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Active   Listen
adjective
Active  adj.  
1.
Having the power or quality of acting; causing change; communicating action or motion; acting; opposed to passive, that receives; as, certain active principles; the powers of the mind.
2.
Quick in physical movement; of an agile and vigorous body; nimble; as, an active child or animal. "Active and nervous was his gait."
3.
In action; actually proceeding; working; in force; opposed to quiescent, dormant, or extinct; as, active laws; active hostilities; an active volcano.
4.
Given to action; constantly engaged in action; energetic; diligent; busy; opposed to dull, sluggish, indolent, or inert; as, an active man of business; active mind; active zeal.
5.
Requiring or implying action or exertion; opposed to sedentary or to tranquil; as, active employment or service; active scenes.
6.
Given to action rather than contemplation; practical; operative; opposed to speculative or theoretical; as, an active rather than a speculative statesman.
7.
Brisk; lively; as, an active demand for corn.
8.
Implying or producing rapid action; as, an active disease; an active remedy.
9.
(Gram.)
(a)
Applied to a form of the verb; opposed to passive. See Active voice, under Voice.
(b)
Applied to verbs which assert that the subject acts upon or affects something else; transitive.
(c)
Applied to all verbs that express action as distinct from mere existence or state.
Active capital, Active wealth, money, or property that may readily be converted into money.
Synonyms: Agile; alert; brisk; vigorous; nimble; lively; quick; sprightly; prompt; energetic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Active" Quotes from Famous Books



... Englishmen charged up the slope to the muzzles of the guns, but were repulsed with loss, losing eleven men killed and five men taken alive. The number of wounded is not stated. The negroes, who were less active in the charge, lost only five men. The Spaniards loss was two killed "and five sore hurt." The English were beaten off the ground, and routed. They made no attempt to rally, and did not fall on ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... would not be put off—he asked her for a kiss, whereat she grew angry. Then, for he was no shy wooer, he tried to take it by force; but she was strong and active and slipped from him. Instead of being ashamed, he only laughed after ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... daughter, whom he had watched shrewdly, demanded people, and the safer plan, he thought, was in multitudes. She was a restless young person, tall like him, with fair skin like her mother, dark hair, and nervous, active arms. ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick

... to be sure," rejoined Squeers. "We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... be regarded as the pioneer missionary to the Indian. His work covers half a century, and, though, for some years, he has not been an active worker amongst the Indians, a solicitude for their welfare still actuates him. His province has been rather that of general superintendence of the New England Company's servants, than one involving much active mingling with the Indians. The association ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... much obliged," said John shivering. He was alone, but wet as he was the place captured an ever active imagination. He looked about him as he stood before the roaring fire. To the right was an open library, to the left a drawing-room rarely used, the hall being by choice the favoured sitting-room. The dining-room was built out from the ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... regarded the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, they were not blind to the importance of a contact with the world, a knowledge of men and of active life, in expanding the mind and quickening the perceptions. From their schools in the mountains some of the youth were sent to institutions of learning in the cities of France or Italy, where was a more extended field for study, thought, and observation than in their native Alps. The ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... to persuade her to stay, but it seems the summer is a very bad time to be away from a farm. But a week from to-morrow, if you are all very good and help me as much as you can, I will take you to Brookside to visit Aunt Polly for a month, or as long as she can stand four active youngsters in ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley

... result of more active exertions than the other's passive self-denial. She sat up one night till two o'clock to dress a doll. Every fall a few hundred dolls were distributed to be dressed by the girls for the Christmas tree ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... six Protestant churches in the town were closed. The Duke of Wirtemberg was, in like manner, compelled to surrender his abbacies. These severe measures, though they alarmed the Protestant states, were yet insufficient to rouse them to an active resistance. Their fear of the Emperor was too strong, and many were disposed to quiet submission. The hope of attaining their end by gentle measures, induced the Roman Catholics likewise to delay for a year the execution of the edict, and this saved the Protestants; before the end of that period, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... to be an intelligent specimen of his race, and when he had conquered his hysteria, was extremely co-operative, showing active interest in his surroundings. I believe he would be able to assimilate training, and would make a valuable addition to the Stellar Guard. I ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole

... limited, what of Mary, whose brain was so active that merely to read of great and successful deeds tortured her like a pain? Just to have a little share of the world's work, just to dig and water the tiniest garden, just to be able to fill a glass for herself ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... More and more frantic the race—Drusus's tongue hung from his mouth like a dog's. He flew past a running fountain, and was just desperate enough to wonder if it was safe to stop one instant and touch—he would not ask to drink—one drop of the cool water. Fortunately the Caesarians were all active young men, of about equal physical powers, and they kept well together and encouraged one another, not by word—they had no breath for that—but by interchange of courage and sympathy from eye to eye. The heavy legionaries had given ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... he had promised, to a fine, active-looking seaman who had just come from aloft, with hands well tarred, and a big clasp knife hung by a rope round his neck. Jack Windy ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston

... Bristol, Bath, Spa-fields, Smithfield and Manchester, as well as those held at the Crown & Anchor and the Freemason's and London Taverns; and likewise of the contested elections of Bristol, Westminster, London, Bridport, Ludgershal and Preston, at all of which I took an active part, and therefore am enabled to detail many curious and interesting anecdotes, facts, intrigues, plots, under-plots, cabals, &c. which were never before presented to the public, and which circumstances, together with the secret springs ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... active figure, neither tall nor short, neither broad nor too thin, observed the length of my arm, and remembered that I had made so respectable a showing with the sword against Bussy, I could see that he was thinking, "It is well to have in one's debt as many such strong and honest young ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... sufferings had been passive before, they began to be active now. Vivian made her life a torment to her by jealousy on the one hand, and positive cruelty on the other; yet his manners in public were so carefully veiled in courtesy that not one of her friends guessed how much she ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... Parsees are intelligent, active and energetic. With business capacities far above the average, they are usually successful in amassing wealth, while they are extremely benevolent in dispensing their gains for both public and private charities. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... rapidity conveys commodities up and down the rivers of the country. *u And to these facilities of nature and art may be added those restless cravings, that busy-mindedness, and love of pelf, which are constantly urging the American into active life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses the country in every direction; he visits all the various populations of the land; and there is not a province in France in which the natives are so well known to each other as the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... untangled and the hero rescued. The action is so cleverly governed and guided in its course that we remain in a state of constant curiosity as to what is going to happen, and we are utterly unable to form a guess; so that between eagerness and surprise our interest is kept active; and as we are pleasantly entertained, we do not notice the lapse of time. Most of Kotzebue's plays are of this character. For the mob this is the right thing: it looks for amusement, something ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... feasibility of changing their courses so as to furnish water to arid and sterile areas; distributed land among the Indians; suppressed the duties on mining machinery; ordered the planting of trees, and showed in a thousand ways his untiring energy, all the while keeping in active diplomatic correspondence and in constant communication with his friends and civil officers, in order to give instructions in detail. He issued orders from Chuquisaca to have the Venezuelan soldiers sent back to their country from Per. He even went so far as to entertain thoughts of the ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... and was now in Newenham, in Gloucestershire, making active preparations for his visit to Ireland. The odium into which he had fallen, after his complicity in the murder of St. Thomas of Canterbury, had rendered his position perilous in the extreme; and probably ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... quitting Switzerland, this desire was again strengthened by the hope of at length finding amongst these islanders the repose refused me in every other place. One thing only alarmed me, which was my unfitness for the active life to which I was going to be condemned, and the aversion I had always had to it. My disposition, proper for meditating at leisure and in solitude, was not so for speaking and acting, and treating of affairs with men. Nature, which had ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... of the wedding when Germain was married. The old men at table could not stir, and for good reason. They recovered neither their legs nor their wits until dawn on the morrow. While they were regaining their dwellings, silently and with uncertain steps, Germain, proud and active, went out to hitch his oxen, leaving his young wife to slumber until daylight. The lark, caroling as it mounted to the skies, seemed to him the voice of his heart returning thanks to Providence. The hoar-frost, sparkling on the leafless bushes, seemed to him the whiteness of April flowers that ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... antedated the years he was Mayor of Boston by just ten years. While such Mayor of Roxbury in 1861-2 he was very active in speechmaking and raising troops in preservation of the American Union. He went to the front several times, and was enthusiastically patriotic during the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... quite insignificant, and as a man without particular culture; he is simply a theatrical conductor—at least as far as I know him. I was struck, however, by his uncommon and specific talent as a conductor, as well as by his nervous, restless, and very active temperament, combined with a strong turn for enthusiasm. He once saw me study Beethoven's music with an orchestra, and conduct it, and devoured what could be acquired with genuine astonishment, making it his own with so much cleverness that later on at Freiburg he produced the music to "Egmont," ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... He had never troubled to consider them as composed of single individuals. Today he thought of them as separate human beings and his intolerance increased. An indefinite distaste never seriously considered seemed, during the few moments in the bare waiting room, to have grown suddenly into active dislike. He was wholly out of sympathy with his surroundings, impatient of the necessity that brought him into contact with what he would have chosen to avoid. He looked about with eyes grown hard and contemptuous. The very building seemed to be the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... pen. And why not? No doubt it would bring him money and spread his name very widely. There was nothing that a friendly corporation could not do for a favorite. He would then really be a part of the great, active, enterprising world. Was there anything illegitimate in taking advantage of such an opportunity? Surely, he should remain his own master, and write nothing except what his own conscience approved. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... home, his head and face sadly cut, the blood streaming from him, and his wife and some neighbor on each side of him—the poor woman weeping and deploring the senseless and sanguinary feuds in which her husband took so active a part. ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... Fenwick whom we have more than once had occasion to mention. He was now no longer dressed with the somewhat affected neatness and coxcombry which had marked his appearance in London, but, on the contrary, was clad in garments comparatively coarse, and bore the aspect of a military man no longer in active service, and enduring some reverses. He also was heavily armed, though many of the others there present bore apparently nothing but the ordinary sword which was carried by ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... endure: that is the ambition which every British statesman ought to cherish. But, as I have said, for the last two years especially—and even for more than two years—more or less, I think, during the whole active period of the foreign policy of the Beaconsfield Administration—the sympathies of these now free peoples of the East have been constantly more and more alienated; and except, perhaps, in a single case which I am glad to cling to—the single ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... most heart-sickening thing to the girl was the way in which, after the first driving off of Raft, the great Chinaman and his crew had gone on with their work as though they were alone on the beach. Pity and humanity seemed as remote from that crowd as from the carcases they were handling. Active hostility would have been less horrible, somehow, than this absolute indifference ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... which followed, and which was terminated by Frederick's defeat at Legnano, the head of the Welfs, Henry the Lion, was for most of the time fighting on the Imperial side, and though he deserted Frederick at the last, he does not seem to have given any active help to the Lombard League. Yet it may well be that in his defection we have to see a stage in the transition from Welf to Guelf. It is, however, not in Lombardy, but in Tuscany, that the names of Guelf and Ghibeline, as recognised party designations, first appear. Machiavelli says—perhaps by ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler

... century, active trade was carried on between the Virginia colony and the mother country. Local commodities of timber, wood products, soap ashes, iron ore, tobacco, pitch, tar, furs, minerals, salt, sassafras, and other New World raw materials were shipped to England. In exchange, English ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... or plant should be studied as a living, active organism. The attention of the pupils should be focused upon activities; for these appeal to the child nature and afford the best means for securing interest and attention. What does this animal do? How does it do ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... know that the Turkish army is under German officers. But—if war should happen, is it likely that this ramshackle nation which was fought to a standstill by the Balkan Alliance only a few months ago would be likely to take active sides?" ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... of it was that Macklin found the joke too good to keep it to himself: by this time the whole countryside knew of Jim's visit to the "tackydermatist," and maddening allusions to it had kept Jim's temper raw and his fists pretty active. ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 15th, 1851, a colored man named "Shadrach" was arrested under a warrant from that Commissioner who had been so active in the attempt to kidnap Mr. and Mrs. Craft. But a "miracle" was wrought: "where sin abounded Grace did much more abound," and "the Lord delivered him out of their hands." Shadrach went free to Canada, where he is now ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... the word, and drown, in their hurly-burly, the voice of the actor, who had a passionate part to declaim, and thus break the connexion between the speakers. All this produced so complete an effect, that it seemed as if the actors themselves had been of the conspiracy, so wilful and so active was the execution of the plot. It was particularly during the fifth and sixth acts that the cabal was most outrageous; they knew these were the most beautiful, and deserved particular attention. Such a humming arose, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Sir James Yeo to equip the Lake Champlain fleet with the greatest expedition. The commodore replied that the squadron was completely equipped and had more than ninety men over the number required to man it. And under the supposition that Captain Fischer, who had prepared the flotilla for active service, had not acted with promptitude in giving the Commander-in-Chief such information as he desired, Sir James sent Captain Downie to supersede him. Sir George, who seemed to have some misgivings about this ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... is repeated once each day; the sittings last from ten to fifteen minutes. The sequence should be, first, massage; second, passive movement; and third, active movement. At first massage predominates, and more passive than active movement; gradually massage is lessened and movements are increased, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... to Wood, whose active intervention in his behalf had carried much weight, he felt deeper gratitude, though he said nothing, and still stood in silence as the others went out, leaving him alone ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... sluggish and keep near the bottom, half-hibernating but not unwilling to snap at any bit of food which may drift near them. Lying prone on the ice we may see them poising with slowly undulating fins, waiting, in their strange wide-eyed sleep, for the warmth which will bring food and active life again. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... system of internal improvements which has made the Northern States the mighty, free industrial empire it now is. Within the period of ten years lying nearest 1820, the people, under the lead of Clinton and his associates, had brought into active operation the three great agencies of free labor—the steamer, the canal, the railroad; while our manufacturing industry dates from the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... went up to the mouth of the active assailant, and to Helene's astonishment, he sank back with a moan. Shirley pounced upon his mate, and after a slight tussle, applied the handkerchief with the same benumbing effect. Then he rolled it up and tossed it ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... trouble would come from Merrion, but entirely confident in his ability to fight, and worst, the tricky little woman whom he had not feared to snub; and in his heart he thought well of her, and believed she had as little inclination to hurt him as she seemed to have power. His only active step was to pursue his attentions ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... the work of a gentleman before his thirtieth year, not a recluse nor trained in a cloister, but active in a calling which keeps closest touch with the passions and frailties of humanity, seems to justify his assertion, "I have shaken hands with delight [sc. by way of parting] in my warm blood and canicular days." So ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... part of the moral tissues. Love such as hers had a great office, the office of preparation and direction; but it must know how to hold its hand and keep its counsel, how to attend upon its object as an invisible influence rather than as an active interference. ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... was made, and it was ascertained that in nine counties of that State such combinations were active and powerful, embracing a sufficient portion of the citizens to control the local authority, and having, among other things, the object of depriving the emancipated class of the substantial benefits of freedom and of preventing the free political action of those citizens who did not sympathize ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... well-conducted household, where every act is performed according to the old forms of courtesy and kindness,—where no harsh word is ever spoken, where the young look up to the aged with affectionate respect,—where those whom years have incapacitated for more active duty, take upon themselves the care of the children, and render priceless service in teaching and training,—an ideal condition has been realized. The daily life of such a home,—in which the endeavour of each is to make existence as pleasant as ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... present, speaks of him as SENSITIVE, quiet in the presence of noisy people, of Brookfield and the overpowering Bernal Osborne; liking their company, but never saying anything worthy of remembrance. A popular old statesman, still active in the House of Commons, recalls meeting him at Palmerston, Lord Harrington's seat, where was assembled a party in honour of Madame Guiccioli and her second husband, the Marquis de Boissy, and tells me that he attached himself ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... at this time about sixteen. Of course, however, being so young, and his health being so infirm, he could not take any active part in the administration of government, but was obliged to leave every thing in the hands of his counselors and ministers of state, who managed affairs as they thought proper, though they acted always ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... days of her marriage, and the only time since then when he has been absent from her side was during the war; for the count is no mere drawing-room soldier, as is the case with so many military men who are in attendance on royalty. He has seen active service in the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870, winning the iron cross for bravery in the latter campaign, and was likewise attached to Lord Napier's expedition to Abyssinia, which found its climax in the storming of Magdala, and in ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... weariness and apathy of old age? It is always, short of ninety, too soon for that, and Eugenio was not yet quite ninety. Was his mind, then, prematurely affected? But was not this question itself proof that his mind was still importunately active? If that was so, why did not he still wish to make his phrases about his like, to reproduce their effect in composite portraiture? Eugenio fell into a state so low that nothing but the confession of his perplexity could help him out; and the friend to whom he ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... lord, I'll prove it on his body, if he dare, Despite his nice fence and his active practice, His May of youth and ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... geological hammer. The booby lays her eggs on the bare rock; but the tern makes a very simple nest with seaweed. By the side of many of these nests a small flying-fish was placed; which I suppose, had been brought by the male bird for its partner. It was amusing to watch how quickly a large and active crab (Graspus), which inhabits the crevices of the rock, stole the fish from the side of the nest, as soon as we had disturbed the parent birds. Sir W. Symonds, one of the few persons who have landed here, informs me that he saw the crabs dragging ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... than that the man whose faithful memory retained everything, and whose active mind discovered what escaped the notice of others, should have overlooked this sign from heaven. And yet she vainly waited for a token of pleasure, gratitude, remembrance. How this pierced the soul and corroded the existence of the poor deserted girl, the bereaved ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Both the Government and private individuals, who have become owners of one-fourth of the land by the recent tax-sales, pay twenty-five cents for a standard day's-work, which may, by beginning early, be performed by a healthy and active hand by noon; and the same was the case with the tasks under the slave-system on very many of the plantations. As I was riding