will rectify. Myself I refuse to believe that we have made such a mistake. I don't think that honestly and deliberately you prefer an exotic, useless, purposeless, parasitic existence to the normal, wholesome life we happily planned. But you are obsessed, intoxicated—I can't put it any better—and nothing ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... all to their advantage."[394] Trevisa, about the same time, translating into English the chronicle of Ralph Higden, reaches the passage where it is said that all the country people endeavour to learn French, and inserts a note to rectify the statement. This manner, he writes, is since the great pestilence (1349) "sumdel i-chaunged," and to-day, in the year 1385, "in alle the gramere scoles of Engelond, children leveth Frensche and construeth and lerneth ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... troublesome delay on arrival. There was a post-office a hundred yards away, and he would only be gone for a few moments. He did not venture to approach Toni, but speaking from the door explained that he had forgotten to engage rooms in Paris, and if she would excuse him for a minute or two he would rectify the omission. She agreed gently, giving him a tired little smile; and he wasted no time in departing on ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... heaven and the savage conception of hell are still, in modified form, deemed necessary for a religious morality. Why it should be necessary for a supreme intelligence to make all things straight in another world, that he could more convincingly rectify in this one, is a conception which has escaped the reason of a freethinker, but has been very profitable to those on earth that lead their adherents to believe that they hold the keys to our future abodes. Winwood ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... comes to a close, and still panting from their exertions, the elder children carry out the tables and rectify their damages as well as may be, while the younger range the stools round the wall and sit down on ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... plantations, afforded him good meat and drink, and treated him rather better than our farmers treat their servants here. Which leads me to say something concerning the usage such people met with, when carried as the Law directs to our plantations, in order to rectify certain gross mistakes; as if Englishmen abroad had totally lost all humanity, and treated their fellow-creatures and fellow-countrymen as slaves, or ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... of France, those pleasant rolling heights above Rheims, Verdun, and old, provincial Pont-a-Mousson, have been literally gorged with blood. It being out of the question to strengthen or rectify very much the front-line trenches close to the enemy, the effort has taken place in the rear lines. Wherever there is a certain security, the rear lines of all the important strategic points have been converted into veritable subterranean fortresses. The floor plan of these trenches ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... have fought splendidly to vindicate the whole monstrous travesty, but it can't be vindicated. It was doomed by every law of nature from the start. We have now not only the right but the duty to rectify it, and to rectify it together. You ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... valley of the Donau is the garden spot of the world, I must now ask you to excuse the ebullience of spirit that prompted the declaration. The Warm Springs Valley of Virginia is infinitely more attractive to me, and I make haste to rectify any erroneous impression I may have given, while under the spell of something my natural modesty forbids me ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... think the Senate called upon to fix up this Mills Bill, to rectify its most glaring mistakes, and then for the sake of saving a little, give up a great deal. What we have got is safe until the Democrats have the power to pass a bill. We can protect our rights by not passing their bills. In other words, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... thousand times. If my poor talents enable me to respond in any degree to so much that is flattering, I venture, dear madam, to offer you a little musical potpourri. I do not, indeed, find in it much that is fragrant; perhaps the publisher may rectify the fault in future editions. If the arrangement of the symphony in it be yours, oh! then I shall be twice as much pleased with the publisher; if not, I venture to ask you to arrange a symphony, and ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... "'It is to rectify that mistake, madam, which has induced me to call. The Colonel, madam, did hear that your daughter was at Mrs Bradshaw's establishment, and wished to carry her off, supposing that she was a very rich prize, but, madam, he made a slight mistake—instead ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... part of OUR duty to act in accordance with certain memorials advising that the prime minister and chief astronomer be instructed to offer up sacrifices on this occasion. Do ye, governors of districts and other high officers of State, seek rather to rectify your own hearts; and if any one can devise means to make up for OUR shortcomings, let him submit his proposals to the ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of principles and rules. If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And these medicines it conveyeth into men's minds much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of examples. For let a man look into the errors of Clement VII., so ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... impossible if the soul be pure, and if evil be a necessary attribute of matter.