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Distinctness   Listen
Distinctness

noun
1.
The quality of being sharp and clear.  Synonym: sharpness.
2.
The state of being several and distinct.  Synonyms: discreteness, separateness, severalty.
3.
The quality of being not alike; being distinct or different from that otherwise experienced or known.  Synonyms: otherness, separateness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Distinctness" Quotes from Famous Books



... scale of magnitude upon which the ideas belonging to the subject are illustrated in the work; but rather, as we suppose, obviously, and in all cases, upon the integrity and truth with which the particular form that has been contemplated by the artist, is brought out, and the distinctness with which that one specific impression which is appropriate to it, is attained. This is the kind of excellence which we ascribe to Mr. Morris; an excellence of a lofty order; genuine, sincere, and incapable ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... touching, old-fashioned story is told with perfect grace; the few persons who belong to it are touched on with distinctness ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... there in that underground world; yes, and men, too. Girls and women—all waiting, like himself, to be "put through," though what that might mean the poor boy could, of course, have little or no conception. Invisible though these fellow mortals were, he could see their shadows cast with marvelous distinctness upon the floor of the temple; and, strange to say, spotted were all these shadows! Some in a sitting posture, some standing, some walking, some gliding swiftly to and fro. Many, after remaining motionless for a time, would, all at once, begin dodging, skipping, flitting about ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... among the thoughtful, were deeply impressed with the probability of his conjectures being well founded. The writer was present when the following little incident took place, and remembers it with distinctness. It was at Greenmount meetinghouse. Brother Martain Miller had led in preaching that day, but had made no allusion to Thurman. After meeting broke up some of the Brethren privately asked Brother Miller what he thought of Thurman's doctrines. He shut ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... Compromise with such fanaticism was impossible. Then, with crushing distinctness, he saw what had not before occurred to him. In the estimation of the Mohammedan world, the role of Arbiter was already filled; that which he thought of being, Mahomet was. Too late, too late! In bitterness of soul he flung his arms up ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... eleventh chapter of his first book he contemplates rent quite in its true light, [1] and has interspersed through his work more just observations on the subject than any other writer, has not explained the most essential cause of the high price of raw produce with sufficient distinctness, though he often touches on it; and by applying occasionally the term monopoly to the rent of land, without stopping to mark its more radical peculiarities, he leaves the reader without a definite impression of the real difference between the cause of the high price ...
— Nature and Progress of Rent • Thomas Malthus

... afraid, for a few days since the child of a neighbour had died in consequence of an overdose of this same anodyne. For a long time there was silence in the room. Outside, voices kept sounding with that peculiar muffled distinctness which they have on a night of dense fog, when there is little or no wheel-traffic to make ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... reached the head of the stairway. The room was full of men and girls. The woman Stanton was there and, wheeling, she uttered a cry that startled Allie. Was this white, glaring-eyed, drawn-faced woman the one who had gone for Neale? Allie began to shake. She saw and heard with startling distinctness. The woman's cry had turned every face toward the stairway, and the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... still more marked and lofty distinctness, "John Wesley and Mary Em-me-line." It seemed to Mr. Hamlin that human accents could not convey a more significant and elevated ignoring of some implied impropriety in his invitation. He ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... practice a little, and aim at distinctness and clearness. That's more than style in business," Mr. Schriven continued deliberately, for the young creature was so delightfully fresh and original that he began to regard her as an agreeable episode in the dull August ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... and the yelping barks of the dogs came with marvellous distinctness to my ears, indeed, the sound seemed to grow more distinct. Was the wind rising? the tree-tops against the skyline seemed to be quiet enough. Surely the brutes—but no! they had been securely shut up ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... round was as visible as at noon; the flags, the arms of the soldiers, and every object on the bridge, in the fleet, or the forts, stood out clearly to view; and the pitchy darkness of the sky gave increased effect to the marked distinctness of all. Astonishment was soon succeeded by consternation, when one of the three machines burst with a terrific noise before they reached their intended mark, but time enough to offer a sample of their nature. The prince of Parma, with numerous ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... leisure and better accommodation. He who has not made the experiment or is not accustomed to require vigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many practical features and discriminations will be found compressed and conglobated into one gross and general idea." [530] "Brave words," comments ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... that in this generation, and to-day, there is a great deal more need to insist upon the truth that the inmost essence and deepest purpose of the whole Old Testament system is to create an attitude of expectance, and to point onwards, with ever-growing distinctness, to one colossal and mysterious figure in which the longings of generations shall be fulfilled, and the promises of God shall be accomplished. The prophet was more than a foreteller, as is being continually insisted upon nowadays. There were prophets who never uttered ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... pictures and descriptions as well as by her recollections of English mountains and lakes. The attempt to blend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and a landscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for the lack of distinctness in her pictures. Her descriptions of scenery are elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult to form a clear image of the scene. In her novels she cares for landscape only as an effective ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... all in the highest spirits. On to Rome! was the watchword. It was a glorious day; the sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky; the air was pure, and brilliant, and genial, and it also had such a wonderful transparency that distant objects seemed much nearer from the distinctness with which their outlines were revealed. The road was a magnificent one,—broad, well paved, well graded,—and though for some miles it was steadily ascending, yet the ascent was made by such an easy slope, that it was really imperceptible; ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... Repeal should contain, as nearly as possible, a true statement of their case. They had made conditions, and those conditions had been reluctantly complied with; and, to prevent future errors, the nature of the compact ought to be explained with the utmost distinctness. They had replaced the bishops in authority, and the bishops might be made use of at some future time, indirectly or directly, to disturb the settlement. A fresh pontiff might refuse to recognise the concessions of his predecessors. The papal supremacy, the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... Movement and the Rise of the Bloc.