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Definite   /dˈɛfənət/   Listen
Definite

adjective
1.
Precise; explicit and clearly defined.  "A definite statement of the terms of the will" , "A definite amount" , "Definite restrictions on the sale of alcohol" , "The wedding date is now definite" , "A definite drop in attendance"
2.
Known for certain.



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"Definite" Quotes from Famous Books



... these women that Selah came with her definite plans for better conditions for them and their children. She brought them the refreshment of social intercourse, and united them in a secret common cause. It was difficult to accomplish against the order and very nature of ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... happiest self were rising once more from the tomb in which his resentment had buried it. It was not the light-hearted self which had once been, but it was the old loving, unselfish Tom for all that. He wandered on aimlessly at first, but afterwards with definite intentions. He would go to Brooks's cottage. He could bear to do so now. He would see how the neglected garden had done without him, and perhaps to-morrow put it ...
— Tom, Dot and Talking Mouse and Other Bedtime Stories • J. G. Kernahan and C. Kernahan

... to justify an attempt upon him. It was brought by an elderly logwood-cutter who had fallen into the pirate's hands, and in some freak of drunken benevolence had been allowed to get away with nothing worse than a slit nose and a drubbing. His account was recent and definite. The Happy Delivery was careening at Torbec on the south-west of Hispaniola. Sharkey, with four men, was buccaneering on the outlying island of La Vache. The blood of a hundred murdered crews was calling out for vengeance, and now at last it ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... cover the field. Every reader will notice the absence of poets whose work would be a necessary ornament of any anthology not limited by a definite aim. Two years ago some of the writers represented had published nothing; and only a very few of the others were known except to the eagerest "watchers of the skies." Those few are here because within the chosen period their work seemed to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... recognized the rights of heads of states, the privileges of class, and the privileges of individuals or special corporations, but the general rights of subjects were to be found essentially only in the form of duties on the part of the state, not in the form of definite legal claims of the individual. The Declaration of the Rights of Man for the first time originated in all its vigor in positive law the conception, which until then had been known only to natural law, of the personal rights ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek

... they vanish into the misty back-ground of nonentity. To Bunyan's bright and broad- waking eye all things were clear. Thee men walked and the trees stood still. Everything was seen in sharp relief and definite outline—a REALITY. And besides the pictorial, he possessed in highest perfection the illustrative faculty. Not only did his own mind perceive the truth most vividly, but he saw the very way to give others a clear perception of it also. This is the great secret of successful teaching. ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton

... one or two crosses with a distinct breed, yet we may feel sure, from the well-known extreme variability of crossed breeds, that rigorous and long-continued selection must have been practised, in order to improve them in a definite manner. As soon as any strain or family became slightly improved or better adapted to altered circumstances, it would tend to supplant the older and less improved strains. For instance, as soon as the old foxhound was improved by a cross with the greyhound, or by simple selection, and assumed its ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... Heratees, but in vain. It is doubtful whether Yakoob was previously informed of the intended massacre, but there is strong reason to believe that he was so. The proofs, however, were not clear and definite. His conduct cost him his throne, and condemned him to remain to the end of his life a dishonored pensioner, and semi-prisoner, ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... day passed drowsily. Lying close together on the beach, Siegmund and Helena let the day exhale its hours like perfume, unperceived. Siegmund slept, a light evanescent sleep irised with dreams and with suffering: nothing definite, the colour of dreams without shape. Helena, as usual, retained her consciousness much more clearly. She watched the far-off floating of ships, and the near wading of children through the surf. Endless trains of thoughts, like little waves, ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... about the use of them and Jose Medina's account of the conversation in the next room we shouldn't have got him. The German governess wasn't enough. He's, after all, a neutral. Besides, there was nothing definite in his letter. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... still ascending. Food in any imperishable, easily transported form was sure of a market in Europe. There was a promise of even bigger returns for Pacific salmon packers in the approaching season. But Stubby was not sure enough yet of where he stood to make any definite arrangement with MacRae. He wanted to talk things over, to ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... science of psychology is based on the observed and recorded actions of the human organism under the influence of certain external stimuli or forces, and starts from the assumption that this organism has definite and permanent characteristics. If this is not so—if the behavior of men in the past has not been governed by actual laws which will also govern their behavior in the future—then our laws of government are built on error, and the teachings ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... the many institutions and workers in almost all departments of the field of civics, the rise of definite surveys and of scientific groupings like this Society, without ignoring also the many admirable workers and institutions of social endeavour, and their progressive integration into Social Unions, Institutes of Service, and the like, I may be permitted to press for the need ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes

... take advantage of the differences of opinion between Presbyterians and Independents, which were fast assuming critical importance. The king held at Newcastle a conference with Alexander Henderson, which led to no definite result. In the end the Scots offered to adopt the king's cause if he would accept Presbyterianism. This he declined to do, and his refusal left the Scots no choice except keeping him a prisoner or surrendering him to his English subjects. They owed ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... the outbreak of the Spanish-American War ceases to be wholly without form and void. The discussions of a year have clarified ideas; and on some points we may consider that the American people have substantially reached definite conclusions. ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... dignity, and Bailie MacConachie, of Muirtown, was a glory to his order. Provosts might come and go—creatures of three years—but this man remained in office for ever, and so towered above his brethren of the same kind, that the definite article was attached to his title, and to quote "the Bailie" without his name was the recognised form and an end to all controversy. Nature had been kind to him, and, entering into the designs of Providence, had given him a bodily ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... to the affair. Micky had not only triumphed over his enemy, but he was going to be paid for it. This was the stipulation between Gilbert and himself. The book-keeper had not promised any definite sum, but Micky, in speculating upon the proper compensation for his service, fixed upon five dollars as about what he ought to receive. Like many others who count their chickens before they are hatched, he had already begun to ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... definite mental picture of his cousin beforehand. Little girls of fifteen years of age are not creatures of great interest to prefects who have made remarkable catches in the long field and look forward to establishing their manhood among the salmon and the grouse. So far as he had thought of Priscilla ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... eagerness, for he had been growing terribly anxious, and more and more convinced that something must be wrong, or Emson would have come down to the flooded ford; while at last his thoughts had taken a definite shape, one so full of horror, that he trembled for the task he had to perform—that of going home to put matters to ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... discussed this question before; but it was with a feeling of indifference which precluded our arriving at any definite and absolute decision upon the matter. It was now, however, time that this point was settled, as it would affect our course soon after leaving the island, or, at all events, when we came to the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... and consumed during a given period.) The fact that bullock-waggons can travel in any direction, excepting near the coast, without more than occasionally half an hour's delay in cutting down bushes, gives, perhaps, a more definite notion of the scantiness of the vegetation. Now, if we look to the animals inhabiting these wide plains, we shall find their numbers extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. We must enumerate the elephant, three species of rhinoceros, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... some days before the Spaniards appeared to come to any definite conclusion as to their next step. Then large numbers of men set to work, to reestablish their batteries; and things fell into their old routine, again. Every day shots were exchanged, occasionally. Vessels made their way in and out; being sometimes ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... not be too sanguine," Mr. Ruskin went on; "but there is certainly strong ground for hope. I shall be able to give a more definite opinion, in the course of a few hours. He must, of course, be kept perfectly quiet; with no more nourishment than is absolutely necessary, and that in the shape of beef tea. I should make him a bed here. We will manage to slide a door under ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... fisherman is by nature secretive. He is loath to tell where he made his big catches and shrouds the location of the streams in mystery. If pinned down closely he will sometimes indicate a general locality but it is hard to get him to be more definite. The reason for this is obvious. He is zealous of his rights as a "discoverer" and feels that he is not obliged to share his knowledge with anybody. He won't take the risk of having the stream "fished out" by others than himself. The secrets of the location of gold ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various

... Sir James Stephen suggests that as a matter of mere law Jeffreys may have been right (Hist. Crim. Law, vol. ii. p. 234); he also says: 'I think that this is another of the numerous instances in which there really was no definite law at all, and in which the fact that a particular course was taken by a cruel man for a bad purpose has been regarded as a proof that the course taken was illegal.'—(Ibid., vol. i. ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... been already stated (Q. 62, A. 5) the sacraments of the New Law are ordained for a twofold purpose; namely, for a remedy against sins; and for the perfecting of the soul in things pertaining to the Divine worship according to the rite of the Christian life. Now whenever anyone is deputed to some definite purpose he is wont to receive some outward sign thereof; thus in olden times soldiers who enlisted in the ranks used to be marked with certain characters on the body, through being deputed to a bodily service. Since, therefore, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... had offered much torment of this sort, a definite notion seemed to take her; she turned her lord by a touch of the elbow, and exchanged two or three business-like whispers with him at a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... with his late brother's business in the North. I perceive a most definite change in the young ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... Colvile was in the first instance detailed as the reserve of the Highland Brigade, but the repulse of the latter and the probability that it would sooner or later be compelled to retreat gave the former a definite objective, the low arc held by the left of the Boer line. In marching on this the wire fence which was the boundary between British territory and the Orange Free State was crossed, and the Guards' Brigade had the honour of being the first body of troops to go ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... his way to the nearest elevated station and rode in the direction of the Potter home. He had no definite plan in mind, and, more from a whim than anything else, he decided to walk past the house. He did not expect it, but he had an idea—a very faint one—that he might see Grace. Of course, if he saw ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis

... Ruth happy. I should soon become as nothing to them, and thus Wilfred and my mother would have their own way, and be joyous because I was no more. That was something, and yet I was sure that Wilfred had schemed for such an end. What definite reason I had for this I could not tell, but I was sure of it, and I hated him. True, I had gone away freely, and yet I had been driven away; things had been so arranged that I could not stay to be a skeleton at the feast, ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... urging to send a message back to the captain, Bann got out the brand-new despatch book and pencil which since the conference this morning had been sticking out of his pocket, but put them up again for lack of something definite to say. So he took us across the road and into the field behind the enemy's wood, where it being evident that the foe had no reserves, Bann ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... new country itself. We have had our pictorial pioneers, as it were—our hard-working, enthusiastic, rather crude first settlers in the art; now we have come to the stage of permanent abode, with traditions, albeit young, great enthusiasm, definite ideals, and ambitious hopes for ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America

... Success in recalling it depends simply upon your ability to hit upon some idea so indissolubly associated with the object of search that the recall of one automatically recalls the other. Consequently the thing to do is to hold your attention to one definite line of thought until you have exhausted its possibilities. You must pass in review all the associated matters and suppress or ignore them until the right one comes to mind. This may be a short-cut process ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton

... share in it, whether active or passive, a kind of numbed indifference as to danger; a kind of callousness as to consequences, which I find it difficult to define in words, but which, nevertheless, impresses itself on the observer's mind as a definite and tangible fact. The soldier gets it, and it enables him to endure his own discomforts and sufferings, and the discomforts and sufferings of his comrades, without visible mental strain. The civic populace get it, and, as soon as they have been readjusted to the altered conditions ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... clear atmosphere. The Departure is not the ship's going away from her port any more than the Landfall can be looked upon as the synonym of arrival. But there is this difference in the Departure: that the term does not imply so much a sea event as a definite act entailing a process—the precise observation of certain landmarks by ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... the score, what will become of the band? And a man whose mind is like that of two men flirting with contrary ideals at the same time will live a life "all sixes and sevens," and nothing will move to purposeful and definite issues. If the mind flirt with Satan and Christ, life will be filled with ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... operations in this country. In February, however, General Allenby determined on the capture of Jericho. The country from round Jerusalem slopes down, as we have seen, very abruptly to Jericho and the Jordan Valley. Precipitous slopes, rocky ridges and narrow ledges, confined the advance to definite lines on which the enemy could concentrate fire. The advance began on the 19th, and, by the evening of the 20th, the 60th Division had reached a line 4 miles west of the cliffs overlooking Jericho. In the meantime, the mounted troops ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... Ablainzevelle, where we found the trenches in an even worse condition, if that were possible. Real joy possessed our souls, although it is doubtful whether at the time we were capable of appreciating it, when the news was definite that the division was to go right out for a rest. On the night of April 7th, the 2nd 7th West Ridings (62nd division) came up and relieved us, and the Fleur de Lys set their faces joyfully to the west and marched ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... applied to Deity, expresses the definite and certain truth that God is a living being and not ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880

