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Habit   /hˈæbət/   Listen
Habit

noun
1.
An established custom.  Synonym: wont.
2.
(psychology) an automatic pattern of behavior in reaction to a specific situation; may be inherited or acquired through frequent repetition.  Synonym: use.  "She had a habit twirling the ends of her hair" , "Long use had hardened him to it"
3.
A distinctive attire worn by a member of a religious order.
4.
The general form or mode of growth (especially of a plant or crystal).
5.
Attire that is typically worn by a horseback rider (especially a woman's attire).  Synonym: riding habit.
6.
Excessive use of drugs.  Synonyms: drug abuse, substance abuse.



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"Habit" Quotes from Famous Books



... years, and then came to the abbey of Ely. After he had remained a while he became a professed monk, was made a priest in the same house, and there celebrated and sang mass. After that, by reason of a visitation, and certain injunctions by the authority of Henry VIII he took upon him the habit of a secular priest, and returned to Snow-hill, where he was born, and taught ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... back against the bulkhead, with his hand playing with the hilt of his midshipman's dirk, which he had managed to retain all through his various struggles, from the habit of thrusting it into its sheath the moment opportunity served; and as he sat he glared up at the skylight feeling as if he would give anything to have a fair chance on deck, his men against the American skipper's, and the victory to the bravest and most strong. He was ready, boy ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... Huddleston, who stopped to speak with me. I did not know him very well; though I had talked with him once or twice. He was the one priest of English blood who was tolerated openly and legally in England, and who had leave to wear his habit, for his saving of the King's life ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... found a listener in Eleanor, while she spoke about her brother. In the meantime the warden sat alone, leaning on the arm of his chair; he had poured out a glass of wine, but had done so merely from habit, for he left it untouched; there he sat gazing at the open window, and thinking, if he can be said to have thought, of the happiness of his past life. All manner of past delights came before his mind, which at the time he had enjoyed without considering them; his easy days, his absence ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... heart as the excited children on the staircases who assisted at the function. "My Idea has raised me nearer heaven," said Zussmann. That night, after the Red Beadle had screwed up the four-poster, he allowed himself to be persuaded to stay to supper. He had given up the habit as soon as Zussmann's finances ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... played," he proceeds, "except by myself, and then only acting over what I had been reading or fancying, or half one, half the other" (a practice common enough, it may be remarked, among boys of by no means morbidly imaginative habit), "cutting down weeds and nettles with a stick, as one of the seven champions of Christendom. Alas! I had all the simplicity, all the docility of the little child, but none of the child's habits. I never thought as a child—never had the language ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... governed all her life by a habit of decision, and a strong personality rooted in the powers of nature. Therefore she was seldom mistaken in her conclusions when they dealt with material results. Occasionally she left out the spirit; but the spirit leaves ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... died?" Also Rom. 14:15. Note the connection in which this truth is taught. If Christ was willing to die for the weak brother—whom we, perchance, sneer at for his conscientious scruples—we ought to be willing to deny ourselves of some habit for ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... English authorship—had been good enough to throw in some political allusions which were supposed to be effective with us, but which it was sad to see received with apathy. It was conceivable from a certain air with which the actors delivered these, that they were in the habit of stirring London audiences greatly with like strokes of satire; but except where Rebecca offered a bottle of Medford rum to Cedric the Saxon, who appeared in the figure of ex-President Johnson, they had no ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... revelations be made, such regenerating motives be brought to bear, in the spiritual world, as will soften the hardest, convince the stubbornest, and, sooner or later, transform and redeem the worst? It is true the law of sinful habit is dark and fearful; but it is frequently neutralized. The argument as the support of a positive dogma is void because itself ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the manicuring habit in a serious form," said Green, seeing that Miss Sadie had paused, in expectation ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... exactness in this prophecy, however singular, could avail to make out that Jesus was the Messiah of Hezekiah's prophets. There must be some explanation; and if I did not see it, that must probably arise from prejudice and habit.—In order therefore to gain freshness, I resolved to peruse the entire prophecy of the pseudo-Isaiah in Lowth's version, from ch. xl. onward, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... pumps, pumps. It is well for that kindly hearted man that the patient is not only stretched out on his bed, but also unarmed. Ah! how many men earn sudden death and yet in the mystery of Providence escape it! I have often wondered at the persistency with which habit has fixed on women the exclusive reputation of gossipers. For I say unto you, brethren, that Woman, who with empty head and silly tongue toys with her neighbor's character unto its destruction, is not more full of gossip than her brother Man, who ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley

... Francis River really, it was the Upper Liara, a branch that comes in from the northwest. Strange, wasn't it?—this fellow, this Englishman, got to talking about tea, and that reminded me of the whole thing." He paused on the last word and, with a peculiar habit that is much his own, stared across the table at Lady Masters, but over and through her, as if that pretty pink-and-white woman had entirely disappeared,—and the warm shadows behind her,—and in her place were no one could guess what vistas of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... effective way to begin the study of the plant is to watch it as it sprouts from the seed. Since a large seed, easy to see and simple in structure, is best, an ordinary bean answers the purpose admirably, particularly as the bean has the convenient habit of rising up above the ground when it sprouts, the development of the embryo proceeding in full view. Any of the common varieties will answer the purpose, though of course the larger the bean the more ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... bowings, counting sixty to each bow. Himself a great classical violinist, he nevertheless paid a good deal of attention to virtuoso pieces; and always tried to prepare his pupils for public life. He had all sorts of wise hints for the budding concert artist, and was in the habit of saying: 'You must plan a program as you would the menu of a dinner: there should be something for every one's taste. And, especially, if you are playing on a long program, together with other ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... does he state his authority for so doing; the author of these remarks never heard it so styled in Normandy, nor can he find it mentioned under that name by Nodier, or any other author. If, as appears probable, the people of the neighborhood are in the habit of so designating it, the probability is, that the modern part (see plate eighty-five) was erected at a period when Tancarville belonged to some member of the noble ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... very imaginative person to conceive of an entirely empty room or house—that is, empty of sentient life. She had hidden the front-door key under the mat before the front door; she had lived long enough in the country to acquire that absurdly innocent habit. She groped for it, thought for a second, with a gasp of horror, that it was not there. Then she felt it with her gloved hand, fitted it in the lock, opened the door, and went in, and the inner darkness smote her ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... you why you are not afraid of Paley; because, you would say, when he advocated lying, he was taking special cases. You would have no fear of a man who you knew had shot a burglar dead in his own house, because you know you are not a burglar: so you would not think that Paley had a habit of telling lies in society, because in the case of a cruel alternative he thought it the lesser evil to tell a lie. Then why do you show such suspicion of a Catholic theologian, who speaks of certain special cases in which an equivocation in a penitent cannot be ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... inguinal hernia descends from D to F, it approaches the situation of the saphenous opening, E, which is the seat of the femoral or crural hernia, and both varieties of hernia may hence be confounded. But with a moderate degree of judgment, based upon the habit of referring the anatomy to the surface, such error may always be avoided. This important subject shall be more ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... groups, and chokes off the protests which should find a civilized expression in public life. A recognition of what an incubus it is should make us hospitable to all those devices which aim at making politics responsive by disturbing the alignments of habit. The initiative and referendum will help: they are a method of voting on definite issues instead of electing an administration in bulk. If cleverly handled these electoral devices should act as a check on a wholesale attitude toward politics. Men could agree on ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... 1788, ... the tears of strangers watered her grave." For years, young persons of a romantic turn of mind have visited the grave and chipped off small pieces of the freestone for relics. This modern habit of chipping monumental stones for relics is inexcusable; for it is not done by ignorant or otherwise lawless persons, but too often by the educated, who carry their mawkish sentiment to such an extreme ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... starts out plainly with the assumption that the moral aim in education is the absolute one, and that all others are purely relative. It endeavors to be a life-school, where all the practices of complete living are made a matter of daily habit. It asserts boldly that doing right would not be such an enormously difficult matter if we practiced it a little,—say a tenth as much as we practice the piano,—and it intends to give children plenty of opportunity ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Wendover is only fooling me. Perhaps it is his habit to make love to every decent-looking ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... people. Even if [Hebrew: ervM] stood alone, the explanation by "naked," in the sense of "deprived of the usual and decent dress, and, on the contrary, clothed in dirt and rags," would be destitute of all proof and authority. No instance whatsoever is found of the outward habit of a mourner being designated as nakedness. But it is still more arbitrary thus to deal with [Hebrew: will], whether it be explained by "deprived of his mental faculties on account of the unbounded grief of his soul,"—as is done by several Jewish expositors ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... his term as prosecuting attorney which had a marked effect upon the politics of Cleveland and its vicinity. Up to 1841, slave-owners were in the habit of sending their agents to Cleveland and causing their runaway slaves to be arrested and taken before a magistrate, when a warrant would be obtained to return the slave, and he would be carried back into slavery. All this was done openly and publicly, creating little or no excitement, and ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... Worminghurst in Sussex. Every afternoon during her lady's life Mrs. Vergo was ordered to wear a silk gown. Six of the poor children who were kept at school at Flaxley dined by turns regularly every Sunday at the Abbey, when