(192) With the fall, redemption also disappears, because the perfect cannot admit of change; Christ's coming could only be to correct what God already knew, or rectify what ought to have been corrected before.(193) Further, Celsus argues, if Divinity did descend, that it would not assume so lowly a form as Jesus. The same rigorous logic charges on Christianity the undue elevation of man, as well as the abasement of God. Celsus can neither admit ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... closed over it immediately, as with us, and also, in withdrawing it, all traces of the passage of the knife were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blade was passed down accurately between the two veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify. The phenomena of this water formed the first definite link in that vast chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined to be ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... adequate digest of these laws in various States. They are not precisely the same in any two of the forty-nine States and Territories, and they offer a striking illustration of the attempts of law-makers, during the last few decades, to rectify in a measure the legal outrages of the past, and of their inability in the present state of their development to grant absolute justice. That must await the lawmakers of the future, and probably the time when women shall have a part ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... Brother-in-Law whilst I went unto the Fort in the Island to see how matters went there; & at my going away I told Mr. Bridgar that if hee pleas'd hee might dispose himself for his departure home next morning, to rectify some disorders committed by his people in his absence, to get victualls, & I told him I would meet him by the way to goe along with him. Having dispatcht my business at the fort of the Island, I went away betimes to bee at Mr. Bridgar's house before him, to hinder him from abusing his ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... calm yourself. If there has been bad work, what should be done now is to try and rectify it. Repeat what you were ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... him, saying, "The Prince of Wei has been waiting to secure your services in the administration of the state, and wishes to know what you consider is the first thing to be done." "It is first of all necessary," replied Confucius, "to rectify names." "Indeed," said Tzse-loo, "you are wide of the mark. Why need there be such rectification?" "How uncultivated you are, Yew," answered Confucius; "a superior man shows a cautious reserve in regard to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... commissioners, with his replies; in which he clearly states the cause of the disasters in the colonies, and proposes wise and statesman-like remedies. He insists upon industry and good conduct: "to rectify a commonwealth with debauched people is impossible, and no wise man would throw himself into such society, that intends honestly, and knows what he understands, for there is no country to pillage, as the Romans found; all you expect from thence must ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... with him to the garden-gate, and watched him slowly walk away into the thickening twilight with a relaxed rigidity that tried to rectify itself. "He is offended, excited, bewildered, perplexed—and enchanted!" Felix said to himself. "That ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... time when he had thought to rectify the evil, to save Guy from himself, to implant in him something of that moral fibre which he so grievously lacked. But he had been forced long since to recognize his own limitations in this respect. Guy was fundamentally wanting in that strength which was so essentially ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... as if her objection had conveyed a suggestion that his financial standing had a bearing on her acceptance, and hastened to rectify it: ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... support a claim. But learning ceased to be hostile to Christianity when it ceased to be pursued merely as an instrument of controversy—when facts came to be acknowledged, no longer because they were useful, but simply because they were true. Religion had no occasion to rectify the results of learning when irreligion had ceased to pervert them, and the old weapons of controversy became repulsive as soon as they had ceased ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... critical situation of our relations with France, which have long engaged my most serious attention, I have determined on these nominations of persons to negotiate with the French Republic to dissipate umbrages, to remove prejudices, to rectify errors, and adjust all differences by a treaty between ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... will be my duty to rectify this error in other quarters, and in the meantime I beg you to make what use you may think fit ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... suggested Bok; "with your consent, I will rectify both the inaccuracy and the injustice. Write out a correct version of 'The Lost Chord'; I will give it to nearly a million readers, and so render obsolete the incorrect copies; and I shall be