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Experiment   /ɪkspˈɛrəmənt/   Listen
Experiment

noun
1.
The act of conducting a controlled test or investigation.  Synonym: experimentation.
2.
The testing of an idea.  Synonym: experimentation.  "Not all experimentation is done in laboratories"
3.
A venture at something new or different.



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"Experiment" Quotes from Famous Books



... herds. It is true that the number assigned to each band is comparatively limited, and the Government are not bound to extend the number. This was done advisedly, by the successive Governments of Canada, and the Commissioners, acting under their instructions; for it was felt, that it was an experiment to entrust them with cattle, owing to their inexperience with regard to housing them and providing fodder for them in winter, and owing, moreover, to the danger of their using them for food, if short of ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... rather dry response. "But I shall be surprised if the old lady stays long, or sees many people. Her health is of the shakiest, and London life would be a dangerous experiment, I should say. I don't at all know why she's coming, unless it ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... belief, an experiment; discouragement, hope, effort and final success—this is the history of many an invention; a history in which excitement, competition, danger, despair and persistence figure. This merely suggests the ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis

... at arm's length before me, fairly in the open. I had the ambition to paint a picture here—to do the whole thing in the woods from day to day, instead of taking notes for the studio—and was at work upon a very foolish experiment: I had thought to render the light—broken by the branches and foliage—with broken brush-work, a short stroke of the kind that stung an elder painter to swear that its practitioners painted in shaking fear of the concierge appearing for the studio rent. The attempt was alluring, but ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... she said, "you invited my mother and me to that exhibition. You gave us tickets for front seats, where we would be certain to be hypnotized if your experiment succeeded, and you would have made us see that false show, which faded from those people's minds as soon as they recovered from the spell, for as they went away they were talking only of the fireworks, ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... know that this fancied discovery of mine was of the least value? I had never had a chance of making experiment of it, and no doubt it was an idle chimera of my brain, when it was overwrought by anxiety for my mother's sake. I had not hitherto thought enough of it to ask the opinion of any of my medical friends and colleagues. Why should I attach any importance to it now? Let ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... said, "I thought that about Mexico once. I said Manana— this Manana is the curse of Mexico. It's always to-morrow—to-morrow —to-morrow. Let's teach 'em to do things to-day. Let's show 'em what business means. Two million dollars went into that experiment, but Manana won. We had good hands, but it had the joker. After five years I left, with a bald head at twenty-nine, and a little book of noble thoughts—Tips for the Tired, or Things you can say To-day on what you can do to-morrow. I lost my hair worrying, but I learned to be patient. The Dagos ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 'I thought it an experiment, you know; but you said so much about Lily's girls being patterns, that I thought Jasper Merrifield might have made her more rational and less flighty, and all that sort of thing; but of course it was a very different tone from what the child was used to, and you couldn't tell what the young ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... education of the highest grade; but the "barrier of sex" is not broken down in education. But few of the older colleges for men admit women, and those few, so far as I have learned from conversation with members of their faculties, speak of the arrangement as an experiment, and give the need for economy, combined with a desire to assist women, as a reason for making that experiment. Meantime the knocking at men's literary portals by Suffrage advocates has gone on as vigorously as if women could obtain ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... once, and being promised all the tragic parts on the yet unbuilt stage, she felt a deep interest in the project and begged Dan to lose no time in beginning his experiment. Bess also confessed that studies from nature would be good for her, and wild scenery improve her taste, which might grow over-nice if only the delicate and beautiful were ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... rooms for families. Houses for white workmen were to be built by the company after these were completed. Lawrence Wilder, president of the company, stated that the building of these houses was no "experiment." "They are being put up to stay." Hot and cold water, hot air, heat, electric lights, and shower baths will be in the hotel. Single rooms will rent for $1.25, double rooms $2.50 per week. No women will be permitted to live in the hotel. A social ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... even of the best marksman, was likely to prove uncertain. He waited his opportunity however. As the bows of the frigate rose he applied the match, and some white splinters were seen to fly from the enemy's topmast. A cheer burst from the throats of the crew who saw the success of the experiment. It was looked upon as a good omen for the future. The cheer, however, was repressed by the officers. The men stood at their quarters. The captains of guns, with their matches in their hands, most of ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... medical men could not discover; he has just sent to inform me of it; all that is required is to roast the rye before preparing it;" and his eyes sparkled with hope as he questioned his physician, who declined giving any opinion until the experiment was tried. The emperor instantly called two grenadiers of his guard; he seated them at table, close to him, and made them begin the trial of this nourishment so prepared. It did not succeed with them, although he added to it some of his own wine, which ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... some of them, advised me to continue my theatrical efforts. They even offered me a tempting rise on my last salary and fairly long engagements, but I was in no way keen. I had tried it only as an experiment, and the ways of the theatre were not alluring to me, and especially after having gone through them personally. There is a good deal of fun to be got out of it, but few people know how hard one has to work, and what a slave to duty one has to become in order to rise ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... to furnish me with a plentiful supply of the milky juice, and betook myself, on a Sunday afternoon, to our mystic nook in a corner of the roof terrace, to experiment with the stone of a mango. I was wrapt in my task of dipping and drying—but the grown-up reader will probably not wait to ask me the result. In the meantime, I little knew that Satya, in another corner, had, in the space of an hour, caused to root and sprout a mystical ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... was only—that you would soon tire of it, Amy, and that the experiment would then prove good neither for you nor for Matty; but in that too ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... had been so engaged for about four months, Mrs. Hardy said at breakfast: 'I am going to try an experiment. I have given the cook leave to go out for the day. Mr. and Mrs. Partridge are coming to dinner, and I intend handing over the kitchen to the girls, and letting them make their first essay. We are going to have ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... given him a task in which he could have