Mrs. Bovey heard them say their Catechism. She was very often in the habit of lending money to poor clergymen, which was frequently repaid to her in small sums, but more often given to them. She did the same, too, by other distressed people whom she believed to be honest and industrious. During the Christmas holidays before Mrs. Bovey died ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... his Tuba Pacifica, although it was "disposed of rather for love than money." The truth is that good George Wither lost his poetry early, was an upright, honest, and patriotic man who unhappily developed into a scold, and got into the bad habit of pouring out "precautions," "cautional expressions," "prophetic phrensies," "epistles at random," "personal contributions to the national humiliation," "passages," "raptures," and "allarums," until he really became the greatest bore in ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... By education and habit, he was a Unitarian. Indeed, he was a true Nonconformist in all things. He was not a dissenter by imitation, nor from any deep principle or obstinate heresy; nor was he made servile and obedient by formal logic alone. His reasoning always rose and streamed through the heart. He liked a friend ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... all the arts of the chemist, placidly refreshes himself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of the Document which engrosses the general attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a habit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and recovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: 'Falser man than Don Juan; why don't you take the note from the commendatore?' Upon which, the chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looks ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... the temples with a simplicity that made the head distinguished. Even the nurses' caps betrayed stray curls or rolls. Her figure was large, and the articulation was perfect as she walked, showing that she had had the run of fields in her girlhood. Yet she did not stoop as is the habit of country girls; nor was there any unevenness of physique due ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... have been more in our speech had I said, why, brother, yonder is Capernaum. But habit's like a fly, brother, it won't leave us alone, it comes back however often and angrily we may drive ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... his face and another one at him generally would, in spite of the costume, have convinced any one who knows the genus that Mark Merrill was a naval officer. He had that quiet air of restrained strength, of the instinctive habit of command which somehow or other does not distinguish any other fighting man in the world in quite the same degree. His name and title were Lieutenant-Commander Mark Gwynne Merrill, of His Majesty's Destroyer Blazer, one of the coolest-headed and yet most judiciously reckless ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... upon his chest, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole body. At such times, Tsiganok, always dark in complexion, would turn black, assuming the shade of bluish cast-iron. And he acquired a curious habit; as though he had eaten too much of something sickeningly sweet, he kept licking his lips, smacking them, and would spit on the floor, hissingly, through his teeth. When he spoke, he did not finish his words, so rapidly did his thoughts run that his tongue ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev

... grew properly indignant. "You act like I told you it was going to rain! Why don't you say something? Didn't you hear what I said, you fools!" he asked pugnaciously. "Are you in the habit of having a thing like that told you? Why don't you show some interest, you dod-blasted, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... ones missing, though there is nothing in the climate to account for the fact. The Irish hare, for instance, is not the ordinary brown hare of England, but the "blue" or Arctic hare of Scotch mountains, the same which still further to the north becomes white in winter, a habit which, owing to the milder Irish winters, it has apparently ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... tell him to leave, when the parish priest came? His first mistake had been in bringing the Abbot's message. Noemi knew nothing of this message. When she heard that Benedetto was to be deprived of his habit her indignation burst forth: Benedetto ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... the attention of Leon was a little bird about the size of a starling. Its plumage was rather pretty. It was brown, with black stripes on the back, and white-breasted. But it was not the plumage of the bird that interested Leon. It was what his companion told him of a singular habit which it had—that of repeating, at the end of every hour during the night, its melancholy and monotonous note. The Indians call this bird the "cock of the Inca," and they moreover regard it with a ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... who knew that the boy had a habit of getting lost and then finding himself again; "but it's diff'rent with Ozma. She's the Ruler of all this big fairyland and we're 'fraid that the reason she's lost is because somebody has stolen ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... was President, like those which weary you now about the War of 1812. It will not be the same world then. Your children will not be always children. Enjoy their fresh youth while it lasts, for it will not last long. Do not skim over the present too fast, through a constant habit of onward-looking. Many men of an anxious turn are so eagerly concerned in providing for the future, that they hardly remark the blessings of the present. Yet it is only because the future will some day be present, that it deserves any thought at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... It is a mistake to suppose that this practice increases the foulness of the Bore; on the contrary, it prevents it from hardening and accumulating, as long experience has shown. Sometimes it is convenient for the Spongers to dip the Sponge alongside, and they soon acquire the habit. Superfluous moisture is easily gotten rid of by twirling the ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... from two