only too happy ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... enabled to adjust our chronological dates, rectify history in some of its most important points, and judge more correctly of the attainments of our ancestors; nay, more and better, to form a truer estimate of ourselves and discern the finger of God in the manipulations of men, and an overruling Providence in the rise and fall ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... necessity of taking some notice of the boy, he would only appoint him something else to occupy him again, so as to leave himself free to follow his new bent. Now and then he would become aware of his blameable neglect, and make a feeble struggle to rectify what seemed to be growing into a habit — and one of the worst for a tutor; but he gradually sank back into the mire, for mire it was, comforting himself with the resolution that as soon as he was able to read Italian without absolutely spelling his way, he would let Euphra see what progress he ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... girl. Filial instinct might enable us to worship her as a mother, but even the noblest desire to serve humanity would scarcely be enough to keep a husband or a lover up to his daily devotions in the case of a plain girl with sandy hair and a freckled complexion. The boldest effort to rectify the inequalities of the position of plain girls has been made of late years by a courageous school of female writers of fiction. Everything has been done that could be done to persuade mankind that plain girls are in reality ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... had called the traveler Victoria's brother. He saw his mistake as he passed out, but did not deem it necessary to rectify it. ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... acid Spirit, the Salt of Tartar, from which it is Distill'd, will by mortifying and retaining the acid Salt turn into worthless Phlegm neere twenty times its weight, before it be so fully Impregnated as to rob no more Distill'd Vinager of its Salt. And though Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous that it will Flame all away without leaving the least Drop behinde it, yet even this Fiery Liquor is by Helmont not improbably affirm'd, in ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... side the aspect was the same, All ruined, desolate, forlorn and savage, No hand or foot within the precinct came To rectify or ravage! Here Echo never mocked the human tongue; Some weighty crime that Heaven could not pardon. A secret curse on that old Building hung And its ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... heard. The old stair creaks, and Serafino's head appears above the railing. We look up, aroused from our enchantment. The afternoon lights are slanting across the Campagna. It is time to go. I have overpaid the waiter. He honestly offers to rectify it. Isabel laughs, seeing that I am oblivious of such worldly things. That breaks the spell. And we drive back to Rome and ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... exactly every part it consisted of, and to recall all the circular stances of its appearance; since, on examination, it will be discovered, that in some we were mistaken, and others we had totally overlooked. But he who is accustomed to draw what he sees, is, at the same time, accustomed to rectify this inattention; for, by confronting his ideas, copied on the paper, with the object he intends to represent, he finds out what circumstance has deceived him in its appearance; and hence he at length acquires the habit of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... gratified to see that MR. HARDY's documentary researches have confirmed my conjectures as to the erroneous date assigned for the death of the first husband of Jane Beaufort. Perhaps it may be in his power also to rectify a chronological error, which has crept into the account usually given of the family into which one of her sons married. The Peerages all place the death of the last Lord Fauconberg of the original family in 1376, not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... without material change, by the process of absorption, through the coats of the stomach and intestines, as do all liquids, and so gain an entrance into the general circulation; that these same alteratives act locally to tone and strengthen the mucous surfaces, and thus promote and rectify the process of digestion before being absorbed; that alterative medicines, when in the blood, must permeate the mass of the circulation, and thus reach the remote parts of the body and influence every function; that ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... and smiling as if he had sold a suit of clothes without coming down a cent. When, to everybody's great surprise, the sucker said, "Gentlemen, I have made a mistake in my hand; can't I take my money down?" The Jew said: "Oh, we don't rectify no mistakes in poker." The sucker looked up at him and said: "What in the h—l have you got to do with this game?" The Jew said: "I thought you was bluffin'." The sucker then said: "Hold on, gentlemen, we have not drawn yet. I thought I had a king full on sevens." He then threw ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... was made for these minutes, which amount to a day in about one hundred and thirty years, the current year had, in process of ages, advanced ten days beyond the real time. Thus the vernal equinox, which really took place on the 10th of March, was assigned in the calendar to the 21st. To rectify this important