through one of Mr. Philbrick's fields one morning, I counted fifty persons at work who belonged to one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... talking here," observed Mark Anthony, whose wits being brighter than theirs, was for active measures. "If we no get on shore, we all ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... active of all in the city of Seoul. I have mentioned in the previous chapter the arrest of many of them. They were treated very badly indeed. Take, for instance, the case of those seized by the police on the morning of Wednesday, March 5th. They were nearly all of them pupils from the local ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... ways. "The queen is even more imprudent," Morris writes in 1791, "and the whole court is given up to petty intrigues worthy only of footmen and chambermaids." Moreover, in its amazing ineptitude, the monarchy had already toyed with republicanism by lending active military support to the revolutionists in America, at a cost to the already over-burdened treasury ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... The active and practical loyalty of Joseph Holt in this crisis deserves honorable mention. When, at the close of December, 1860, he succeeded Mr. Floyd as Secretary of War, no troops were stationed in Washington or its neighborhood. After consultation ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... not yourself already attained that wisdom? Why should you make pretences of feebleness which does not mark you? You have a mind as active as my own; I know that perfectly well. What is your secret of contentment? Won't you help me in this ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... men went down to a shady veranda which half encircled the house, and found Mrs. Stanley taking an accidental siesta on a sort of lounge or sofa. Being a light sleeper, like many other active-minded people, she awoke at their approach and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... plain from A. 1, nothing that God planted in our nature was wanting to the human nature assumed by the Word of God. Now it is manifest that God planted in human nature not only a passive, but an active intellect. Hence it is necessary to say that in the soul of Christ there was not merely a passive, but also an active intellect. But if in other things God and nature make nothing in vain, as the Philosopher says (De ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... prepared for warlike measures at the moment. Pierre leaned his back against the pillar and waited. His silence and coolness, together with an iron fierceness in his face, held them from instant demonstration against him; but he knew that he must face active peril soon. He pocketed his revolver and went up the hill to the house of Kitty Cline's mother. It was the first time he had ever been there. At the door he hesitated, but knocked presently, and was admitted by Kitty, who, at sight of him, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... order them out of the way when they impeded the polkers, or dance bodily over them when they disobeyed. Still it must be said, in justice to him, that dancing was not his sole and all-absorbing pursuit. Having an active turn of mind and body, he found leisure for many other profitable amusements. He was fond of that noble animal, the horse, gambled habitually, ate and drank luxuriously,—in short, burned his candle at a good many ends: ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... Bull had felt for the sheriff from the first now became overpowering. That he should be the means of bringing that terrible and active little man to an end seemed, as a matter of fact, absurd. Guile must have played a part in ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... on the West Side, for instance, a contest took place between his corporation and a citizen by the name of Redmond Purdy—real-estate investor, property-trader, and money-lender—which set Chicago by the ears. The La Salle and Washington Street tunnels were now in active service, but because of the great north and south area of the West Side, necessitating the cabling of Van Buren Street and Blue Island Avenue, there was need of a third tunnel somewhere south of Washington Street, preferably at Van Buren Street, because the business heart ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... the doctrines of Metempsychosis or Reincarnation. Although the great masses of the Grecian people were satisfied with their popular mythology and not disposed to question further, or to indulge in keen speculation on metaphysical subjects, still the intellectual portion of the race were most active in their search after truth, and their schools of philosophy, with their many followers and adherents, have left an indelible mark upon the thought of man unto this day. Next to the Hindus, the Greeks were the great philosophers of the ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... had thought at first had been the case with her. But this moment proved to her now that her love was dead, indeed, since of her erstwhile affection not even a recoil to hate remained. Dislike she may have felt; but it was that cold dislike that breeds a deadly indifference, and seeks no active expression, asking no more than the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... headquarters, the squadron, and the flying depot. These proved their value during the war and have remained the units of our air forces to this day. The Military Wing was to form a single and complete organization and contain a headquarters, seven aeroplane squadrons, each to consist of twelve active machines and six in reserve, one airship and kite squadron, and a flying depot. All pilots, whether of the Naval or the Military Wing, were eventually to graduate at the Central Flying School, whence they could ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... did, he would undoubtedly have proved himself equally great as a practical worker. But during the time of his greatest activity in philosophical fields, between the years 1690 and 1716, he was all the time performing extraordinary active duties in entirely foreign fields. His work may be regarded, perhaps, as doing for Germany in particular what Bacon's did for England and the rest ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... and painfully made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed, it is a common complaint against many such that they supply the defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I imagined depths beyond depths in nature which the limited power of my lenses prohibited ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien

... aristocrats than rent. Nothing can make an aristocrat but pride, knowledge, training, and the sword. These people were no improvement on the Drews, none whatever. There was no effect of a beneficial replacement of passive unintelligent people by active intelligent ones. One felt that a smaller but more enterprising and intensely undignified variety of stupidity had replaced the large dullness of the old gentry, and that was all. Bladesover, I thought, had undergone just the same change between the seventies and the new century that had overtaken ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... to his son, who, with a short abrupt reply to the good-natured greeting of Sir Reginald, had scrambled down from his saddle, and stood fixing his large gray eyes upon Gaston, whose tall active figure and lively dark countenance seemed to afford him an inexhaustible subject of study. The Squire was presented by name to Sir Philip, received a polite compliment, and replying with a bow, turned to the youth with the ready courtesy of ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... these island waters, and are the most flourishing of any away from the Atlantic coast. Others are struggling into notoriety on the borders of Lake Superior, and must, at no very distant time, become important and active places of business. But the place of all others, where we would expect a city to spring up and grow rapidly into ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... psychology was in the first instance studied, not for its own sake, but in subservience to speculation, this cardinal importance of activity would not have been so long overlooked. We should not have heard so much of passive sensations and so little of active movements. It is especially interesting to find that even Kant at length—in his latest work, the posthumous treatise on the Connexion of Physics and Metaphysics, only recently discovered and published—came to see the fundamental character of voluntary movement. I will venture to quote ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... but at this time, I determined to pay her a visit. Accordingly, I prepared for my journey to Woodville a small village in Massachusetts, where she resided. She was very much pleased to see me. She was much changed since I had last seen her. Her once vigorous and active form was beginning to bow beneath the weight of years. She seemed to be very comfortably situated with her relatives; for, having but a small family, they were able to give her a quiet home. I enquired of her if she ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... Philip Sidney, we shall add his great Friend and Associate, Sir Fulk Grevil, Lord Brook, one very eminent both for Arts and Arms; to which the genius of that time did mightily invite active Spirits. This Noble Person, for the great love he bore to Sir Philip Sidney, wrote his Life. He wrote several other Works both in Prose and Verse, some of which were Dramatick, as his Tragedies of Alaham, Mustapha, and Marcus Tallius Cicero, and others, commonly ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... studied over the thing a good deal, and I finally came to this conclusion: Those girls were not bad; they were simply curious. They led such narrow, cramped lives that there was nothing for their active brains to feed on, so they naturally turned to the most interesting thing at hand, themselves, their physical selves. A superabundance of vitality overshadowed their small mental equipment. In the absence of suitable entertainment ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... Python-killing Sun's thy brother. Oh! thou, from gods that didst descend, With a poor virgin to contend, Shall seed of earth and hell ere be A rival in thy victorie? Pallas assents: for now long time And pity had clean rins'd her crime; When straight she doth with active fire Her many legged foe inspire. Have you not seen a charact lie A great cathedral in the sea, Under whose Babylonian walls A small thin frigot almshouse stalls? So in his slime the toad doth float And th' spyder by, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... gold, platinum, copper, potash Land use: arable land: 12% permanent crops: 1% meadows and pastures: 41% forest and woodland: 24% other: 22% Irrigated land: 1,620 km2 (1989 est.) Environment: geologically active Great Rift Valley susceptible to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions; deforestation; overgrazing; soil erosion; desertification; frequent droughts; famine Note: landlocked - entire coastline along the Red Sea was lost with the de jure independence of ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to the review, to see which he had the good-nature to procure me admittance to the small apartment of a friend in the Tuileries; and from the window I saw and heard for the first time this scourge of the Continent,—his martial, active figure mounted on his famed white horse. He harangued with energetic tone (and in those bombastic expressions we have always remarked in all his manifestoes, and which are so well adapted to the French,) the troops of the divisions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... it is capable of acting with any degree of freedom. The men who have undergone this are very few indeed; and no one whose will is not educated as well, can, if subjected to the influences of biology, resist the impulses roused in his passive brain by the active brain of the operator. This at ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... condemnation of the domestic institutions of the Southern States as at length to pass insensibly to almost equally passionate hostility toward their fellow-citizens of those States, and thus finally to fall into temporary fellowship with the avowed and active enemies of the Constitution. Ardently attached to liberty in the abstract, they do not stop to consider practically how the objects they would attain can be accomplished, nor to reflect that, even if the evil were as great as they ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... favourite. The time was now come, as he at once saw, to profit by so signal a proof of policy and forethought; and Richelieu was prepared to use it with the craft and cleverness