causes: one is the habit of regarding the whole Roman empire as in its "decline" from so early a period as that of Commodus; agreeably to which conceit, it would naturally follow that, during its latter stages, the Eastern empire must have been absolutely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... good when they produce solid and true happiness for society, and detestable in the eyes of reason, in spite of the sanction of laws, usage, religion, public opinion or example, when they have the support only of habit and prejudice, which seldom consult experience and good sense. No action is so abominable that it is not, or has not been, approved by some nation. Parricide, infanticide, theft, usurpation, cruelty, intolerance, prostitution, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... on as usual at Stillman's after the mother had left them. For a while the father was kinder, but as time went on the old habit was resumed. Elizabeth went mechanically about her work, and her father did not notice her evidently failing health. Her quietness was a relief to him; for Margaret was growing more defiant toward him, and quarrelled constantly with Tom, who, now that his mother's influence was withdrawn, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... come out with him. One was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... your age," he resumed, "seldom look below the surface. Learn that valuable habit, sir—and begin by looking below the surface of Me." He forced the portfolio into my hand. Once more, his beautiful eyes held me with their irresistible influence; they looked at me with an expression of sad and solemn ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... was the force of habit, combined with the feebleness of his moral resistance and the nature of his environment, that instead of being an athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift where he should have steered, to float with the current instead ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... the caravan, cantered up and joined their companions who had already dismounted. With the rapid skill of long practice, all did their share, and in a few minutes all the immense paraphernalia of a Persian encampment were spread out and disposed in place for the night. Contrary to the usual habit Zoroaster had not permitted the tent-pitchers and other slaves to pass on while he and his charges made their noonday halt; for he feared some uprising in the neighbourhood of the city in the absence of the king, and he wished ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... should never forget that an arrow will kill a man as readily as it does an animal and that one should always consider where his shot ultimately will land, both for the purpose of finding his shaft and avoiding accidents. Arrows have a great habit of glancing. Once when hunting quail in a patch of willow in a dry wash, Compton shot at a bird on a branch, missed it, and at the same instant Young, who was on the opposite side of the thicket, heard a thwack at his right and turned to find a broad-head arrow ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... poverty, was gravely driving his plow of antique shape, drawn by two placid oxen, true patriarchs of the meadow, tall and rather thin, with pale yellow coats and long, drooping horns. They were those old workers who, through long habit, have grown to be brothers, as they are called in our country, and who, when one loses the other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and pine away with grief. People who are unfamiliar with the country call the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... outside himself, but before these things present and withdraw themselves, so to speak, from his sight, taking size and shape for him, the recurrence of emotional experiences is beginning to subject the child to the rule of habit. You see his eyes constantly follow the light, and if the light comes from the side the eyes turn towards it, so that one must be careful to turn his head towards the light lest he should squint. He must also be accustomed ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... venerable, beloved, dost thou visit our abode? Formerly thou wast not in the habit of coming frequently.[590] But follow farther onwards, that I may set before ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... though the evening was young. Irish blew out the lamp and dove under the blankets just as voices came faintly from up the hill, so that when Chip rapped a warning with his knuckles on the door, there was no sound within save an artificial snore from the corner where lay Pink. Chip was not in the habit of knocking before he entered, but he ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... greatest fault was his habit of punning," remarked the detective, watching the girl's form as he drew nearer. "It is that which blinded his contemporaries to his real talents. What exquisite roses, Miss Merrick! May I ask ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne

... height; they generally begin by trailing downwards from the seed deposited on the bark of some other tree near its top. When the trailing branches reach the ground they take root there and sprout erect. For full account of the habit of the trees, see quotation 1867 (Hochstetter), ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... had been the supply of food and water, the horses and occupants of this particular conveyance had had everything they desired. The occupant of this wagon was a man who did not look to be more than thirty years of age, but whose face and manner indicated that he was in the habit of being obeyed rather than obeying. A great portion of his time was occupied in reading from a large vellum-bound book, but from time to time he laid it on one side to settle disputes which had arisen among some of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... added some words of sweet comfort. But from this time forth I began to be sick at times of my existence. I had heart-burnings, longings, and, yearnings that would not be satisfied; and I seemed hardly to be an accountable creature; being thus in the habit of executing transactions of the utmost moment without being sensible that I did them. I was a being incomprehensible to myself. Either I had a second self, who transacted business in my