*—Two or three developments of the period stand out with some distinctness. One was the break-up, apparently for all time, of the Fortschrittspartei, or Radical party, in consequence of the elections of 1893. A second was the rise of the Government's prolonged contest with ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... that none too resonant, broke the long harmony of Lloyd's happiness during these days. Bennett was deaf to it; but for Lloyd it vibrated continuously and, as time passed, with increasing insistence and distinctness. But for one person in the world Lloyd could have told herself that her life was without a ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... the succession of beds forming the primitive foundation came out with increasing distinctness. Geologists consider this primitive matter to be the base of the mineral crust of the earth, and have ascertained it to be composed of three different formations, schist, gneiss, and mica schist, resting upon that ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... the shadows of night mantled the long twilight gloaming, and then one by one the stars came out from their hiding places, until the whole high dome of heaven was bright. The milky way brightened into wondrous distinctness, until it seemed to Oowikapun like a great pathway, and he wondered, as held in the tradition of his people, if on it, by and by, he should travel to the happy ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... press upon me with singular vivacity, while those which may with certainty be deduced from any action are but obscurely apprehended, so that in fact intensity of colour is an indication of unreality. I must add that if the future had presented itself to me with prophetic distinctness, my love for Melissa was so great that I should not have hesitated. My frequent visits to B. had not passed unnoticed at A., and the reason was suspected. Hints were not wanting, and the custom-house surveyor told ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... genius of the old world; as universal as our race, as individual as ourselves; of infinite flexibility, or indefatigable strength, with the complication and the distinctness of Nature herself; to which nothing was vulgar, from which nothing was excluded; speaking to the ear like Italian, speaking to the mind like English; with words like pictures, with words like the gossamer films of the summer; at once the variety and picturesqueness of Homer; ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... my surroundings became more real. I recognized more clearly the objects which had struck me during my first visit, while the stories which had been told came back to me with terrible distinctness. I remembered how it had been said that the pond had no bottom, and that it was haunted by the spirits of those that had been murdered. The story of its evil influence came back to me, and in my bewildered condition ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... Lord found place through His whole life, but culminates and comes out in special distinctness in His crucifixion. Wherein it consists is made clear by the words from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Messiah spake: 'Lo, I come to do Thy will.' And then it is added, 'In the which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ.' It was the offering of ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... the first things I remember with distinctness as having occurred in the nursery, related to the matter of prayer. One night when a sister a year and a half older than myself had, as usual, repeated all our prayers suited to the evening, which had been taught to us, from a sudden impulse I made up a prayer which I thought better expressed ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... took up a tool and a bit of leather with a pretence of working, hoping to be out of sight, and yet to be able to look at the little white-beavered fairy, for whom my fancy was in no way abated. But her keen-eyed sister saw me still, and her next remark rang out with uncompromising distinctness...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... there came from the summit of a hill overhanging the road, a high, wild, youthful yell that cut with startling distinctness through the dead level of human communication on the highway. Each of the travelers below looked up to see a young shepherd in sheepskins with long-blowing stiff crinkled locks flying back from a dusky face, with eyes soft and shining as those of some wild thing. Around him eddied a mob of ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... this expression was complete, and argued a peculiar bent of mind given entirely to traditional lore, and never to philosophical speculations and subtlety. We see in it two elements remarkable for their distinctness. First, an extraordinary fondness for facts and traditions, growing out of the patriarchal origin of society among them; and from this fondness their mind received a particular tendency which was averse to theories and utopias. All things resolved themselves into ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... the mountain or on the other or west side of it. We hesitate to make the plunge into the woods and seek to scale those precipices, for the eye can plainly see what is before us. As the afternoon sun gets lower the bees are seen with wonderful distinctness. They fly toward and under the sun and are in a strong light, while the near woods which form the background are in deep shadow. They look like large luminous motes. Their swiftly vibrating, transparent wings surround their bodies with a shining nimbus ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... dwelt in a tower at the end of the Bridge Bifroest. Heimdall was his name, and he was endowed with the sharpest ear and eye that ever warder possessed. He could hear grass and wool grow with the utmost distinctness. The AEsir, notwithstanding their supreme position, had need of such a warder, with his Gjallar-horn, mightier than the Paladin Astolfo's, that could make the universe reecho to its blast. The truth was, over even the high gods of Asgard hung a Doom ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... will here limit myself to the consideration of a few of the general results whose combination constitutes the 'physical delineation of the torrid zone.' That which, in the vagueness of our p 34 impressions, loses all distinctness of form, like some distant mountain shrouded from view by a vail of mist, is clearly revealed by the light of mind, which, by its scrutiny into the causes of phenomena, learns to resolve and analyze their different elements, assigning to each its individual character. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the idea of inflexible poetic justice impartially administered upon king and varlet, pope and beggar, oppressor and victim, projected amidst the unalterable necessities of eternity, and moving athwart the lurid abyss and the azure cope with an intense distinctness that sears the gazer's eyeballs. The Divina Commedia, with a wonderful truth, also reflects the feeling of the age when it was written in this respect, that there is a grappling force of attraction, a compelling realism, about its "Purgatory" and "Hell" ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Ducayla; it seemed to indicate a secret discontent with the new order of things. She felt that this sullen people must be inflamed, and made to speak with energy and distinctness. To awaken enthusiasm by means of words and proclamations had been attempted in vain; now the countess determined to attempt to arouse them by another means—to astonish them by the display of a striking symbol—to show them the white ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... everything, but far down in the valley they seemed to see by contrast the true summer of the sunny south, which is often far from sunny. But seen from the top of the mountain the valley was full of golden rays. Now the roofs of the villages showed plainly and they saw with distinctness the long silver lines that marked the flowing of the rivers and creeks. To the east and to the west further than the eye could reach rose the long line of dim blue mountains that enclosed ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... confessor, and promoted successively to be Abbot of Clairac and Bishop of Oleron. Yet he remained, to his death, a sincere friend of the Reformation. Occasionally, at least, he preached its doctrines with tolerable distinctness; as, for instance, in the Lenten discourses delivered by him, in conjunction with Courault and Bertault, before the French court in the Louvre (1532). In his writings he was still more outspoken. Some of them might have been ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... dangerous-looking corporal from the wild and woolly West decided him. He did not like that corporal. No man who, meeting a comparative stranger, beat him on the back painfully, and, having looked his latest glad rags up and down, remarked with painful distinctness, "Lumme! is it real?" could possibly be considered a gentleman. But Miss Belsize had laughed long and laughed loud; and—well, I will not labour the point. In due course our superior one found himself in the haunt of ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... cannot at all perceive; for innumerable fibers are there so interwoven that taken together they appear like a soft continuous mass; and yet it is in accord with these that each thing and all things of the will and understanding flow with the utmost distinctness into acts. How again they interweave themselves in the body is clear from the various plexuses, such as those of the heart, the mesentery, and others; and also from the knots called ganglions, into which many fibers enter ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... announce an approaching storm, but although the vapors had obstructed the sun's rays, they no longer presented the appearance of being charged with electricity. Thus our prognostications ended in disappointment; the clouds, which in the early morning had been marked by the distinctness of their outline, had melted one into another and assumed an uniform dull gray tint; in fact, we were enveloped in an ordinary fog. But was it not still possible that this ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... motive in which they originated and the result to which they led—to my success in the distribution of the Scripture, and to the opposition and encouragement which I have experienced. As my chief objects are brevity and distinctness I shall at once enter upon my subject, abstaining from reflections of every kind, which in most cases only tend to embarrass, being anxious to communicate facts alone, with most of which, it is true, you are already tolerably well acquainted, but upon all and every of which ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... out cleanly with the sharp distinctness that precedes the setting sun. She rode on until she began to wonder if it would indeed be night-fall before she reached her destination. They had ridden longer and faster than had ever been intended. It seemed odd that they had not overtaken ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... refute anybody, and by-and-by he pushed the black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire, held out his hands to the blaze. He thought, vaguely, of the big fireplace in the old study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness of his mind, he saw it—with such distinctness that he was startled. Then, a moment later, it changed into the south chamber that had been his mother's bedroom—he could even detect the faint scent of rose-geranium that always hung about her; he noticed that the green shutters on the west windows were bowed, and from between them a line ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... to be a gentleman," said Daniel, with firm distinctness, "and go to school, if that is what a gentleman's ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... these countries, which is taken in the Thames and in the sea, the whole of whose body is transparent; this creature, placed in a little water, has frequently afforded myself and particular friends an opportunity of observing the motions of the heart with the greatest distinctness, the external parts of the body presenting no obstacle to our view, but the heart being perceived as though it had been seen through ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... Hamilton vaguely, but there came upon him a compelling desire to draw this girl to whom he owed so much into his arms and comfort her. They both stood very still a moment, and Nasmyth heard the snapping of the stove with a startling distinctness. Then—and it cost him a strenuous effort—he ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... the desk, with a vague feeling that I had been there before, and that I had now to do something at this desk. Above it I caught sight of the row of vellum-bound books, and remembered that one of them contained something of importance to me. I took it down. The moment I opened it I remembered with distinctness the fatal discrepancy in the entry of my grannie's marriage. I found the place: to my astonishment the date of the year was now the same as that on the preceding page—1747. That instant I awoke in the first gush