which were destined to shape out his future fortunes. To his active and ambitious spirit a residence in the capital in the character of a deposed minister was impossible; while he equally deprecated the idea of burying himself in his diocese among the marshes of Lower Poitou. He resolved, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... to his treatment at Langa-Langa was that accorded Van Horn at Somo. Once the return boys were put ashore, and this was accomplished no later than three-thirty in the afternoon, he invited Chief Bashti on board. And Chief Bashti came, very nimble and active despite his great age, and very good-natured—so good-natured, in fact, that he insisted on bringing three of his elderly wives on board with him. This was unprecedented. Never had he permitted any of his wives to appear before a white ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... longer any hesitation on Roden's part, though his friends, including Lord Persiflage, the Baron, Sir Boreas, and Crocker, were as active in their endeavours as ever. For some days he had doubted, but now he doubted no longer. They might address to him what letters they would, they might call him by what nickname they pleased, they might write him down in what book they chose, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... sailed ten years later in two ships, the Erebus and the Terror (afterwards to become so famous with Franklin), along the coast of the most southern of all seas, a sea which still bears his name. He discovered an active volcano, not much less than 13,000 feet high, and named it Erebus, while to another extinct volcano he gave the name of Terror. And he saw the lofty ice barrier, which in some places is as ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... enough; but he'll have to jump about smarter 'n what I've ever knowed 'n, if he's to work 'long o' me." So, too often, and sometimes in crueller terms, I have heard efficient labourers speak of their neighbours. Certainly it is not all envy. An active man finds it penance to work with a slow one, and worse than penance; for his own reputation may suffer, if his own output of work should be diminished by the other's fault. That neighbour of mine engaged at hop-drying doubtless had good grounds for exasperation ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... colours, and his mind away among the bright realms of eternal felicity. A faint breeze had arisen, and the heavy clouds began to sail along, denoting rain, when he gave his orders to his faithful dog, to gather his sheep for the night, and urged him to be active, to enable him to proceed home before the shower came on. Looking along in the direction of the road that led through the moor, he thought he could perceive, at a considerable distance, three objects, urging their way forward; and, through the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... settled to mutual satisfaction. There now arrived from Goa and other places, a galley and galleon, with 11 ships and 21 smaller vessels, bringing ammunition and 790 soldiers, upon which Furtado commenced the active operations of the siege, raising entrenchments and batteries, and taking absolute possession of every avenue leading to the fort and peninsula by water. He likewise caused some advanced works belonging to the enemy to be assaulted, on which Cuneale came in person to assist in their defence, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... of wolves. John slept little of nights; not on account of the wolves, but because the mosquitoes allowed him no peace. (They were torture to a wounded man; but he declared afterwards that they cured his wounded arm willynilly, for they forced him to keep it active under pain of being eaten alive.) By day he dozed, lulled by the eternal woods, the eternal dazzle on the water, the eternal mutter of the flood, the paddle-strokes, M. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... son of Erlend Himaide, was selected to be archbishop, after Archbishop Jon's death; and he was consecrated the same year King Inge was killed. Now when Archbishop Eystein came to his see, he made himself beloved by all the country, as an excellent active man of high birth. The Throndhjem people, in particular, received him with pleasure; for most of the great people in the Throndhjem district were connected with the archbishop by relationship or other connection, and all were his friends. The archbishop brought forward a request to the bondes ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... was to have a very brilliant career, but he did not know it then. Theodore Thomas was perhaps the only man in Chicago who felt that Harsanyi might have a great future. Harsanyi belonged to the softer Slavic type, and was more like a Pole than a Hungarian. He was tall, slender, active, with sloping, graceful shoulders and long arms. His head was very fine, strongly and delicately modelled, and, as Thea put it, "so independent." A lock of his thick brown hair usually hung over his forehead. His eye was wonderful; full of light and fire when he ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... been her constant enemy; all the hindrances that had occurred in her active life, and the constant attempts made to balk her even in her brief moment of triumph, came from him and his associate La Tremouille. He was the last person in the world to whom Jeanne naturally would have appealed. Perhaps that was the admirable reason why he ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... unhandy to move the stock we'd collected. We've reached the same point now with the trade in niggers. Between here and the gulf—" he made a wide sweeping gesture with his arm. "I am spotting the country with my men; there are two thousand active workers on the rolls of the Clan, and as many more like you, Tom—and Fentress—on whose friendship I can rely." He leaned toward Ware. "You'd be slow to tell me I couldn't count on you, Tom, and you'd be slow to think I couldn't ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... such as sensation or reflection offers them, without being able to MAKE any one idea, experience shows us. But if we attentively consider these ideas I call mixed modes, we are now speaking of, we shall find their origin quite different. The mind often exercises an ACTIVE power in making these several combinations. For, it being once furnished with simple ideas, it can put them together in several compositions, and so make variety of complex ideas, without examining whether they exist so ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from Yeobright's room to the ears ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... Hence, hence," they cry, "ye do but keep man blind! But keep him self-immersed, preoccupied, And lame the active mind!" ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... be wished, that committees of ladies or gentlemen were formed in every town in the kingdom, and their attention directed to this neglected class of British subjects. An active person might be found in every place, to act under the sanction of such committees, who should visit their tents, instruct them in the Scriptures, and pray with and for them (the latter he should never neglect) by which means he would gain their confidence, and would ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... that he could not repeat a story without, as he said, "giving it a new hat and stick." Most of us differ from Sir Walter only in not knowing about this tendency of the mythopoeic faculty to break out unnoticed. But it is also perfectly true that the mythopoeic faculty is not equally active in all minds, nor in all regions and under all conditions of the same mind. David Hume was certainly not so liable to temptation as the Venerable Bede, or even as some recent historians who could be mentioned; and the most imaginative of debtors, if he owes five pounds, never makes ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... contrast to the active, impatient commander of the vessel. That portly individual, having just finished a cigar which the first lieutenant had presented to him on his arrival on board, threw the fag end of it into the sea, and proceeded leisurely to fill a large-headed German pipe, which was the constant companion ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... with heads of eagles, Chopping arms, and cupboard lips; Warriors, hunters, keen as beagles, Mounted aye on horse or ships. Active, being hungry creatures; Silent, having nought to say: High they raised the lord of features, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... for cocaine shipments; minor producer of illicit opium poppy and cannabis for the international drug trade; active eradication program in 1996 effectively eliminated the cannabis crop; proximity to Mexico makes Guatemala a major staging area ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... swallowed the potion. The result, however, was unsatisfactory, for, contrary to what was anticipated, they produced no effect whatever. To make matters worse, the hut in which they lay was overrun with rats, which were not only sleepless and active, but daring, for they kept galloping round the floor all night, and chasing one another over Tom's body and face. After a time ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne

... just found the following instance of "endeavour" used as an active verb, in Dryden's translation of Maimbourg's History of ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various

... perhaps, reason to fear that girls will be too highly educated for their own happiness, if they are lifted by their culture out of the range of the practical and every-day working youth by whom they are surrounded. But this is a risk we must take. Our young men come into active life so early, that, if our girls were not educated to something beyond mere practical duties, our material prosperity would outstrip our culture; as it often does in large places where money is made too rapidly. This is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... likeness to the old man; that is, a likeness more than striking, when it was remembered that one had lived all his life in a city, while the other had spent most of his days on the plains. The young man had seen the Sheriff on his arrival, expecting to find that active steps had been taken towards the arrest of the murderer. The Sheriff assured him that nothing more effective could be done than what had been done by the dead man himself in leaving fifty thousand dollars to the killer of Hickory Sam. The Sheriff had made no move himself, for he had ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... a way," replied the Circus Boy, whose active mind already had decided upon a method by which he thought he might accomplish the feat, providing the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... thtoneth," urged Grace. She uttered a merry shout as the first round stone rolled down the Slide, bumping from side to side, finally landing with a splash in the pond, sending up a little white geyser of spray. Buster also began to take a more active interest in life. She, too, shouted as she sent a fair-sized boulder spinning ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge

... 1384. He was a bold and active Veronese soldier, did the state much service, was therefore ennobled by it, and became the founder of the house of the Cavalli; but I find no especial reason for the images of the Virtues, especially that of Charity, appearing at his tomb, unless it be this: that ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... Fomorians, and their story, like that of the dragon and the magician who produce blight and loss of food, may be based on older myth or ritual embodying the belief in powers hostile to fertility, though it is not clear why those powers should be most active on May-day. But this may be a misunderstanding, and the dragons are overcome on May-eve. The references in the tale to Lludd's generosity and liberality in giving food may reflect his function as a god of growth, but, like other ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... a billiard ball in motion to come into collision with one at rest. We commonly speak of the first ball as active, and of the second as the passive subject upon which it exercises its activity. Are ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... 1779, Dr. Smith continued indefatigable in mental applications; faithful in the discharge of official duties; and active for the interest of the society, through scenes of trouble and adversity. The board of Trustees elected him a member of their body. The church at the college, founded by my predecessor, intrusted with him, as pastor, their spiritual concerns, and were prospered under his prudent and pious ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith



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