likeness, or else my body was at times possessed by a spirit over which it had no control, and of whose actions ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... of the people who are below the middle rank are formed, and their minds are directed, by that intelligent, that virtuous rank, who come the most immediately in contact with them, who are in the constant habit of intimate communication with them, to whom they fly for advice and assistance in all their numerous difficulties, upon whom they feel an immediate and daily dependence in health and in sickness, in infancy and in old age, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... King of Prussia because he knew that the latter was in the habit of jesting upon his mistress, and the kind of life he led. It was Frederick's fault, as I have heard it said, that the King was not his most steadfast ally and friend, as much as sovereigns can be towards each other; but the jestings of Frederick had stung him, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... complication of causes, is exposed to temptations of which another is ignorant; and in this case he needs much sympathy, which he seldom meets with; while they, who are severe on him are liable to be baffled in another way, which, for want of coincidence in habit, temperature, and situation, he is equally prone to disregard. Thus Christians are often led reciprocally to censure, suspect, or dislike each other, on those very grounds which would render them useful and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... risking that for more than twenty years. The habit has become normal. All my life I've wanted a ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... Nothing could be more revolting than a dirty woman, and a husband who tires of her is not to blame. She insisted so strongly on this duty when Sophy was little, she required such absolute cleanliness in her person, clothing, room, work, and toilet, that use has become habit, till it absorbs one half of her time and controls the other; so that she thinks less of how to do a thing than of how to do it without ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... Heliogabalus, the first man, who, according to Lampridius, wore holosericum that is, a garment which was all of silk. From this expression, however, it is evident, that previous to this period the male inhabitants of Rome had been in the habit of wearing garments made of silk mixed with linen ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... fifty years old to-day. Half a century has hurried by since I first lay in my mother's wondering arms. To be sure, I am not old; but I can no longer deceive myself into believing that I am still young. After all, the illusion of youth is a mental habit consciously encouraged to defy and face down the reality of age. If, at twenty, one feels that he has reached man's estate he, nevertheless, tests his strength and abilities, his early successes or failures, by the temporary and ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... bubble did not change the principles of administration in Louisiana. The settlers, always looking to France to supply their needs and protect them against their own improvidence, were in the habit of butchering for food the livestock sent them for propagation. The remedy came in the shape of a royal edict forbidding any colonist to kill, without permission of the authorities, any cow, sheep, or lamb belonging to himself, on pain of a fine of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... grinned in appreciation. "Howld on a minut," he said to Abe who was moving away with Texas Joe toward a vacant table. Then to the stranger: "I axe yer pardon, Sorr, for goin' off me head that way. 'Tis a habit I have, worse luck to me—bein' sensitive, do ye see, about me personal appearance an' some wishful for a bit av honest enjoyment. Av ye'll have a dhrink wid me an' my friends here I'll take ut kindly until we can find some betther ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... had an opportunity, was in the habit of going on shore with his gun, to obtain specimens of the birds and beasts of the country; while he also frequently brought off a bag of game for the benefit of the commander and his own messmates. On such occasions he was generally accompanied by Dicky Duff, who had become ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston

... creator been pleased to give us existence in a land of slavery, the sense of our condition might have been mitigated by ignorance and habit. But thanks be to his adorable goodness, we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your royal ancestors, whose family was seated on the British throne, to rescue and secure a pious and gallant ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... knows the lofty spirit fills thy soul, And therefore feels indignantly the wrong A bold-faced villain dares to offer thee. Learn, then, in Poland, an audacious churl, A renegade, who broke his monkish vows, Laid down his habit, and renounced his God, Doth use the name and title of thy son, Whom death snatched from thee in his infancy. The shameless varlet boasts him of thy blood, And doth affect to be Czar Ivan's son; A Waywode breaks the peace; from Poland leads This spurious monarch, whom himself created, ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... already seen that even when he wrote the Letter on the Deaf and Dumb, Diderot's mind was exercised about gesture as a supplement to discourse. In that Letter he had told a curious story of a bizarre experiment that he was in the habit of making at the theatre. He used to go to the highest seats in the house, thrust his fingers into his ears, and then, to the astonishment of his neighbours, watch the performance with the sharpest interest. As a ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... for the air is never sultry. In most regions he is seldom hot, for in the shade or after nightfall the dry air is always cool. When it rains the air may be chilly, in doors or out, but it is never cold enough to make the remorseless base-burner a welcome alternative. The habit of roasting one's self all winter long is unknown in California. The old Californian seldom built a fire for warmth's sake. When he was cold in the house he went out of doors to get warm. The house was a place for storing food and ...