... put off. He was determined to know more, and he argued, "If it be your nature to do so, you of course do the same when you see other young men sitting by other young women." The heart was puzzled, and did not reply; and then Marlow begged a definite answer to this question. "If you were to hear to-morrow that Emily Hastings is going to be married to this youth, or to any other man, young or old, what would ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... the army again attempted to come to some definite understanding with the King, but all to no purpose. Politically speaking, Charles was his own worst enemy. He was false to the core, and, as Carlyle has said: "A man whose word will not inform you at all what he means, or will do, is not a man you can bargain with. You must get out of that man's ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... but Baptiste and Frank sallied forth into the snow, to be seen no more until mid-day. There were just fifty persons, all told, in the camp, each man having his definite work to do the carpenter, whose business it was to keep the sleighs in repair; the teamsters, who directed the hauling of the logs; the "sled-tenders," who saw that the loads were well put on; the "head chopper" and his assistants, whose was the ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... the fifth point, no definite measures can be taken until the accountant and royal officials have been heard, and the custom ascertained which has been in vogue in appointing and removing the minor officials of the royal treasury; for in the majority of cases, it is usually in charge of the royal officials, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... of triumph crossed his lips, and addressing the two men, who were mortified at having brought him no more definite news, he cried: "My lads, I know all I want to know. Go to bed and sleep sound; my word, you deserve to!" He himself, setting the example, slept like a man whose brain has solved a problem of the utmost importance which ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... thousand women are now enrolled in the clubs belonging to the General Federation of Women's Clubs, holding in common certain definite opinions, and working harmoniously towards certain definite social ends. Remember that these eight hundred thousand women are the ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... that his presence was not needed, stepped out into the darkness again, walking some minutes without any definite aim, till, finding himself near the Doctor's bungalow, he thought he would call in there and give him the news, such ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... is inconceivably foolish; and all the more so because it probably did not represent any definite intention, and certainly was backed by no force adequate to carry it out. Passion and offended dignity are the worst guides for conduct. Threats are always mistakes. A sieve of oats, not a whip, attracts a horse to the halter. If Rehoboam had wished to split the kingdom, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... feeling of uncertainty, her sighs of regret. Here at last was something real, something definite, something noble and great in the work of ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... experiences. Some of these stories took a literary form in the Odyssey and the Tales of the Argonauts. They appeared in prose, too, in narratives like the story of Sinbad the Sailor, of a much later date. A more definite plot and a greater dramatic intensity were given to these tales of adventure by the addition of an erotic element which often took the form of two separated lovers. Some use is made of this element, for instance, in the relations of Odysseus and Penelope, perhaps in ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... Brice had revised his ideas as to the afternoon's adventures, and had come to a sudden decision. Speaking with careful forethought and with a definite ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... the seamen on the tiny trading vessels at the quay, and excited the eagerest speculation in Ludovic's inn. Women put down their water-stoups at the wells and shook mysterious heads over hints of Sim MacTaggart's history. No one for a while had a definite story, but in all the innuendoes the Chamberlain figured vaguely as an evil influence. That he had slain a man in some parts abroad was the first and the least astonishing of the crimes laid to his charge, though the fact that he had never made a brag of it was counted ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... touching remembrances of the years preceding his literary debut. His worthy biographer, H. Edouard Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the writings, condensing and comparing them, has been able to give us some definite ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... previous night. He was thoroughly alarmed. Gordon had no friends in the town likely to put him up for the night. Nor was he the sort of rounder to dissipate his energies in all-night debauchery. Dick had come to Santa Fe for a definite purpose. The old miner knew from long experience that he would not be diverted from it for the sake of the futile foolish diversions known by some as pleasure. Therefore the mind of Davis jumped at once to the conclusion of ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... removed to Naesset, on the west coast of Norway. From the grammar school at Molde young Bjoernson went to the University of Christiania, and it was then that he began to write verses and newspaper articles. At Upsala, in 1856, he understood that he had a definite call to literature, and at Copenhagen the following year he wrote his first masterpiece "Synnove