error the New Style, or Gregorian calendar, was introduced, so called from Pope Gregory XII. Ten days were dropped after the 4th of October, 1582, and the 5th was called the 15th. This reform of the calendar, correct and necessary as it was, was for a long time adopted only by the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... ease with which it can be taken out of its box and repaired without special tools and experience. A capital defect in this respect has hitherto much interfered with the use of accumulators. In case of accidents, several kinds of which are possible, it is found very difficult to rectify the apparatus. The Montaud accumulator is much less liable to accidents, on account of the firmness and compactness of its construction, and if any accident happens, the repairs are simple and easy. Lastly, the stout ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various

... Salle," she commanded sternly. "I cannot allow you to make such a disgraceful scene in my home, or insult my daughter and her guests. If you will come quietly upstairs with me and state your grievance, I shall do all in my power to rectify it. Marjorie," she turned to her daughter, who stood looking on in wide-eyed distress, "ask the musicians to start the music for ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... strained relations must come to an end. If you can show any just cause why I'm at fault, I shall do all in my power to rectify it. I do not know the slightest reason for your ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... vassal envoys who used to come on spiritual business to the metropolis. We have seen how these men used to entertain each other over their wine by quoting the Odes and other ancient saws; when consulting the imperial library to rectify their own dates, they would naturally meet the old recluse Lao-tsz, and hear from his own mouth what he thought of the coming collapse anticipated by all. He is said to have left orthodox China in disgust, and gone West—well, he must have ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... those of Sir Richard's friends are ignored—so we see Burton from only one point of view. Amazing to say, it does not contain a single original anecdote [1]—though perhaps, more amusing anecdotes could be told of Burton than of any other modern Englishman. It will be my duty to rectify Lady Burton's mistakes and mis-statements and to fill up the vast hiatuses that she has left. Although it will be necessary to subject her to criticism, I shall endeavour at the same time to keep constantly in mind the queenliness and beauty of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... try until we find the true remedy. If the pain in the legs is rheumatic, the hot poultice is all right. If it has been cramp, what is needed is a cold cloth on the lower back, instead of heat. In the example above given, what is needed is not to abandon the treatment, but to rectify the mistake, and apply cold instead of heat. In a great many forms of illness the same principle holds good. It is safer, where there is any doubt, to try heat first, but not in a very strong manner. If this gentle heating makes matters worse, gentle cooling may be tried. If the ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... Bruce, Mr Krapf, Major Harris, and information collected from native travellers, (see Geographical Bulletins of Paris, Nos. 78 and 98,) we are enabled to rectify these points, and clear away ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... of repentance is a change of life. That sorrow which dictates no caution, that fear which does not quicken our escape, that austerity which fails to rectify our affections, are vain and unavailing. But sorrow and terrour must naturally precede reformation; for what other cause can produce it? He, therefore, that feels himself alarmed by his conscience, anxious for the attainment of a better state, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... the good? It's too late to rectify anything now. They must know at her house by this time that she has gone to ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... stronger on the social side, delighting in festivities and open-air amusements. They were amiable and intelligent girls, and would have been amazed had anyone charged them with selfishness; no less if it had been suggested to them that they personally might rectify the domestic disorder of which at times they were moved to complain. They had no beauty, and knew it; neither had received an offer of marriage, and they looked for nothing of the kind. That their dresses cost ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... to rectify his mistake of the morning, and make his brother understand that he had repented of the determination he had made to work against him, and that he was going to do all he could to assist him. He tried to do this, as we know, but did not succeed, for to his great surprise and sorrow David announced ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... can neither prevent nor rectify disorders. A sentence which cannot be executed can have no power to warn or to reform. If the commons have only the power of dismissing, for a few days, the man whom his constituents can immediately send back; if they can expel, but cannot exclude, they have nothing ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... enormous bill of the tucano have often been discussed by ornithologists, many of whom believe that the bill is of no use to that bird and Nature made in this case a mistake and