— California and the Californians • David Starr Jordan

... by the roughs to avenge the execution of their comrades. Whether they realized that such an attempt would be likely to solidify the decent element, or whether that sort of warfare was not their habit, the afternoon and night wore ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... at Fort Hamilton, and was the joy of us children, our pet and companion. My father would not allow his tail and ears to be cropped. When he grew up, he accompanied us everywhere and was in the habit of going into church with the family. As some of the little ones allowed their devotions to be disturbed by Spec's presence, my father determined to leave him at home on those occasions. So the ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... house. There we stoode in our habite bare footed, and bare-headed, and were a great and strange spectacle in their eyes. [Sidenote: Iohn de Plano Carpini.] For indeed Frier Iohn de Plano Carpini had byn there before my comming: howbeit, because he was the Pope's messenger, he changed his habit that he might not be contemned. Then we were brought into the very midst of the tent, neither required they of vs to do any reuerence by bowing our knees, as they vse to doe of other messengers. Wee stood ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... death of one of the combatants. When this happens the slayer makes restitution to the relatives by defraying the expenses of a fresh drinking-bout. [621] During the daytime men are seldom to be found in the encampment, as they are in the habit of hiding in the ditches and jungle, where the women take them their food; at night they return to their tents, but are ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... heure, my good sir. Ulrik Brendel has never been in the habit of forcing himself upon societies of that kind. (Turns to go) But I must not prolong my stay in this house, rich as it is in memories. I must go into the town and find some suitable lodging. I shall find a decent hotel of some kind ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen

... tail, his own tail hanging meekly on the ground the while. Tara sniffed at him once with amiable indifference, and then turned her head the other way. Two minutes later Finn had discovered that this great hound was perfectly well-meaning and kindly disposed, and that, his habit and nature being what they were, was sufficient to place him at once upon terms of highly presumptuous familiarity. Having watched their daring brother from a distance so far, the other pups now took heart of grace, and were soon sniffing respectfully ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... follow the standard of one prophet rather than another? Before adopting this doctrine, rather than that, did you first compare? did you carefully examine them? Or have you received them only from the chance of birth, from the empire of education and habit? Are you not born Christians on the borders of the Tiber, Mussulmans on those of the Euphrates, Idolaters on the Indus, just as you are born fair in cold climates, and sable under the scorching sun of Africa? And if your opinions are the effect of your fortuitous position on the earth, of consanguinity, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... would sing idly or prattle with an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some bird or butterfly and ask finally: 'Tired, ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... a superb horsewoman; and in no costume did she look more attractive than in her exquisitely fitting habit of dark blue cloth. The early hour of the meet justified her breakfasting in riding- costume; and gladly availing herself of this excuse, she made her appearance in her habit, carrying her pretty little riding-hat and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... my dear Abbe?" he hastily resumed. "Do you know the other report? Do you know that the Countess is coming here?" It was thus, by force of habit, that he designated Benedetta, forgetting that she was no longer ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... dissatisfied meanderings, he found his friend in the office, lost in sombre thought. It was the first time in many weeks that he had seen this mood in Boyd, and after a fruitless effort to make him talk, he fell into his old habit of imaginary reading, droning away to himself as if from ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... cheese-parings and scraps were not supplied him with sufficient promptitude. I never saw a hungrier and bolder cat. It made one fancy that even the mice had been exiled from this solitude. And truly the rule of the monastic order, no less than the habit of Italian gentlemen, is frugal in the matter of the table, beyond the conception of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... for themselves a fallacious reputation for honesty and devotion. What little lingering belief I had in canine fidelity succumbed then I was told that St. Bernards—those models of integrity and courage—have fallen into the habit of carrying the flasks of brandy that the kind monks provide for the succor of snowbound travellers, to the neighboring hamlets and ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... albatross. It says much for the interest and keenness of the officers on board that a complete hourly log was kept from beginning to end of the numbers and species which were seen, generally with the most complete notes as to any peculiarity or habit which was noticed. It is to be hoped that full use will be made, by those in charge of the working out of these results, of these logs which were kept so thoroughly and sometimes under such difficult circumstances and conditions of weather and sea. Though many helped, this log was largely the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... all seriousness that this is a conservative and unexaggerated account of one phase