Solbakken." This was followed, in 1858, by "Arne," a story which not only brought him into the front rank of contemporary writers, but ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... more for the purpose of quieting your anxiety than because I have anything definite to say. In my last hurried letter I had no time to tell you that the elder of the two women whom I met in the Gardens had followed me, and spoken to me in the street. I believe I may characterize what she said (without doing her ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... of Laplace into a definite plan, and in 1830 or thereabout Ritchie, in London, and Baron Schilling, in St. Petersburg, exhibited experimental models. In 1833 and afterwards Professors Gauss and Weber installed a private telegraph between ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... Wilson whose name was thus given to one of the principal features of the Australian coast—a form of memorial far more enduring than "storied urn or animated bust"—is believed to have been a London merchant, engaged partly in the Australian trade. Nothing more definite is known about him. He was as one who "grew immortal in his own despight." Of the Promontory itself Bass wrote—and the words are exceedingly apt—that it was "well worthy of being the boundary point of a large strait, and a corner stone of this great ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... a definite task to accomplish in a definite number of days, Radway grew to be more of a taskmaster. His anxiety as to the completion of the work overlaid his morbidly sympathetic human interest. Thus he regained to a small degree ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... prescribed that, when a candidate has been rejected, it shall not be competent for him to apply within a year, six months, or some other definite period. This is altogether a local regulation—there is no such law in the Ancient Constitutions—and therefore, where the regulations of the Grand Lodge of the jurisdiction are silent upon the subject, general principles direct the following ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... with the definite purpose in view to discover in the diversities of language among the peoples of the earth a common element from which they were all supposed to have been derived, an original speech, the parent of all languages. In this philologists had great hopes of success at one time, encouraged by the discovery ...
— On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data - (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86)) • J. W. Powell

... time those guilty of such murderous measures had some excuse in their very hardihood: they were trying the method for the first time, and not with set intentions; hence in most cases they behaved less maliciously, since they were acting not according to definite plans but as chance dictated. And the victims, succumbing to sudden and unheard of catastrophes, found some alleviation in the unexpectedness of their experience. At this time, on the other hand, they were executing in person or beholding or at least understanding ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... worn," with which worldly goods he did her literally endow by throwing them into her lap. It would appear that there never was a happier marriage; but it certainly seemed for some years as if there might have been many more prosperous in point of money. When Sydney moved to London he had no very definite prospect of any income whatever; and had not Mrs. Smith sold her mother's jewels (which came to her just at the time), they would apparently have had some difficulty in furnishing their house in Doughty Street. But Horner, their friend (the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... a necessary consequence of this neglect, which resulted in an inadequate service, rendered, to a large extent, by incompetent or heterodox ministers. Dr. Mann was right when he maintained in his Plea for the Augsburg Confession of 1856, that the doctrinal aberrations of the Definite Platform theologians were due, in part, to the fact that S. S. Schmucker and other ministers had received their theological education at Princeton and other non-Lutheran schools. The constantly increasing need, coupled with the insufficient preparation ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... sell the lands to the government for the benefit of the negro, by resorting to the usual methods of influencing votes, Senator Dilworthy was unwilling to have so noble a charity sullied by any taint of corruption—he was resolved that not a vote should be bought. Nobody could get anything definite from Laura about these matters, and so gossip had to feed itself chiefly upon guesses. But the effect of it all was, that Laura was considered to be very wealthy and likely to be vastly more so in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "how this rebellion should be put down." They would not recognize the necessity of measuring the steps of the government according to the progress of opinion among the plain people. They criticised Lincoln's cautious management as irresolute, halting, lacking in definite purpose and in energy; he should not have delayed emancipation so long; he should not have confided important commands to men of doubtful views as to slavery; he should have authorized military commanders to set the slaves ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... the amazing waste of property, which the use of tobacco involves. On this point I have been unable to obtain the means for making out a perfectly accurate statistical result. I can only approximate a definite calculation. This approximation, however, will serve all the purposes of ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler

... comedy were numerous. Allegory gradually disappeared, and the Morality ceased to exist as a definite type, though its symbolization of life and its concern with conduct were handed along to the later drama. The plays of Robert Wilson, about 1580, show an interesting use of allegory for the purposes of social ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... punishments inflicted are monstrous; thirty-nine lashes are inflicted for the vague, indefinite—because incapable to be defined—offence of insolence. Thirty-nine lashes for the grave and the more definite, I admit, offence of an attempt to carry a small knife. Three months imprisonment, or fifty lashes for the equally grave offence of cutting off the shoot of a cane plant! There seems to have prevailed at all times amongst the governors of our colonies a feeling, of which, I grieve ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the morning light and the rise of the apostasy or dark noonday between the years 260 and 280 A.D. To our knowledge, Joseph Milner is the only non-contemporary historian that fixes the date to any definite time. He says, "I know it is common for authors to represent the great declension of Christianity to have taken place only after its external establishment under Constantine. But the evidence of history has compelled me to dissent ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... chair, and a very animated discussion took place on this novel and difficult subject. It was humorously brought to a conclusion by the Rev. Dr. Fleming, a shrewd and learned geologist. Like many others, he had encountered great difficulties in arriving at definite conclusions on this mysterious subject. He concluded his remarks upon it by describing the influence it had in preventing his sleeping at night. He was so restless on one occasion that his wife became seriously alarmed. "What's the matter wi' ye, John? are ye ill?" "On no," ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... a low whistle of surprise and dismay. He had no idea his father's irritability had arisen from any definite cause. What a fool he had been to be so late! it might lead to some unpleasant discussion. Well, after all, if his father chose to be so disagreeable it was not his fault; and he was no longer a boy, to be chidden, or made to do this or ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... heroically bent upon rescuing from the throat of oblivion and from the tooth of scepticism, to his own TEUTONS—yet heathen—a faith outreaching and outsoaring the gross definite cognisances of this fleshly eye and hand, sets apart one—profoundly read and thought—chapter, to WIGHTS ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... employers, and master-artisans, bootmakers, brush-makers, cabinet-makers, turners, shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths; there are cab-drivers, young women living alone, and female pedlers, laundresses, old-clothes dealers, money- lenders, day-laborers, and people without any definite employment; and also ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... a message from God to men. We are in this world for a purpose, with a mission, with something definite to do for God and man. It makes very little difference whether people hear about us or not, whether we are praised, loved, and honored, or despised, hated, and rejected, so that we get our word spoken into the air, and set going in men's hearts and lives. John ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... charge?" says I. "That two of the kitchen maids was seen in their own back yard? You know you can't spring that safety-of-the-realm stuff over here. The police would only give us the laugh. We got to have something definite to tell the ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... vague, and told me with noble freedom that we must give him a definite reply, since in such cases uncertainty spoils all. At that moment I felt as if I could never agree to his wishes, and I told him that in ten days I would let him know of our resolution, whatever it was. At that he was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... was most repugnant to him. At first Lord Byron had counted on his wife's return, which would, indeed, have proved his best justification. When he saw this return deferred, he asked simply for an inquiry, but could not obtain what he solicited. His accusers, unable to state any thing definite against him, naturally preferred calumny and magnanimous silence to inquiry! At last, when he felt that reunion had become improbable, and that his friends, for want of moral courage and independence, confined themselves to mere condolence, he sought ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... are sodium carbonate and sodium or potassium acid sulphate. In gravimetric analysis it is usually necessary to ignite the separated substance after filtration and washing, in order to remove moisture, or to convert it through physical or chemical changes into some definite and stable form for weighing. Crucibles to be used in fusion processes must be made of materials which will withstand the action of the fluxes employed, and crucibles to be used for ignitions must be made of material which will not undergo any permanent change ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... and Kha as enjoining a meditation on Brahman viewed under the form of elemental ether and of ordinary worldly pleasure. This interpretation would, moreover, be in agreement with other similarly worded texts (which are generally understood to enjoin meditation on Brahman in a definite form), such as 'Name is Brahman', 'Mind ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... day seems so pleasantly golden, the sheaves lying aslant at the top, and these bundles of yellow tubes thrown up against the dark ivy on the opposite wall. Tiles, red burned, or orange coated, the sea sometimes cleanly definite, the shadows of trees in a thin wood where there is room for shadows to form and fall; some such shadows are sharper than light, and have a faint blue tint. Not only in summer but in cold winter, and ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... publication of this proclamation I was so much disturbed that I proceeded at once to Washington, but without any definite idea as to what could be done to arrest the step which seemed to me a dangerous step towards the re-organization of the Government upon an unsound basis. At that time I had had no conversation with Mr. Johnson, either before or after he came to the Presidency, upon any subject whatever. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... quite polite." "And what was your impression of him?" "Oh, how he stank!" I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my friend thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to her that I am not jesting, but that there are definite physiological phenomena incidental to the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... by this time have their formed, marked, national, ineffaceable qualities to oppose or to communicate. The contact of the German of the Continent with the Celt was in the pre- historic times, and the definite German type, as we know it, was fixed later, and from the time when it became fixed was not influenced by the Celtic type. But here in our country, in historic times, long after the Celtic embryo had crystallised into the Celt proper, long after the Germanic embryo had crystallised ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... of herself. But somehow that was different. She had a definite career mapped out. Her work is the very breath of life to her, and it would have been wrong to hold her when she has such undoubted talent. But you see, Mary, your goal is so vague. You haven't any great object in view. You're willing to do almost ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... of course, but it will relieve him at the same time. But the fly in the ointment is how to make Speed believe that he's really not going to play. He knows very well that I wouldn't remove the star of the team without definite reason. Obviously, then, the only way we can put one over on Speed is to catch him breaking one of the strict rules I've laid down ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... apart from the affinity of race. The high physical standard demanded of each on entry, the athletic training of their early years, the stern rigour of life afloat, perhaps accounted for it. But in