seen cause working to effect, in which he could have found by personal experiment a single fact that belonged to him, his own by divine right of discovery, he would have counted labor or ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... while sitting, is a task, and there develops a tendency either to a hypnoidal state in which the mind follows uncritically, or to a restless uneasiness with wandering mind and fatigue of body. A demonstration, on the other hand, a laboratory experiment with short, personal instruction, a bodily contact with the problem calls into play interest, enthusiasm, curiosity, motor images, the use of the hands, and is ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... dollars from the monthly rent, in consideration of Spanish lessons given to her two oldest children. This experiment proved a success, and Polly next accepted an offer to come three times a week to the house of a certain Mrs. Baer to amuse (instructively) the four little Baer cubs, while the mother Baer wrote a "History of the Dress-Reform Movement ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... truly learned, chiefly for whose benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others wake, will here find sufficient matter to employ his speculations for the rest of his life. It were much to be wished, and I do here humbly propose for an experiment, that every prince in Christendom will take seven of the deepest scholars in his dominions and shut them up close for seven years in seven chambers, with a command to write seven ample commentaries on ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... in Katy's skill, but the experiment gave him an excuse to rest a minute. He moved over and handed her the oar with a ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... and breathe normally. Instead of retreating, I was in the next few seconds stealing up the front stairs. Nor did I move very slowly, either. I knew by experiment that its steps were all solid, and that I need not fear the ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... wanderer. "If I settled myself into a respectable practice I should be obliged to march with the army of doctors who carry a great array of small weapons, and who find out what is the matter with their patients after all sorts of experiment and painstaking analysis, and comparing the results of their thermometers and microscopes with scientific books of reference. After I have done all that, you know, if I have had good luck I shall come to exactly what ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... weather bureau intends not only to study the thunderstorm, hailstorm, rainfall, inundations, and frosts, with especial reference to their effects upon agriculture, but also to experiment upon the asserted effect of smoke as a preventive to frost. The experiments will be extensive and may cover ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... give up Law and apply myself to Medicine I can hardly say, but I had from the first looked upon that year's study as an experiment. At any rate, I made the change, and soon found myself introduced to new scenes ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... morning, went through the formality of looking in upon his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to go away again, Ste. Marie called him back. He said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?" and the Irishman halted inside the door. "I made an experiment yesterday," said Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I can walk—that is to say, I can drag myself about a little without any great pain if I don't ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... expected—full of the highest marks of regard to your lordship: full of condescension, and of all those sentiments of grace and goodness which his Majesty can so well express. I think that you cannot but be happy at the result of this experiment." Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... change has reference to the organization of the Admiralty Board of Invention and Research, and has the object at once of securing greater concentration of effort in connection with scientific research and experiment, and ensuring that the distinguished scientists who are giving their assistance to the Admiralty are more constantly in and amongst the problems upon which ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... few months later she landed near Brunswick, in Georgia, three hundred and fifty negroes, who were speedily distributed over the Gulf States. One or two were seized by United States Marshals, but they were soon taken from them. The experiment was a success. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... The Sydney merchants, from what I have heard, expect to find in China a market for horses, cattle, and sheep, coarse woollens, wine, and salt provisions. The first three have been tried, and the experiment has proved an utter failure: the horses were sent to Calcutta, not a purchaser being found for one of them in Hong Kong. Cattle are out of the question: they cannot be transported five thousand miles to undersell the Chinese butcher, who gives fifteen pounds of good beef for a dollar—about ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... remained so closely fixed upon him, that, in spite of his courage, nature painfully suggested the bitter imagination of his limbs being mangled, torn, and churned with their life-blood, in the jaws of some monstrous beast of prey. One saving thought alone presented itself—this might be a trial, an experiment of the philosopher Agelastes, or of the Emperor his master, for the purpose of proving the courage of which the Christians vaunted so highly, and punishing the thoughtless insult which the Count had been misadvised enough to put upon ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... piece of meat which the dog had dropped into it. At length the river is found to be quiescent, a piece of charred wood having been plunged into it without producing any effect like that of the former experiment; and they determine to ford it, but with great caution. Arrived on the other side, they count their number, like the men of Gotham, and discover that one is not present. A traveller, coming up, finds the missing ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... the early dew in the fields on the 1st of May extensively prevails in these parts; and they say that a child who is weak in the back may be cured by drawing him over the grass wet with the morning dew. The experiment must be thrice performed, that is, on the mornings of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of May. I find no allusion to these specific applications of "May-dew" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various

... shell in target practice and sham fight, but of a cannonade of artillery, where every shrieking cannon-ball was probably a winged messenger of death, this was his first experience. He now learned that in the music of the empty shell of experiment and the wicked screech of the missiles of war there was an unpleasant difference. He did not wince, but sternly drew himself together, thought of home, begged God's mercy, and awaited the command to advance with an impatience that ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... certainly settle this disagreement, but I'd be inclined to accept what Brute says," said Goat thoughtfully. "You're smart enough to lie, Adam. Brute isn't. The only thing I can do is to run the experiment over. You shall go out again tomorrow, and this time I'll go ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... discoverers in that field, give us some proof of your skill. Who are they who, having been inferior persons, have become under your care good and noble? For if this is your first attempt at education, there is a danger that you may be trying the experiment, not on the 'vile corpus' of a Carian slave, but on your own sons, or the sons of your friend, and, as the proverb says, 'break the large vessel in learning to make pots.' Tell us then, what qualities you claim or ...