of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... we do think. We, too, go abroad into the world; we, too, do things. Best of all, we see with a new, clearer vision. And we see certain things that you men have become blinded to through centuries of usage, of selfish, careless struggling for your own ends. We are able to see with the distinctness of truth the right relation of the man and the woman—an equal relation, with equal rights for each, with equal claims on each other, with equal duties to each other in the home and in the world outside the home—partners, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... gaining in distinctness, came the fall of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels along the highway. A little cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway. First there dashed in two horsemen, who had sprung to the ground almost as ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... do influence, his theory of language, and his practical instructions respecting the right use of words. In practice, grammar is so interwoven with all else that is known, believed, learned, or spoken of among men, that to determine its own peculiar principles with due distinctness, seems to be one of the most difficult ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... great number of men to light, at the same instant, the torches which are fixed for the purpose all over the building. After the first glare of fire, I did not think the second aspect of the building so beautiful as the first; it wanted both softness and distinctness. The two most animated days of the Carnival are ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... very rarely able to recall any object whatever with any sort of distinctness. Very occasionally an object or image will recall itself, but even then it is more like a generalised image than an individual image. I seem to be almost destitute of visualising power, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... staircase hung a great cluster of pansies, purple and white and gold. Mr. Whittier called our attention to their wonderful resemblance to human faces,—a resemblance which we so often see in pansies, and which was brought out with really startling distinctness ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... tents from the summit of the "pass"; and had it been daylight, need have gone no nearer to note what was being there done. Even by the moonlight, they had been able to make out the forms of the horses, camels, men, and women; but not with sufficient distinctness to satisfy them as ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... originates simply in experience, equally with the recognition of ordinary physical generalisations. Thus, that we see a property of geometrical forms to be true, without inspection of the material forms, is fully explained by the capacity of geometrical forms of being painted in the imagination with a distinctness equal to reality, and by the fact that experience has informed us of that capacity; so that a conclusion on the faith of the imaginary forms is really an induction from observation. Then, again, there is nothing inconsistent with the theory that we learn by experience the truth of ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing

... drooping lotus leaves. The candlesticks contained coloured candles. These lotus leaves were provided with enamelled springs, of foreign make, so they could be twisted outward, thus screening the rays of the lights and throwing them (on the stage), enabling one to watch the plays with exceptional distinctness. The window-frames and doors had all been removed. In every place figured coloured fringes, and various kinds of court lanterns. Inside and outside the verandahs, and under the roofs of the covered passages, which stretched ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... dispense with under any circumstances. One of these is Herr Fischer, who, now that Scaria is no more, is beyond comparison the finest dramatic bass on the stage. No Italian could have a more mellow and sonorous voice, and his method has all the conscientiousness, passion, and distinctness of enunciation that characterize the German style. His Wotan and his Hans Sachs, especially, are marvels of operatic impersonation. Herr Alvary, the second of the vocalists who unite Italian with German merits, is a young singer who has a great future before him, if his ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... in the passage, and just beyond it the light—the first one we had seen on our way in. I had our route marked on my memory with complete distinctness. Soon we found ourselves in the wide, sloping passage that carried us to the level below, and in another five seconds had reached its end and the beginning ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... spheres of conduct intermediate between the purview of the criminal code, on the one hand, and the field of purely personal morality, on the other. By the demands upon its members contained in the group standard of honor the group preserves its unified character and its distinctness from the other groups within the same inclusive association. The essential thing is the specific idea of honor in narrow groups—family honor, officers' honor, mercantile honor, yes, even the "honor among thieves." Since the individual ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... a matter of fact, I knew already, with an almost despairing distinctness, nearly all these things I did not want and it has not helped me (with all due courtesy and admiration) having John Galsworthy out photographing them day after day, so that I merely did not want them harder. ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... awakened the deepest interest in his mind. Every few moments he moved slightly in his seat, and interrupted the flow of the narrative by an inquiry concisely put, in tones which, clear and low, had a solemn and severe distinctness, producing, in the still, dusky twilight of the church, an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... hearers with the arrogance of rolling rr's. Although his voice was not loud, any one occupying even the last seat in the chapel could not only hear him, but was absolutely invited to listen by the pleasant distinctness of the words. ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... to the men at the table, shifting quickly from one to another. He ran his tongue along his swollen lips, but said no word until Conniston had washed and taken his own chair. Then he spoke, his words coming with slow distinctness. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... Sounds gain a curious distinctness and meaning in the hour of the break of the dawn; in such an hour they seem even more significant than sounds heard in the dead of night. When she had gone to the window she had fancied that she heard something ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... that chaotic hurry of preparation, three other things only, but those with clear distinctness now, I remember. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... then, before the crowd, she would have yielded with but a faint protest. You must not think that she lost her head for a moment. On the contrary during her triumphal convoy she saw everything with remarkable distinctness. She knew well enough that some scores of women, all around, were envying her, yet admiring in spite of their envy. Without hearing them, she could almost tell what comments were uttered in boat after ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... to define with distinctness the personal agencies of the Egyptian deities. They are continually associated in function, or hold derivative powers, or are related to each other in mysterious triads, uniting always symbolism of physical ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... were little heeded then by Maggie, but with most painful distinctness they recurred to her in the after time, when, humbled in the very dust, she had no hope that the highborn, haughty Carrollton would stoop to a child of Hagar Warren! But no shadow of the dark future was over her now, and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... have joined; for the savour of the stew had floated from the cottage into the porch with such appetizing distinctness that the meat, the onions, the pepper, and the herbs could be severally recognized by his nose. But as sitting down to hob-and-nob there would have seemed to mark him too implicitly as the weather-caster's apostle, he declined, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... insurrection having been suppressed, they were thenceforward to be considered merely as conquered territories. The legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the Government have, however, with Heat distinctness and uniform consistency, refused to sanction an assumption so incompatible with the nature of our republican system and with the professed objects of the war. Throughout the recent legislation of Congress the undeniable fact makes itself apparent that these ten ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... over which the two walked, Fred slightly in advance, was marked with such distinctness by the hoofs of the six horses that had passed along it in Indian file but a short time before that it was no trouble for the boys to recognize it, nor were they likely to have any difficulty in keeping to it throughout the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... language, country and government, all enter into, and with greater or less distinctness, and to a greater or less extent, constitute the general idea of a nation. The French have in general the same origin: they speak the same language: they possess a definite territory: they live under one government. ...
— National Character - A Thanksgiving Discourse Delivered November 15th, 1855, - in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church • N. C. Burt

... of parting, an intentionally pathetic song, which contains the line, "All the tomorrows shall be as to-day," meaning equally gloomy. Young singers, loving this line, take care to pronounce the words with unusual distinctness: the listener may feel that the performer has the capacity for great and consistent suffering. It is not, of course, that youth loves unhappiness, but the appearance of it, its supposed picturesqueness. Youth runs from what is pathetic, but hangs fondly upon pathos. It is the idea ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... knowledge; that species have replaced species, not in assemblages, but one by one; and that, if it were possible to have all the phenomena of the past presented to us, the convenient epochs and formations of the geologist, though having a certain distinctness, would fade into one another with limits as undefinable as those of the distinct and yet separable colours of ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley

... pictures is frequently by lantern or candle. They are mostly small, and without animated action, but are full of picturesqueness. He was a good colourist, 'with a rare truth to nature and a marvellous distinctness of eye and precision of hand.' Minute as his execution was, his touch was 'free and soft.' His best pictures are 'like nature's self seen through the camera obscura.' An instance often given of his exquisite finish is that of a broom in the corner ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... fool, to trust the man! In the clear illumination of unclouded reason which she was now able to bring to bear upon the episode, she saw with painful distinctness how readily she had lent herself to be the dupe and tool of the man she called her father. Nothing that he had urged upon her at the St. Simon had now the least weight in her understanding; all his argument was now seen to be but the sheerest sophistry, every statement he had made and every ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... power over the lower tones of her rich voice. Her whisper electrifies and penetrates; her hurried words in the passion of the scene, where she drinks the sleeping potion, and afterward in the catastrophe at the end, although very far below conversational pitch, came to the ear with distinctness and with wonderful effect. In the final scene she reached the climax of her acting, which, from the time of Tybalt's death to the end, was full of tragic power that we have never seen excelled. It will be observed that we have placed ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... the advantage of me in being able to transact business through bars," said Clarence, with slow but malevolent distinctness, "and as mine is important, I think you had better open the ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... of my royal estate, and the encomenderos, if they do not furnish the salaries of those ecclesiastics whom he appoints without notifying you. Inasmuch as these things are prohibited with especial distinctness, and the said patronage belongs to me throughout all the states of the Yndias, you shall have it observed. The bishop shall not meddle with the matter of the salaries, but you yourself shall pay to those who shall give instruction what is due ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... forced. Mrs. Browning gave one of the best brief analyses of Mr. Browning's obscurity. He had been attacked as being "misty" and she wrote to him, "You never are misty, not even in 'Sordello'—never vague. Your graver cuts deep, sharp lines, always—and there is an extra distinctness in your images and thoughts, from the midst of which, crossing each other infinitely, the general significance seems to escape." But the classic defense of Browning from this point of view may be found in ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... indescribable scene of desolation. Everywhere the hillsides facing the valley have been stripped bare from crest to base, and the seams of coal and partings of shale could be seen running in and out of the irregularities of the cliffs with a sharpness and distinctness which recalled the pictures of the caons of Colorado. At the bottom of the valley was a piled-up heap of dbris and broken trees, while the old stream had been obliterated and the stream could be seen flowing over a sandy bed, which must have been raised ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... hoarded up through a life-time of cunning and privation? Who knows? Forth he chants his prayers, loudly yelling, or muttering low, as the ghastly scene before him vanishes in smoke and darkness, or glows out again in fearful distinctness. ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... him. There was a strand of hair out of place on the dead woman's brow, and he gently pushed it back. A bud lifted its head too high from among the roses on her breast and spoiled the contour of the chin, so he broke it off. He remembered these things later with keen distinctness, and that his hand touched her chill face two or three times in the ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... atmosphere, surcharged all day with the electricity of a fierce storm, found relief in a dancing flash of brilliant lightning simultaneously with a crash of loudest thunder. For five seconds every article in the room was visible to me with amazing distinctness, and through the windows I saw the tree trunks standing in solemn rows. The thunder pealed and echoed across the lake and among the distant islands, and the flood-gates of heaven then opened and let out their rain in ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... replied, in a faltering voice; for at that moment the thorn-crowned head of Jesus Christ—his sorrowful face stained with drops of blood, until its divinely beautiful lineaments were almost covered—was visioned in her soul with such distinctness, that she almost shrieked; then it faded away, and she ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... writing of all this as if I did nothing but look about me while others fought. Of course that could not have been the case. I recall now these fragmentary impressions of the scene around me with a distinctness and with a plenitude of minutiae which surprise me, the more that I remember little enough of what I myself did. But when a man is in a fight for his life there are no details. He is either to come out of it or he isn't, and that is about ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... a carrying voice, and she was speaking with fearful distinctness. A visible shudder ran through Mr. Martin's slender frame as he sprang to his feet ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... only laid down as a fundamental doctrine in her Articles, but constantly put into the mouths of her congregation, either expressed or clearly implied. Again, I found that not by works but by faith I was to be justified before God; and this also ran through the prayer-book, with unvarying distinctness; though with that book in my hand and its contents on my lips I had been hitherto attempting to scale heaven by a ladder of ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... ring, and again beheld Aurelia. She was in her chamber, but not alone. Her companion was a youth of Otto's age. She was in the act of placing Otto's brilliant upon his finger. Otto turned his own ring, and heard her utter, with singular distinctness: ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... authorship may be attributed to them. Unfortunately the critical perception of scholars, equally eminent, leads to such different results, that the controversy appears to be hopeless. Where one sees with the utmost distinctness the difference of workmanship, another sees with equal clearness the traces of the same genius and manner. And in controversies of this nature, there is unhappily a most perverse combination of the strongest conviction with an utter impotence to force that conviction ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... made a pair of iron horns, and flattered the King of Israel by the symbol that he would push the Syrians till he should consume them (2 Chron. xvii. 10). About the time of the captivity, and in the hands of Ezekiel, this species of parable appears with great distinctness of outline, and considerable fulness of detail. When a frivolous people would not take warning of their danger, the prophet, godly and grave, took a broad flat tile, and sketched on it the outline of a besieged city, and lay on his left side, silently contemplating the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... such may have resulted more from hardships and exposure than from the accumulation of years. There is a gray-haired old dame with the Iwillik tribe at Depot Island who was a grown woman at the time of Sir William Edward Parry's visit there in 1821, and remembers the circumstances with all the distinctness that marks the early reminiscences of the old in every country. There was another woman there apparently as old, but there was no early event by which her age could be traced except that she told 'The Herald' correspondent that she remembered having seen Parry on board of a ship in Baffin's Bay ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... strong line of demarcation exists between the remains of these people and the earliest traces of the "red Indian" race which Europeans found in possession of the body of the continent; this gap is not one of stratification, or, perhaps, of time, but is shown by a strong distinctness in the character of the worked stones forming the weapons and implements of each people in respect to both material and degree of perfection. Considering further the probability (from known evidence) that the Innuit (Eskimos) once occupied ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... laughed a little ironically. "And I promise you," he added, "that your Radisson shall neither drink wine nor eat bread with you at my table. And now, come, let us talk awhile together; for, lest any accident befall the packet you shall bear, I wish you to carry in your memory, with great distinctness, the terms of my writing to your governor. I would that it were not to be written, for I hate the quill, and I've seen the time I would rather point my sword red than my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... eyes. She was gone—his no more! How fearful the Wedding March had sounded on that organ—that awful old wheezer; and the sermon! One didn't want to hear that sort of thing when one felt inclined to cry. Even Gordy had looked rather boiled when he was giving her away. With perfect distinctness he could still see the group before the altar rails, just as if he had not been a part of it himself. Cis in her white, Sylvia in fluffy grey; his impassive brother-in-law's tall figure; Gordy looking queer in a black coat, with a very yellow face, and eyes still ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... intend, therefore, to attempt to sketch out the leading features of a phase of religious belief that acquired peculiar distinctness and prominence during Shakspere's lifetime—more, perhaps, than it ever did before, or has done since—the belief in the existence of evil spirits, and their influence upon and dealings with mankind. The subject will be treated ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... the knower from the known, whereas what we have in knowledge is a kind of immediate touch of the one by the other, an "apprehension" in the etymological sense of the word, a leaping of the chasm as by lightning, an act by which two terms are smitten into one over the head of their distinctness. All these dead intermediaries of yours are out of each other, and outside ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... decide, and that the Convention had no control or authority in the matter. Some conversation was then had between the Commissioners who favored and those who opposed the pending proposition, which I did not hear with sufficient distinctness to understand, and in a minute or two Governor King announced that the vote ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... to inspire depression. It is animated throughout with the hopeful confidence in the poet's own powers, so natural to the time of life at which it was composed; it evinces a power and soar of imagination unsurpassed in any of his writings; and its images and incidents have a freshness and distinctness which they not seldom lost, when they came to be elaborated, as many of them were, in his minor poems of ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... and thinking again—of her lover, or of the sensation she had created at church that day?