many of the tanned, clean-shaven faces there was something more definite than that; a strain that might have been transmitted by the symbolic Mother of the Race, clear-eyed and straight of limb, who still sits and watches beneath stern calm brows ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... conversant with her features; and has depicted them with more minute accuracy, and careful finish. Milton's love for liberty was a wiser and firmer passion, and underwent little change; Wordsworth's veered and fluctuated; Milton's creed was more definite and fixed than Wordsworth's, and, perhaps, lay nearer to his heart; Wordsworth shaded away into a vague mistiness, in which the Cross at times was lost; Milton had more devotion in his absence from church than Wordsworth in his presence there; Wordsworth was an "idler in the land;" Milton ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... countrymen, added no small portion of their superstition, leaned greatly to the latter conclusion, and had begun to express this sentiment warily with reverence, when the child of Erin, who appeared not to possess any very definite ideas on the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... live; yet in the four that came just after Andy's discovery, he accomplished much, even in his own modest reckoning. He had taught the girl to watch for his coming and to stand pensively in the door with many good-bye messages when he said he must hit the trail. He had formed definite plans for the future and had promised her quite seriously that he would cut out gambling, and never touch liquor in any form—unless the snake was a very big one and sunk his fangs in a vital spot, in which ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... where he is," she called; and was again nimbly creeping upward. There was no way to arrest or help her, and she had clearly set forth with a definite purpose and could not be brought back. Cries of horror marked every sound as her white sweater became the target of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... opportunities as mere visages floating in the horizon of your life, or autumn leaves driven by the winds of chance across your path. Every opportunity far from being a thing of chance, is a product of definite causes. Opportunity is unrealized possibility supplemented by conditions favorable for the execution of a purpose. And the power lies within you to create circumstances. That skillful artist, the human brain, draws a mental picture—an idea, the judgment approves, ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... Joan's mind was busy with all the thoughts it had roused as they walked. The faint hint of fear that had stirred to life in her when Miss Abercrombie had spoken of Bridget was fast waking to very definite panic. She could feel it tugging at her heart and making her breathing fast and difficult. Supposing that the vaguely-dreamed-of possibility had crystallized into fact in her case? How would Aunt Janet think of it; what changes would it ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... editions), have become objects of desire, and their old modest price is increased twenty fold. It is not always easy to account for these freaks of fashion; but even in book-collecting there are certain definite laws. "Why do you pay a large price for a dingy, old book," outsiders ask, "when a clean modern reprint can be procured for two or three shillings?" To this question the collector has several replies, which he, at least, finds satisfactory. In the first ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... street even more detached, he sat on the steps of his rooming-house on Tavistock Place, keeping himself from the one definite thing he wanted to do—the thing he keenly imagined a happy Mr. Wrenn doing—dashing over to the Euston Station to find out how soon and where he could get a train for Liverpool and a boat ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... a system of symmetrical intersections where the lines expand into circular and oval areas — and all connected with the annual melting of the polar snows in a way which irresistibly suggests the interference of intelligence directed to a definite end. Why, with so many concurrent circumstances to support the hypothesis, should we not regard Mars ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... momentous, and claims intelligent and immediate decision; for tonnage once locked up in a built ship cannot be got out and redistributed to meet the call of the moment. Neither may men evade a definite conclusion by saying that they will have both unlimited power—that is, size—and unlimited number; for this they cannot have. A decision must be reached, and upon it purpose must be concentrated unwaveringly; the disadvantages as well as the advantages of the choice ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... where it must go. Without it he will be "going it blind," or at best only feeling his way in the dark. A gradual reduction mill, to be successful, must have a well-defined system, and to have this system, the miller must have a definite plan to work by. But to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... dwell; because these primeval ladies were not strictly our grandmothers, being farther removed. But of those who were our grandmothers,—the women of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary epochs,—we happen to have very definite physiological observations recorded; not very flattering, it is true, but frank and searching. What these good women are in the imagination of their descendants, we know. Mrs. Stowe describes them as "the race of strong, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... and claim the crown that was hers. After a few indecisive days, spent in Rome, where news reached her that the King had given orders that her name should be excluded from the Prayer Book, her wavering resolution took a definite and determined shape. She would go to London and face the storm which she knew her coming would ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... a definite plan on paper (drawn to scale) for the location of the leading features of the place. These features are the residence, the out-houses, the walks and drives, the service areas (as clothes yards), the border planting, flower-garden, vegetable-garden, ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... answered. "I can tell you nothing about my intentions in regard to you, for I have never had any very definite. I have felt nothing but wild desires, nor have I ever thought of you without going mad. You wish me to marry you? ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... how they looked upon her proposition, she gained a still clearer feeling of their way of life. It weighed on her, but took no definite form of opposition. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... interested in the subject, and the manner in which her proposition was received warranting her to believe that a satisfactory arrangement with them could soon be concluded, she made a strong appeal to this Government for temporary suspension of definite action on its part, in consideration of the embarrassment which might result to her European negotiations by an immediate adjustment of the question with the United States. This request has been acceded to upon the condition that the sums collected after the 16th ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... population more concentrated, a character of action more determinate and jealous, a style of courtly ceremonial more elaborate as well as more haughtily repulsive, and universally a system of interests, as much more definite and selfish, as might naturally be looked for in a nation now every where surrounded by new thrones gloomy with malice, and swelling with the consciousness of youthful power. This new and final state of the eastern Rome Mr Finlay denominates ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... tyrant, because he resisted dictation from the clergy Give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required He was not imperial of aspect on canvas or coin He who would have all may easily lose all King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day Neither kings nor governments are apt to value logic Outdoing himself in dogmatism and inconsistency Small matter which human folly had dilated into a great one The defence of the civil authority ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger

... from time to time have flourished in China, can compare for a moment either in numbers or organization with the formidable association known as the Heaven and Earth Society, and also as the Triad Society, or Hung League, which dates from the reign of Yung Cheng, and from first to last has had one definite aim,—the overthrow of ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... to appease the Protestant Princes of Germany by the Peace of Kadan (1534), Francois strengthened himself with a definite alliance with Soliman; and when, on the death of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, who left no heirs, Charles seized the duchy as its overlord, Francois, after some bootless negotiation, declared war on his great ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... to circulate; confirmation followed, spread insensibly within the Thomery mansion, was passed on by the lackeys, spread from the pavements to the avenue. People whispered of incomprehensible things incredible, but which little by little took definite shape. It was said that the Thomery ball had just become the scene of an accident, of a drama, of a robbery, of a crime!... The police, and of the highest grade, had intervened.... The news spread like a train of ignited gunpowder.... Nevertheless, if Thomery's guests were cognisant of ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... maintain that any picture in existence is capable of imparting a really satisfactory visual impression of the appearance of the lunar globe. Nobody who has not seen the moon with a telescope—it need not be a large one—can form a correct and definite idea of what ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... delayed returning an answer to your kind letter till this day, in order that I might be able to send you definite intelligence. Yesterday evening the Directors appointed me to a seat in the Council of India. The votes were nineteen for me, and three ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... India have created a plant and have developed appliances which are not only an assurance and a prolific source of encouragement for the future; they are also monuments of the industry and wisdom of those who have passed on, and definite signs of God's guidance of, and ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... nothing to see," said Ahmed, who did not want to come. But Ahmed was a liar. There was everything to see. The only definite purpose I had in mind was to find Grim. It was possible I might recognize him even through his disguise. Failing that, he could not help but notice me if I walked about enough; if so, he would find his own means ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... and stood by the window after he had gone, in much the same attitude and absorption as that which had characterised her before he had come. Outside in the street the carriages were now coming back from the park, and there was just one other change. Ethne's apprehensions had taken a more definite shape. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... pursuit of a noble object is in itself a pleasure. It is to the mind which holds up no definite object to its wishes, that the universe seems deficient in the means of happiness, and joy becomes a prey to ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... fort of to-day, has challenged a comparison between British Colonial policy on the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of France and Spain on the other. This he does with an evident recklessness that his approval of Spain and France involves a definite condemnation of his own country. ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... publication of The Plague-Spot finished in June, and it had been settled that the book should be issued simultaneously in England and America in August. Now, that summer John Pilgrim was illuminating the provinces, and he had fixed a definite date, namely, the tenth of October, for the reopening of Prince's Theatre with the dramatic version of The Plague-Spot. Henry's idea was merely to postpone publication of the book until the production of the play. Mark Snyder admitted himself struck ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... darkness; I fell a considerable distance on to gravel which lacerated my hands and gashed my knees. Then, with the cool night air fanning my brow, I was running—running—my breath coming in hysterical sobs. Beside me fled another figure.... And my definite recollections commence again at that point. For this companion of my flight from The Gables threw himself roughly against me ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... thoughts, except when occasionally glancing out over the sparkling expanse to her right. Other women, and nurse-maids with romping children, dawdled about the sunny foot-path along the breakwater; Miss Wallen alone seemed walking with definite purpose. Nearly opposite the Grant Memorial the roadway swept close by the path, and here it became necessary for her to cross to the western side. Carriages were rolling almost ceaselessly by, and, seeing her ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... deceive; perhaps he thought that by going beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government after him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even Lord Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite promises had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have been glad if the proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more precisely worded.' The motive of the determination to sacrifice the republic was, he said, 'a sincere conviction of the necessity of a barrier between France ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... as she read, as if icicles were gathering about her heart. The whirlwind of fear and distress of a little while ago, which could take no definite direction, seemed to have died away and given place to a dead frost the steady bearing down of disgrace and misery, inevitable, unmitigable, unchangeable; no lessening, no softening of that blasting power, no, nor ever any rising up from under ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... known as the Middle Ages, in which the handicrafts flourished in special perfection, and to see for ourselves how these crafts were pursued, and exactly what these arts really were. Many people talk learnedly of the delightful revival of the arts and crafts without having a very definite idea of the original processes which are being restored to popular favour. William Morris himself, although a great modern spirit, and reformer, felt the necessity of a basis of historic knowledge in all workers. "I do not think," he says, "that any man but one of the highest genius could ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... knees. This last incident showed him plainly that his father was putting him to a severe test of some sort, and he could have no doubt that it was for a purpose. His father was the sort of man who does things with a very definite purpose indeed. Cyrus looked back over the day with an anxious searching of his memory to be sure that no detail of the singular service required ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... reminded by her tone, did not usually "happen around" on decks of palatial private yachts. He must seek a different, more definite explanation. He thought he saw a way; he could let her know part of the truth. "The fact is, I was looking for this boat at the last port she stopped at. I had cause to think you would be on her. Couldn't ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Moreover, he was a marked and original writer, and as that tolerant soul, Jules Lemaitre, has noted, the most marked and original of writers are those who do not understand everything, nor feel everything, nor love everything, but those whose knowledge, intelligence, and tastes have definite limitations. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... of this kind, possible enough in Alexandria, is surely in need of very definite and unexceptionable testimony to make it credible as a piece of Irish history. The truly historical fact contained in the extract is the existence of a book, at the time of the Four Masters, with a Christian title, and ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... material obstacles. Prayer is really projecting my spirit, that is, my real personality to the spot concerned, and doing business there with other spirit beings. For example there is a man in a city on the Atlantic seaboard for whom I pray daily. It makes my praying for him very tangible and definite to recall that every time I pray my prayer is a spirit force instantly traversing the space in between him and me, and going without hindrance through the walls of the house where he is, and influencing the spirit beings surrounding him, and ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... little band had his brave spirits dashed. But his buoyant courage rose quickly to its high and natural level. He could not longer doubt that the suspicions of the Confederates were aroused, but he felt convinced that these suspicions had not as yet assumed such a definite shape as most of his companions thought; still, he had abundant reason to believe that the success of the tunnel absolutely demanded its speedy completion, and he now firmly resolved that a desperate effort should be made to ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... gives them pleasure. The only thing that they do agree upon is that they miss it greatly, and crave it keenly whenever they stop it. The only thing that stands out clearly about smoking is that while it does no good, and does not even give one definite and uniform kind of pleasure, it does form a powerful and over-mastering habit, which is exceedingly difficult to break, and develops a craving which can be satisfied only by ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... is not an absurd and senseless jumble, but a perfect mechanism and has a definite meaning in penetrating the mind. It is as though we had two streams of thought, one of which we allow to flow freely, the other of which we are constantly repressing, pushing back into the subconscious, ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... general boundary line between white and Indian settlements. Influenced by the desire of individual settlers to fortify their claims and by the opposition of the natives to white encroachment, the colony designated definite lands for the Virginia Indians and began to follow more closely the custom of purchasing all territory received from the natives. To see that this was done, the Assembly passed numerous laws, pertaining in most cases only to the specific tribes of ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.



Words linked to "Definite" :   definite integral, explicit, definiteness, definite article, expressed, defined, distinct, decisive, definite quantity, indefinite, certain, decided, clear



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