— Laches • Plato

... that experiment in the laboratory," said Bertram. "You must have had just the accurate amount of liquid in the glass, Average. Move back, you lunatic, it's dripping all ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... delight, let every gratification that inebriates the soul be discovered. If at that moment temptation approach, even a meaner and less potent temptation may then succeed. The night advances with hasty feet. Night is the season of dissipation and luxury. Be this the hour of experiment, and let the apprehensive mind of Imogen be first assiduously lulled to repose. Here, Roderic, you must rest your remaining hopes. There is not another instrument can be discovered, to disarm and vanquish the human ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... founded societies for making his crooked places plain, and (to me) his plain places very crooked. These societies have terrorized the ordinary reader into leaving Browning alone. The same thing has been tried with Shakespeare, but fortunately the experiment in this case has proved less successful. Coroners' inquests by learned societies can't ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... Epicurian Empress of Ethiopia, Electrified the East End of Egypt by Eagerly and Easily Eating, as an Experiment, an Egg, an Eagle, an Emu, and Electrical Eel, and an Enormous Elephant, larger than the one Exhibited ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... investigation which requires the greatest care. The medium is made of such uncommon stuff; she has not a particle of brass in her composition. So she requires to be carefully isolated from all disturbing influences. I allow you to be present at the experiment, because discretion is one of your strongest points, and you always know when to hold your tongue. Besides, it will improve your mind. Cissy's story is certain to be odd, like herself, and will illustrate what I am ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... deferring the statement being that till the lower, that is the moral, nature has been reduced to perfect order, [Greek: theoria] cannot have place, though, had it been held out from the first, men would have been for making the experiment at once, without the ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... could be got up among them,—a people of great energy, courage, and resolution, well prepared to carry out to its natural and legitimate results any movement, and follow established convictions fearlessly to logical conclusions. The experiment of bringing supernaturalism to operate in human affairs, to become a ground of action in society, and to interfere in the relations of life and the dealings of men with each other, was as well tried upon this people as it ever ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... to see if, like myself, he was ready to carry the thing through, and then I put the pipe to my lips. I felt at once that it was opium, of which I had before made experiment, but mixed with some other substance, which was, I imagine, haschish, a preparation of hemp. A few puffs, and I felt a drowsiness creeping over me. I saw, as through a mist, the fakir swaying himself backwards and forwards, his arms waving, ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... experiment to defy the Governor; but he dismissed this as foolish and hazardous. The Governor had a long arm, and having trifled with his good nature at the Walkers' it would certainly be ungracious and in all likelihood disastrous to offend him a second time. But ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... have been an innovation and an experiment, Perch was fain to content himself by expressing as well as he could, in his manner, You are the light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my Soul. You are the commander of the Faithful Perch! With this imperfect happiness to cheer him, he would shut the door ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... is a secret about one of my rooms on which I feel disposed to try an experiment. So, gentlemen, none of you shall know who has the haunted chamber, until circumstances reveal it. I will not even know it myself, but will leave it to chance and the allotment of the housekeeper. At ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... agencies to the production of certain effects, of which they are supposed to be naturally capable.... We must consider whether there is a fair appearance of the cause being able to produce the effect naturally. If there is, the experiment will not be unlawful: for it is lawful to use natural causes in order to their proper effects." (2a 2a, q. 96, art. 2, in corp., ad 1.) But this we must understand under two provisos. First, that the "fair appearance" ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... meal. I've no use for the ordinary complete commercial fertilizer. It sometimes helps a little for one year; but it seems to leave the land poorer than ever. Bone meal lasts longer and doesn't seem to hurt the land. I see from the agricultural papers that some of the experiment stations report good results from the use of fine-ground raw rock phosphate; but they advise using it in connection with organic matter, such as manure or clover plowed under. I am planning to get some and mix it with the manure here under this ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... laboratory the essential factors of any phenomenon can be determined by the process of elimination. All the elements which preceded it except one can be introduced; if the result is the same as in its presence, manifestly it is not essential. So the experiment can go on until the result becomes different, when it is evident that the last omitted element is an essential one. But no such process is possible in great historical movements. The only course open to us is to consider carefully the ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... fact we reach in the Ideal of To-day. Here we are on firm ground. The law we acknowledge, the light we follow,—these may be expressed with entire clearness and confidence. The test they invite is present experiment. Nothing vital shall be staked on far-away ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... begun to speak, "you don't know what you do for me; you lift me out of despair. Before you came, I had reached one of those passes that seem the last bound of endeavor. But you give me new life. Now I can go on with my experiment. I can at test my gratitude by possessing your native country of the weapon I had designed for it—I am sure of the principle: some slight improvement, perhaps the use of some different explosive, would get over that difficulty you suggested," he said eagerly. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... meantime William Bolton up-stairs was very decided in his opinion that they must at once allow Caldigate to take her back to Folking. She had, as he said, proved herself to be too strong for them. The experiment had been tried and had failed. No doubt it would be better,—so he thought,—that she should remain for the present at the Grange; so much better that a certain show of force had been justified. But as things were going, no further force would be justified. She had proved her power, and ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... going back to his machine, and beginning to work the keys rapidly. "I am here, an unarmed man; let their Excellencies, the Chancellor and the Field Marshal, attack me with their swords if they can. I am not joking. I am staking my life on the success or failure of this experiment." ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... supply-issue of the force he had in contemplation. If his course should be endorsed by the War Department, well and good; if it were not so indorsed, why, he had enough property of his own to pay back to the Government all he was irregularly expending in this experiment. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... systems we lay varying degrees of stress upon the importance of different methods of acquiring knowledge. There is at the bottom of the scale the method of mastering the instruction of the teacher by attention and reflection. There is, next, the method of learning through one's own experiment—through using microscope or telescope or textbook for oneself. There are, further, the social aids to the quickening of the mind as groups of students study and discuss together. But the deepest knowledge comes as the student feels his sympathy and feeling involved. ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... power to extend or limit the suffrage rests now wholly in the hands of man, he can commence the experiment with as small a number as he sees fit, by requiring any lawful qualification. Men were admitted on property and educational qualifications in most of the States, at one time, and still are in some—so hard has it been for man to understand the theory of self-government. Three-fourths of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... reply that the old English novel is no rule to me, and life is; and I respectfully propose an experiment. Catch eight old married people, four of each sex, and say unto them, "Sir," or "Madam, did the more remarkable events of your life come to you before marriage or after?" Most of them will say "after," and let that be my excuse for treating ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... going to be received. I do not enter upon all the reasons why such a construction of Christ's work cannot hold water, but here is one—for any one who believes this story before us—that at the very beginning, before He had gone half a dozen steps in His public career, when the issues of the experiment, if it was a man that was making the experiment, were all untried; when, if it were merely a martyr-enthusiast that was beginning his struggle, some flickering light of hope that He would be received of His brethren must have shone, or He would never have ventured ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... instruments and untractable boots on the floor-boards. While waiting in the nervous queue on the Day of Judgment one of those fellows will address a mouth organ to the responsive feet of a pal, and the others will look on with intent approval, indifferent to Gabriel. Having watched disaster experiment variously with my countrymen for three years, I begin to understand why once the French hated us, why lately they have learned to admire us and to be amused by us, why the blunders of our governing classes don't damage us vitally (which seems miraculous unless you ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... that the Evil One, thus seduced to remain behind the appointed hour, would assume her true shape, and, having appeared to her terrified lover as a fiend of hell, would vanish from him in a flash of sulphurous lightning. Raymond of Ravenswood acquiesced in the experiment, not incurious concerning the issue, though confident it would disappoint the expectations ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... in his Bakerian lecture, "Nor is it absolutely necessary in this instance to produce a single new experiment; for of experiments there is ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various

... The experiment was a fitting opportunity for an ambitious and courageous woman who, though she might not find full measure of happiness and love which only comes with respect, yet would meet with adventure, would dare fate and hazard chance with fickle fortune. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... meaning, perhaps, that he should get off so easily, put his horse quite across the path, so that, without plunging into the slough, or scrambling up the bank, the Quaker could not have passed him. Neither of these was an experiment without hazard greater than the passenger seemed willing to incur. He halted, therefore, as if waiting till my companion should make way for him; and, as they sat fronting each other, I could not help thinking that they might have formed no bad emblem ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... records of cases where suggestion has killed! That which has killed can also cure, and man's body being only a product of thought, built up through the ages, answers more rapidly to its creator than it does to clumsier products from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Here again I only ask experiment. You know that you can produce wounds upon the body of the hypnotised patient, in a state of trance. By suggestion lesions are made, burns are caused, inflammation and pain appear by the mere suggestion ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... sorcerer, "we will experiment with this on the witch who wishes to destroy you." So as it was night they went to the village. A dance was being held, and the beautiful tall witch having paused to rest, the two men approached her. The young man placed ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... therefore, is the naturalist's workshop, "the animal laboratory," in which such inductions as may be suggested by the doings and the movements of the insects "which roam at liberty amidst the thyme and lavender" are subjected to the test of experiment. It is a great, silent, isolated room, brilliantly lighted by two windows facing south, upon the garden, one at least of which is always kept open that the insects may come and go ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... experiment of telling her friends. Let them know it's a question of