—well, it is unknown—thinking and thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at the further end of the Grove—a man without an umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived that he was in deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness and foolishness of his young heart, after walking four miles, in a drizzling rain without overcoat ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... elements:—-(1) fitness of the parts to some design; (2) variety in as many ways as possible; (3) uniformity, regularity or symmetry, which is only beautiful when it helps to preserve the character of fitness; (4) simplicity or distinctness, which gives pleasure not in itself, but through its enabling the eye to enjoy variety with ease; (5) intricacy, which provides employment for our active energies, leading the eye "a wanton kind of chase''; (6) quantity or magnitude, which draws our attention ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... lay the sea, like a copper shield, smooth and glowing, seething like a boiling caldron, with its level foam, for the long, low-rolling billows lifted themselves but lazily from Ocean's breast, and assumed no distinctness of form or motion. Not the faintest breeze came to relieve the stifling closeness of the atmosphere, or lift the collapsed sail, or furled flag, that clung around our mast. The air shimmered visibly around us, as ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... issued from the cupboard with horrible distinctness. Miss Poppleton paused for a second, then made an instant dart, and seized the culprit in the very midst of ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... perplexed as to what she meant, for no one excepting herself had been able to make out the phenomena with any degree of distinctness, they yielded to her entreaties, and asked her no questions. The servants had neither heard nor seen anything. A fortnight later, Ruth was taken ill with appendicitis; peritonitis speedily set in, and she died ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... heretofore contemplated seemed to prophesy the speedy dissolution and downfall of the half-formed American Union, a series of causes, obscure enough at first, but emerging gradually into distinctness and then into prominence, were preparing the way for the foundation of a national sovereignty. The growth of this sovereignty proceeded stealthily along such ancient lines of precedent as to take ready hold of people's minds, although few, if any, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... Hotel," he said with a curious distinctness, "where all English people stop, and where of course your friend ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... in the street where the fire was, it was deafening, and it kept its own distinctness above all other noises; and with the fire-bells, the saving and losing of household goods, and the trampling and talking of the crowd, there were noises not a few. Dennis and I were together, for Alister had business to do, but he had given us leave to gratify our ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... are placed before us, each containing sky-matter, it is possible to state with great distinctness which vessel contains the largest particles. The eye is very sensitive to differences of light, when, as in our experiments, it is placed in comparative darkness, and the wave-motion thrown against the retina is small. The larger particles declare themselves by the greater whiteness of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... adaptable and buoyed up by romance, settle down to a new order of life; she is too used to the luxuries I have been able to give her, servants, carriages, horses, travel, fine clothes—" he enumerated them all with distinctness, giving each item a lengthy second before going on to his conclusion. "It will work real hardship on her to be compelled to give up all these things to do her own work and to make over ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... one after the other, sounded out six. Through the great windows light began to enter from the snow-covered streets. That seemed the gradual and slow drawing aside of a dark curtain, from behind which came out with increasing distinctness, furniture, pictures, mirrors, candlesticks, vases, rugs, plushes, velvets, polish, gilt, mosaics, ivory, porcelain. Until all standing forth in the full light of that winter morning began like a pearl shell to interchange various colors and lustres, and to drop from the walls and ceilings reflections ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... Aberdeen was published in the year 1795, being among the earlier special works upon the disease. Apart of his testimony has been occasionally copied into other works, but his expressions are so clear, his experience is given with such manly distinctness and disinterested honesty, that it may be quoted as a model which might have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the splotches of fresh blood on the deck all around me was more than I could stomach for very long. The sight of them brought back to me with a horrid distinctness everything that I had seen since I came aboard the hulk: the dead man lying on the deck, the other man with his frightful wounds and his wild talk and his death in the midst of his passionate ravings, and the disgusting work that I had been forced to do before I could hide ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... to be the pioneer in modern maritime exploration. Without geographical or racial separation from the rest of the Iberian peninsula, the national distinctness of Portugal was largely a matter of sentiment gathering around the sovereign. The nationality of Portugal had been created in the first place by the policy of its rulers, and preserved by them until the growth of separate material interests, a national language ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... a good deal of discussion. Some think from the circumstance of its having a very large bill, toes pointing behind as well as before, that it represents a toucan, which, if true, would make it a most interesting