has not yet had time to rectify it. Scientists frequently allege that Nature makes mistakes, because many of them have never really understood Nature. How could they? They have never been near enough to Nature unspoiled. Many of them also believe that tucano birds are great fishers, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... we term "vitality." The course of life, like that of a flying express train, is not a perfectly straight line, but an oscillating series of concentric curves. Without these oscillations movement could not be. Exaggerate one of them unduly, or fail to rectify it by a rebound oscillation, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... endeavours must have been made at a very early period 'to rectify' ([Greek: diorthoun]) the text thus unintentionally corrupted; and so, what began in inadvertence is sometimes found in the end to exhibit traces of design, and often becomes in a high degree perplexing. Thus, to cite a favourite example, it is clear to me ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... your perfumes too much; your fragrance is sometimes oppressive; you saturate yourself with cologne and bergamot, until you make a sort of Hamlet's Ghost of yourself, and no man can decide, with the first whiff, whether you bring with you air from Heaven or from hell. Now, rectify this matter as soon as possible; last Sunday you smelled like a secretary to a consolidated drug store and barber shop. And you came and sat in the same pew with me; now don't do ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... waiter at a commercial inn, no man has so much upon his hands, or so many faults to answer for, as the Governor of a colony. If public affairs go wrong, every voice is raised, requiring him immediately to rectify them; and as every one has a particular plan of his own, the Governor is expected instantly to adopt them all. Nor has he public calamities only to answer for; the private misfortunes of individuals are, without hesitation, laid at his door. He is expected to do something, and not a little, for ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... To rectify our frontier we compelled the Gladsden Purchase within the writer's lifetime. As to our non-contiguous possessions, we hold them by the right of conquest or revolution, salving our consciences with such cash indemnity as we ourselves have chosen ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... this woman. One who had reproached him for deserting her when calumniated, who had urged claims upon his consideration on that account, who had lived waiting for him, who at the first decent opportunity had come to ask him to rectify, by making her his, the false position into which she had placed herself for his sake; such she had been. And now he sat at her tea-table eager to gain her attention, and in his amatory rage feeling the other man present to be a villain, just ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... becoming a member, must rectify all his wrongs, and, as fast and as far as it is in his power, discharge all just and legal claims, whether of creditors or filial heirs. Nor can any person, not conforming to this rule, long remain in union with the society. But the society ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... had curtailed decoration, but the enthusiastic employes (mainly feminine) of one tall store strove to rectify the lack by arming themselves with flags and stationing themselves at every window. Balancing perilously, they waited until the Prince came level, and then set the whole face of the tall building fluttering ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of wearing out the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation, than such as may rectify their notions ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... rather a long breath,—"I acknowledge that; but I think that while some of these same Englishmen have shewn themselves so unwilling to have the condition of their own factory slaves ameliorated, they should be very gentle in speaking of wrongs which we have far less ability to rectify." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... starting on a journey of any length to go a short distance only for the first stage. The object of this is probably to find out by actual experience on the road whether anything has been forgotten or overlooked, before they get too far away to return and rectify the mistake. Semi-civilized peoples are wedded very strongly to the customs in vogue among them, and the European traveller finds himself compelled, more or less, to submit to them. My intention is to overtake the fourgon the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... all the works published under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were, in reality, the production of one person. This mistake I endeavoured to rectify by a few words of disclaimer prefixed to the third edition of 'Jane Eyre.' These, too, it appears, failed to gain general credence, and now, on the occasion of a reprint of 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey,' I am advised distinctly to state how ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte



Words linked to "Rectify" :   exchange, moralise, moralize, remedy, debug, remediate, change by reversal, purify, straighten out, alter, falsify, make pure, find out, convert, ascertain, distill, reverse, see the light, change, rectification, rectifier, determine, modify, sublimate, commute, turn, find



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