money, and they will overcome her scruples, if you can't. But that is not what I had to say to you. How long do you propose stopping ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... originated in a natural way: had not, but recently, an investigator who brought a powerful voltaic battery to bear on a saturated solution of silicate of potash, been startled to find, as the result of his experiment, numberless small mites of the species ACARUS HORRIDUS? Might not the marvel electricity or galvanism, in action on albumen, turn out to be the vitalising force? To the orthodox zoologist, phytologist and geologist, such a suggestion savoured of madness; they ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... proposed that the experiment should be tried; and went with the midshipman on board the ship that the claimant was on, for that purpose. After all the sailors had been assembled upon deck, Mr. B—, casting his eyes around, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... working a small place and performing the labor, as far as possible, ourselves. If I had played 'boss,' as Bagley sometimes calls me, and hired the labor which we have done ourselves, the children meanwhile idle, we should soon come to a disastrous end in our country experiment. The fact that we have all worked hard, and wisely, too, in the main, and have employed extra help only when there was more than we could do, will explain our account-book; that is, the balance in our favor. I believe that one of the chief causes ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... long enough under the water to get into it, let alone fight under water as the frog-men can. To meet them on even terms the green men needed diving-helmets with an oxygen supply. They'd never heard of such an idea, too afraid of the sea ever to experiment in it, but I convinced them and they've made enough helmets for all their forces. In them they can meet the Ralas under water ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... there is any danger of other nations continuing these methods of warfare, research and experiment in chemical warfare must be pursued. Research must not only be directed towards the gases and apparatus, likely to be employed in the future, but also towards protection against all possible gases. ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... falls upon me both of expense of time and money which I cannot afford. In acting for my own interest in this matter I, of course, act for the interest of all. If we can get that thirty thousand dollars bill through Congress, the experiment (if it can any longer be called such) can then be tried on such a scale as ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... press his claims for further recognition. Should a man who had succeeded more than once through bold but not displeasing words in causing the scarlet to stain that cheek of cream, carelessly forgo any chance for future experiment? ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... if you think I am fitted for such an office. No! no; I live alone and retired from the world. And then," added Rodin, after a short silence, fixing a penetrating, attentive, and curious look upon the prince, as if he would have subjected him to a sort of experiment by what follows; "and then, you see, M. de Montbron will be better able than I should, in the world you are about to enter, to enlighten you as to the snares that will be laid for you. For if you have ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... outward composure, Pitt must have felt deep distress at his failure to complete the Union by the act of grace which he had in contemplation. The time was ripe, indeed overripe, for a generous experiment, whereby seven tenths of the Irish people would have gained religious equality. If the populace of Dublin hailed with joy the St. Patrick's cross on the new Union Jack,[605] we may be sure that Irishmen, irrespective of creed, would have joined heart and soul in the larger national unity which ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... I forgot to say, is allowed to smoke a pipe in your mother's parlour when he pays her a visit. This is so like her amiability, for she hates tobacco as much as I do. I ventured on a similarly amiable experiment one day when the worthy Captain dined with me, but the result was so serious that I have not ventured to repeat it. You remember my worthy housekeeper, Mrs Bland? Well, she kicked over the traces and became quite unmanageable. I had given Stride leave to smoke after dessert, because I had ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... in. It seemed only minutes ago that he had been walking along the corridor in Wheel Five. It seemed that Wheel Five must exist, that the Earth, the people, the time he knew, must still be somewhere out there. This could be some kind of a joke, or some kind of psychological experiment. That was it—the space-medicine boys were always making way-out experiments to find out how men would bear up in unusual conditions, and this must be one ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton

... fairly correct, with a uniform "error" of about one month, despite the fact that attempts were made by the First August Emperor to destroy all historical literature in 213 B.C. This being so in the matter of a dozen eclipses, there still remain two dozen for specialists to experiment upon, not to mention comets and other celestial phenomena. From this collateral evidence, imperfect though it be, we are reasonably entitled to assume that the three expanded versions of Confucius' history are trustworthy, ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... and the most successful in the country. Very slowly at first she added penny to penny, then shilling to shilling, then pound to pound, until at last, instead of building more hens' houses, she bought a cow. It was an experiment, and one those about doubted the success of; but Angela never doubted, and presently another cow was added to her stock, and soon after that they all moved to a small farm, where Poppy had to become the little housewife, for Angela's time was quite taken ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... give each scout just three matches," he remarked, "and he is put on his honor not to have another one about him. Then you will line up here, after you have each selected a spot inside the boundaries where you mean to conduct your experiment in quick-fire making. For five minutes you can look around, so as to get your mind fixed on just where you will get your kindling, and water. Then at the word you start. Now, line up here, and get your supply ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... what I am doing? I am making love. I find it a most absorbing occupation. That is