of my early life—the one, I think, that tended most strongly to make me introspective and morbid. Later on, when I was trying to abandon the habit of masturbation, this early training greatly increased the despair I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... had made deplorable marriages. It was, observed Clovis, a family habit. The youngest boy, Wratislav, who was the black sheep of a rather greyish family, had as yet ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... with frequent and prolonged relapses—simply to rest his mind—into Mrs Wistar and Capt. King. This class is quite large, and though in too large a measure the victims of misplaced confidence in Sir John Lubbock and Frederick Harrison, they make excellent progress and do much to keep up the reading habit. Fourth—The "Oh, just-anything-good-you-know" reader. Her name is legion. She never knows what she has read. Yet the social student who failed to take into account the desultory, pastime reader, would miss a great factor in the spread of ideas. ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... to act, physically, mentally or spiritually, without making it easier to repeat the action, and soon ease passes to tendency, then tendency to compulsion, and life is in the grip of a habit. This is the inevitable outcome of activity, until "nine-tenths of life is lived in the ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... which Aguinaldo was preparing to deliver upon and in Manila was not to be a mere raid such as the bandits of Cavite were in the habit of making upon the defenceless towns. The plan was a piece of calculated savagery in which murder and outrage were considered means to accomplish a purpose. The servants were to kill their employers; organized bands, dressed in the dress of civilians, living in the city of ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... grimly conscious of his burning ankles, his pounding and fluttering heart and heaving and clamoring lungs—plunging forward under the weak urging of his heavy master, responding now through force of habit—feeling that because he was in motion he must continue in motion. It was a numb, mechanical effort, involuntary and apart from him, as much apart from his control as was the beating ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... dark gray eyes were surmounted by thick, heavy black brows that, when gathered into a frown, reminded one of a thunder cloud, as the flashing orbs beneath them did of lightning. His hard, harsh face was surrounded by a thick growth of iron-gray hair and beard that met beneath his chin. His usual habit was a black cloth coat, crimson vest, black leather breeches, long, black yarn stockings, fastened at the knees, and morocco ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... bull out of the herd, and brought him within gunshot of my wagons, where I could more conveniently cut up and preserve the flesh, without the trouble of sending men and packoxen to fetch it. I have repeatedly seen an eland drop down dead at the end of a severe chase, owing to his plethoric habit. The skin of the eland I had just shot emitted, like most other antelopes, the most delicious perfume ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... please him, you are not necessary to him. He left you once before and he was quite happy in his desert. And I tell you, Mr. Cumberland, that he will leave you again. You cannot tame the untameable. It is not habit that rules this man. It is instinct a million years old. The call which he will hear is the call of the wilderness, and to answer it he will leave father and wife and children and ride out with ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... out a manuscript-book in which he was in the habit of setting down whatever came to him, and wrote for some time, happily making more than one spot of ink on the toilet-cover, which served to open the eyes of Mrs. Locke to her mistake in thinking a workman would not want a writing-table; so that before the next evening he found in his chamber ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... a night of solitary musing upon certain waste places known best to outlanders, walked up Saint James's Street at six o'clock in the morning, talking lightly and fiercely to himself. A long life of loneliness had given him that habit incurably. Discovering the hour by a clock in Piccadilly, he realised that it was too early to wait upon Mrs. Germain in Albemarle Street, so continued his way up the empty hill, entered the Park, and flung himself upon the turf under the elms. Other guests were harboured ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... Armstrong liked to have his son stand upon his own feet. He did not wish to be unduly troubled with requests for permission; he fancied it a babyish habit for a well-grown boy to fall into. The boy should decide for himself, said he, where decision was reasonably possible for him; and if he made mistakes he would surely pay for them and learn caution and wisdom. For this reason Archie had no hesitation ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... best, and in his innermost soul he commended it as a proper Christian course. But he also remembered to have heard somewhere that godless men like Harley P. Hennage and the outlaw McGraw had a habit of being friendly and faithful to each other in just such emergencies—a sort of "honor among thieves" arrangement, and despite Mr. Hennage's kindly words, Doc Taylor doubted their sincerity. In fact, the whole thing was ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... smoke from 3 till 5 Sunday afternoons—and in New York the other day I smoked a week, day and night. But when Livy is well I smoke only those two hours on Sunday. I'm "boss" of the habit, now, and shall never let it boss me any more. Originally, I quit solely on Livy's account, (not that I believed there was the faintest reason in the matter, but just as I