specimen. But cautious scholars conclude that the "figure is not of sufficient distinctness to identify the original that was before the artist's mind." And therefore it is not wise to make this specimen the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... of his sentence was drowned in the roar of the train as it went rocking and clanking; but through all the hell of noises to which that unhappy house was periodically subject, they could hear the syllables of Magnus's answer, in all their bell-like distinctness: "I have no reason to feel ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... said with bitter distinctness, "that you are the most shameless, unfeeling girl I have ever beheld? Any one else would show some remorse for what she had done, but you—young as you are, you are the hardest creature I have ever known. Hard, cruel, and ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... expression of the mouth, never observed in one whose mind is entirely at ease—an expression that once seen is never forgotten. The face stamped itself instantly on my memory; and I can even now recall it with almost the original distinctness. How strongly it contrasted with that of her smiling, self-satisfied husband, who took his place at the head of his table with an air of conscious importance. I was too hungry to talk much, and so found greater enjoyment ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... curious and interesting discussion on the comparative distinctness of our visual and other external impressions, in Mr. Fearn's Essay on Consciousness, with which I shall try to descend from this rhapsody to the ground of common sense and plain reasoning again. After observing, a little before, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... behind them, the early morning sun shone forth with vivid brilliancy. Against the western sky the buildings stood out with a peculiar distinctness, as if the yellow light shining upon them was an illumination inherent in themselves, singling them out of the landscape, and leaving untouched the cold gray behind them. The lines of brick and stone had the clearness and precision ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... I think she meant also the way of the world—which does not make me withdraw my assent. I left her walking up and down in front of the drawing-room windows, a rather forlorn little figure, thrown into distinctness by the cold ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... and have been derived from a comparison of ancient printed editions, have also been incorporated." I do not know how I could have expressed myself with greater clearness; and it was merely for the sake of distinctness that I referred to the result of my own labours in 1842, 1843, and 1844, during which years my eight volumes octavo were proceeding through the press. Those labours, it will be seen, essentially contributed to lighten my task in preparing the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various

... lace, remarkable for the beauty and distinctness of its patterns, and the startling whiteness of the linen thread used in ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... strain, but he felt pains shooting through his arms, shoulders and chest. His most vivid recollections of the descent were the coldness of the wall against which he lay and the far tinkle of a mandolin which came to him with annoying distinctness. The frequent knots where he had tied the strips together were a help, and whenever he came to one he let his hands rest upon it a moment or two lest he ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... one another without similarity of opinions, and, after all, similarity of opinions upon theological criticism is a poor bond of union. But then, no sooner was this pleaded than the other side of the question was propounded with all its distinctness, as Miss Arbour ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... after drawing the picture of a wealthy and flourishing people, it adds, "They have called the people happy that hath these things; but happy is that people whose God is the Lord:"—while on the other hand it says with equal distinctness, "If any will not work, neither let him eat;" and, "If any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." These opposite injunctions are summed up in the wise man's prayer, who says, "Give me neither beggary ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... was just then tingeing the sky and everything around them was still as death. The gentle lapping of the waves against the rocky shore, the barking of the dogs in Malaga, and the occasional crow of a rooster rang out with wonderful distinctness. The anchor light of the ship about one mile away twinkled as though only a little distance off. Not yet feeling secure they began climbing upwards. The progress was arrested by a hoarse sound coming from the direction of the ship. As they sat on the rocks to listen, they heard the voice ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... that Miss Tresilyan was probably offended with him beyond hope of reconciliation, but this did not greatly trouble him. He had been sensible for some time of the decay of his influence in that quarter. Last of all rose on his mind, with unpleasant distinctness, Cecil's warning, "If I were a man, I should not like to have Major Keene as my enemy." He had thrown the lance over that enemy's frontier, and it was now too late to talk of truce. A dread of the consequences overcame him ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... the colorless fluid he offered me, and sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance, vindicating his aspersed honor. She had forged the tale,—she had stolen the picture,—she ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended the staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians bringing up visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call over the banisters with particular distinctness, 'Much obliged to you ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... of the meeting it seemed to him as though fate had called them to do this work together,—she from the far shore of the Pacific, and he from his rocky island in the Middle Sea. And he saw with cruel distinctness, that if there were one thing wanting, it was himself. He worshipped her before he had bowed his first good-by to her, and that night he walked for miles up and down the long lengths of the avenue of the Champs-Elysees, facing the great change ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis

... Mina saw his figure on the road, at first dimly, then with a sudden distinctness as a gleam of moonlight shone out. He stood a little way up the road to Cecily's right. She did not see him yet, for she looked up to Merrion. He took a step forward, his tread sounding loud on the road. There was a sudden ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope



Words linked to "Distinctness" :   definition, separation, indistinctness, other, focus, clarity, separateness, sharpness, otherness, discernability, legibility, softness, uncloudedness, difference, distinct, clearness, discreteness



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