literally why I have not written to you before. I have been making love ever since the last of May. It takes an immense amount of time, and everything else has got terribly behindhand. I don't mean to say that the experiment itself has gone on very fast; but I am trying to push it forward. I have n't yet had time to test its success; but in this I want your help. You know we great physicists never make an experiment without an 'assistant'—a humble individual who burns his fingers and stains ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... family. The dog was an old parlour favourite, who went by the name of Tom; the partridge was more recently introduced from France, and answered to the equally familiar name of Bill. It was rather a dangerous experiment to place them together, for Tom was a lively and spirited creature, very apt to torment the cats, and to bark at any object which roused his instinct. But the experiment was tried; and Bill, being very tame, did not feel much alarm at his natural enemy. They were, of course, shy at first; ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... EXPERIMENT 1. The mole is fixed fore and aft, with a lashing of raphia, to a light horizontal cross-bar resting on two forks. The Necrophori, after long tiring themselves in digging under the body, end by ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... teach liberty, teach republican institutions, as at an earlier day, Socrates and Plato, in their lessons of wisdom, taught liberty and helped the idea of the republic. If republican government has thus far failed in any experiment, as, perhaps, somewhere in Spanish America, it is because these lessons have been wanting. There have been no Pilgrims ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... minds could have presented a greater contrast. Had Mary Wollstonecraft lived they must have moulded each other into something finer than Nature had made of either. The year of married life was ideally happy, and the strange experiment in reconciling individualism with love apparently succeeded. Mrs. Godwin, for all her revolutionary independence, leaned affectionately on her husband, and he, in spite of his rather overgrown self-esteem, regarded her with reverence and pride. She was ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... They agreed; but, when they saw the icy mountains and the stormy sea, repented, and went back, to meet a death exempt from torture. The Dutch tempted free men, by high rewards, to try the dangerous experiment. One of their victims left a journal, which describes his suffering and that of his companions. Their mouths, he says, became so sore that, if they had food, they could not eat; their limbs were swollen and disabled with excruciating pain; they died of scurvy. ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt

... one or two points, but horses sink to the knees at every step, and but for the water it would be a perilous experiment to cross it. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... sniff about on one side of the way. When at length they had by a narrow bridge crossed a brook, the dog insisted on leaving the road and going down into the meadow to the left. Richard made small resistance, and that only for experiment upon the animal's determination. Across field after field his guide led him, until, but for the great keep towering dimly up into the moonlit sky, he could hardly have even conjectured where he was. But ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... spoken scornfully of that word 'lady'! Were not all of the sex women? What need for that hateful distinction? Richard tried another experiment with his imagination. 'I had dinner with some people called Waltham last Sunday. The old woman I didn't much care about; but there was a young woman—' Well, why not? On the other hand, suppose Emma Vine called at his lodgings. 'A young woman called ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... experiment, the success of which would depend largely upon the first election; yet no one seems to have been anxious about the first choice of chief magistrate, and the reason is not far to seek. From the ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... the morning the banker was never to be seen, being engaged in his private office, and not a clerk would venture to knock at his door. Even had one done so, no reply would have been returned; for the experiment had been tried, and it was believed that nothing short of an alarm of fire ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... silenced, but her face wore an obstinate expression which gave Hetty some misgivings as to the success of her experiment. However, she knew that Nan could be trusted to repeat to the other servants all that she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the recital; and, as for the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action was an old proverb which her grandfather ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... special, have been reached a posteriori; but certain fundamental data have now been discovered, starting from which we may reason our way a priori, not only to some of the truths that have been ascertained by observation and experiment, but also to some others. The possibility of such a priori conclusions will be at once recognized on ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... the purchase of slaves, so long they will be supplied;—and so long as we permit the existence of slavery in our new and frontier States, so long slave markets will exist. The plea of humanity is equally inadmissible, since no one who has ever witnessed the experiment will believe that the condition of slaves is made better by the breaking up, and separation of their families, nor by their removal from the old States to the new ones; and the objection to the provision of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... in yours. I choose this life because I love it better than anything else, because it's my idea of contentment. I've approached it thoughtfully and with a great deal of respect, as a result of some years of patient and unsuccessful experiment with other forms of existence. That's the reason why I'm a little jealous for it, a little suspicious of ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... doubts of this advice; but, it occurred to him, if it should be good, he had better make the experiment while his friends were there ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... matter of iron-clad vessels of war. England already had her 'Warrior,' and France her 'Gloire,' with all their resistant powers fully tested by experiment, and yet this war had progressed one year without finding our Government in possession of a single iron-mail steamer. Our foes, with many disadvantages, had more wit, and gained a victory the more galling, because in naval matters we of the North ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... I may try the experiment some day when I feel that I must either lie down by the roadside and sleep or take a dip, but until I feel like breaking down altogether I shall ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... beckoning motion of her head, and the girl slunk after her so secretly that it seemed as if she did not see herself. Cephas looked sharply after them, but said nothing; he was like a philosopher in such a fury of research and experiment that for the time he heeded ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... tube rested on a fireclay ladle nozzle, and was properly jointed with fireclay; through this nozzle the steam or air was supplied to the inside of the refractory tubes. In each experiment the ore and fuel were raised to the temperature "of from 1,800 to 2,200 deg. Fahr." by means of an external fire of anthracite. Great care was taken to prevent the contact of the solid carbonaceous fuel with the ore. In each experiment in which steam was used, the latter was supplied at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book, the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. Simon's breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would accept for the gabbling of these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen back on penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. The quartering and burning of these tales in an avenging fireplace was not the least of the reasons why the whipped ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... roof. Accordingly, he made holes in three of the columns, and established stakes 4, 5, and 10 feet high, returning on the 22nd of February, after an interval of six weeks, to observe the result of his experiment. He found the two shorter stakes completely masked with ice, forming columns a foot in diameter; and the longest stake, though not entirely concealed by the ice which had collected upon it, was crowned with a beautiful capital of perfectly transparent ice. The columns ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... humorous moralist, and Bernard Shaw, the ethical thinker. Each teaches precisely the same thing—the one not even half seriously, the other with all the sharp sincerity of conviction. Shaw unhesitatingly declares that trying to be wicked is precisely the same experiment as trying to be good, viz., ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... therefore I set about showing it at once. This was in March, 1840, when I went up to Littlemore. And, as it was a matter of life and death with us, all risks must be run to show it. When the attempt was actually made, I had got reconciled to the prospect of it, and had no apprehensions as to the experiment; but in 1840, while my purpose was honest, and my grounds of reason satisfactory, I did nevertheless recognise that I was engaged in an experimentum crucis. I have no doubt that then I acknowledged to myself that it would be a trial of the Anglican Church, which ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... trying a dangerous experiment," she said to herself. "Now he is in my power. He has been insolent to me more than once, as if he were made of superior clay, but Felicie, though only a poor servant, is not, thank Heaven, a thief, as he is. It is a very interesting ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... success, has been abundantly shown in the tenth chapter of the Third Book.(274) We there examined whether effects which depend on a complication of causes can be made the subject of a true induction by observation and experiment; and concluded, on the most convincing grounds, that they can not. Since, of all effects, none depend on so great a complication of causes as social phenomena, we might leave our case to rest in safety on that previous showing. But a logical principle as yet so little ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... deny my having spoiled a little copper now and then," said Tyrrel, "since I am charged with the crime by such good judges; but it has only been by way of experiment." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... possibly some account of my own experiments might be interesting to the members of the Society. The first tubes that I used were bits of glass tube about a centimeter diameter, and simply drawn out to a tapering point. I have the tubes here. The first experiment I tried was by tapping the glass tube so as to mechanically shift the position of the mercury, and by listening on the telephone for the effect. For a long time, at least an hour, I could get no effect at all. At last I got a sound, but could not understand how it was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... were the only ones with any real rank and position—but you know what a beastly bounder Mac was, and the poor mater DID overdo the youthful! We never called the doctor in until the day she wanted to go to a swell ball in London as Little Red Riding-hood. But the doctor writes me that the experiment was a success, and they'll be all right when they ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... Journey" is a new version of the old Stage Coach game, much loved by our grandmothers; and I am indebted to some old story, read in childhood, for the suggestion of "Dust Under the Rug," which was a successful experiment in a kindergarten to test the possibility of interesting little children in a story after the order of Grimm, with the wicked stepmother and ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay

... patiently, and watched his little girl, who was clinging to her new friend and looking very eager and anxious. He saw that her heart was set on being "adopted," and, wise man that he was, it occurred to him that it might be well to grant her wish in part, and let her find out by experiment what was really the best and happiest thing. So he did not say "No" decidedly, as he at first meant, but took Johnnie on ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... giving them clothes. And I have heard say that crime and rags often go together; that a man unconsciously feels that he owes something to himself and society in the way of virtue when he has a clean face and clean shirt, and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of dressing Elizabeth. How many old gowns ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... he should be occupied in any way, so that his nervous forces were needed to complete his task, his "human battery," or thought, would not be in a recipient or passive condition, therefore your experiment would fail at that moment. Or, if he were under heavy narcotics, liquors, tobacco, or gluttonous influences, he could not be reached at such moments. Or, if he were asleep, and you operated to effect a wakeful ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... sovereignty of the empire for the space of fourteen months, when by Heliogabalus, then both young and strong, he was dispossessed thereof, thrust out of all, and killed. Brutus doth also bear witness of another experiment of this nature, who willing, through this exploratory way by lot, to learn what the event and issue should be of the Pharsalian battle wherein he perished, he casually encountered on this verse, said of Patroclus in the Sixteenth ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... a latch; outside the cage you put food. The cat at first dashes all round the cage, making frantic efforts to force a way out. At last, by accident, the latch is lifted and the cat pounces on the food. Next day you repeat the experiment, and you find that the cat gets out much more quickly than the first time, although it still makes some random movements. The third day it gets out still more quickly, and before long it goes straight to the latch and lifts it at once. Or you make a model of the Hampton ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... the worthy squire is quite disconcerted at the unlucky result of his hawking experiment, and this unfortunate illustration of his eulogy on female equitation. Old Christy, too, is very waspish, having been sorely twitted by Master Simon for having let his hawk fly at carrion. As to the falcon, in the confusion occasioned ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... to append the following note to the foot of the page, at the commencement of the story called 'Dr. Heidegger's Experiment,' in the 'Twice-Told Tales': 'In an English Review, not long since, I have been accused of plagiarizing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of the novels of Alexandra Dumas. There has undoubtedly been a plagiarism, on one side ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... Mr. Haystoun had organized wonderful picnic parties. The lady clapped her many-ringed hands, and declared that he must repeat the experiment. "For I love picnics," she said, "I love the simplicity and the fresh air and the rippling streams. And washing up is fun, and it is such a great chance for you young men." And she cast a coy glance ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... tenderly laid the little Eva in his arms, though quite at a loss to imagine what experiment was to be tried. The light was certainly too strong to be let suddenly into a darkened room, he thought; but the doctor knew best. It was strange that only the noble-looking gentleman, Mr. Vernon, seemed to divine the meaning of the rough but kind-hearted man, but he knew only ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... reduced to domestication by the Indians, seeing that they so readily become tame. The obstacle offered by their not breeding in confinement, which is probably owing to their arboreal habits, might perhaps be overcome by repeated experiment; but for this the Indians probably had not sufficient patience or intelligence. The reason cannot lie in their insensibility to the value of such birds, for the common turkey, which has been introduced into the country, is much ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... sand-dune peninsula are not lost. Earthquakes cannot destroy them; fire cannot burn them. San Francisco grew from the Yerba Buena hamlet in sixty years. In a new and untried field city-building then was something of an experiment; yet population grew to half a million, and wealth in proportion; and never was improvement so marked as just before the fire. With wealth and population but little impaired, and with the ground cleared for ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft

... an effect, here overlooked, which was to be expected to take place in the abdomen of the dog, from the injury done to the surrounding parts by the operation itself, and which would be quite independent of any effect arising out of the experiment. In the human subject, the effect would be the highest form of inflammation, by which coagulable lymph or pus would be poured upon the surface of the peritoneum. There would, therefore, be inflammation excited in the abdomen of the dog; ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... I know-I know nothing. I look at you, and I see a woman who seems to have chosen me, and seems also to have forgotten that she has chosen me. Does she love me, or is she tired of me? Has she simply made an experiment—taken a lover in order to see, to know, to taste,—without desire, hunger, or thirst? There are days when I ask myself if among those who love you and who tell you so unceasingly there is not one whom you ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... protection to the conflicting claims of private and often misguided philanthropy, is rapidly gaining ground against the advocates of laissez faire. It is beginning to be felt that the State cannot afford to allow the right of private social experiment on the part of charitable organizations. The relief of destitution has for centuries been recognized as the proper business of the State. Our present poor law practically fails to relieve the bulk of the really destitute. Even were it successful it would be doing nothing ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... in point. Theoretically I should have here the innocuous union of three harmless chemicals; as a matter of fact I had occasion to experiment with it and learned that I had innocently produced a vicious and unheard-of poison. The stuff is of no use. It is one of those things a man occasionally stumbles upon in this work,—better forgotten. How do I account for it? I don't. Even in science ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... incredulous World gaze at Columbus when hee promised to discover another part of the earth, and he could not for a long time by his confidence, or arguments, induce any of the Christian Princes, either to assent unto his opinion, or goe to the charges of an experiment. Now if he who had such good grounds for his assertion, could finde no better entertainement among the wiser sort, and upper end of the World; 'tis not likely then that this opinion which I now deliver, shall receive any thing from the men of these daies, especially our vulgar wits, ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins



Words linked to "Experiment" :   trial, testing, research, control condition, inquiry, control, condition, tryout, trial run, venture, investigate, scientific research, try out, test, experimenter, research project, enquiry, look into, trial and error



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