would deprive myself of sugar in my coffee ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... have this bad habit of soliloquising, and indeed am absurd enough to attempt conversation with a house, yet the reader must realise from the beginning that I am still quite a young man. I talked a little just now as though I were an octogenarian. Actually, as I said, I am ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... cure is to increase our knowledge of the laws of nature, and our habit of comparing whatever ideas are presented to us with those known laws, and thus to counteract the fallacies of our senses, to emancipate ourselves from the false impressions which we have imbibed in our infancy, and to set the faculty of reason ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... letter from Coleridge to J. H. Green (January 14, 1820) that the visit to Highgate which Lamb mentions was a New Year visit of annual occurrence. Lamb's reference to praeprandial avocations touches upon Coleridge's habit of coming down to see his guests only when dinner ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... found that nothing had been seen of him there. Since yesterday the whole of London had been scoured by the police, but not one fact had been brought to light to make clearer the mystery of his going away. With the most noticeable face and habit in London he had evaded scrutiny and gone into a retirement which baffled discovery. No master of the stage art could have devised a more sensational disappearance. He had vanished as though whirled to heaven in a cloud, and that was literally what the more fanatical of his followers believed ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... rest herself, she said. And two other ladies of the party did so also, leaving Miss Dunstable to go alone;—for which, however, she did not care one button. And then one of the party, who had a nasty habit of swearing, cursed at something as he walked in close to Mark's elbow; and so they made their way up the church as the Absolution was being read, and Mark Robarts felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. If his rising in the world brought him in ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... into the habit of using it, now I have seen what a slave it can make of a strong man," whispered Walter ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Judgin' from what he said to me, it ain't safe to tackle him right away. It will only keep him mad. Hold tight for a little while and let's see what he'll do when he cools. And if he don't cool then, I've got quite a habit of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... eyes as he lay on his bed till he "went off". The experiments seemed so curious that witnesses were called, Mr. Darley and Mr. Thurgood. On Friday, 15th January, 1886, Mr. Cleave determined to try to see, when asleep, a young lady at Wandsworth to whom he was in the habit of writing every Sunday. He also intended, if possible, to make her see him. On awaking, he said that he had seen her in the dining-room of her house, that she had seemed to grow restless, had looked at him, and then had covered her face with her hands. On Monday he tried again, and ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... familiar cousin—once removed—in whom I trusted! I depute you to inform her that I think her adorable, and that matrimony is no longer a habit of mine. Set her on to poor Severne; he is a ladies' man, and 'the more the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... choked himself with laughing, and she with rage; when, with a low bow, and dressed in his Court habit, Count Gambabella, the first lord-in-waiting, entered and said, "Royal Highnesses! Their Majesties expect you in the Pink Throne-room, where they await the arrival of ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... shores of Bute, opposite the rugged, heathery hills of Cowal, John Campbell had built himself a splendid habitation. People going up and Down the Kyles were in the habit of pointing out Meriton Mansion, and of asserting that the owner had risen from extreme poverty to his enviable position. There was not a word of truth in this story. John Campbell was the youngest son of Campbell of Drumloch, a gentleman of ancient lineage, and of considerable wealth. ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... a most severe economist of time, a habit acquired as long ago as 1839, when he awed his young wife by filling up all odd bits and scraps of time with study or work. Out of his pocket would come the little classic at every chance opportunity of leisure. This accounts ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... get possession of the babies; their inhuman guardians were in the habit of selling them for the modest sum of one franc each to anyone who would take them off their hands. But the cost of maintenance was a more serious matter. A house was taken near the College des Bons Enfants, and twelve of the miserable little victims were ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... v., cap. iv., p. 58. *2* Luckily Ibanez ('Republica Jesuitica de Paraguay') has not corrected the many faults of spelling and Latinity into which Padre Ennis fell. Those, though left in from malice, as Ibanez was a bitter enemy of the Jesuits, serve to present the man in his habit as he wrote. However, Ibanez has so much mutilated the text of the journal that occasionally the sense is left obscure. *3* 'Hoc itaque nuncio laeti altero ac incensi . . . Sacramento expiationis et pane fortim roborati' (Ennis, ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... axils of leaves and when a considerable number of the axillary buds, especially from the lower nodes, develop into branches the plant becomes tufted in habit. In most grasses branches grow upwards through the sheath and emerge at its mouth as aerial branches. Such branches are called intravaginal branches or stems. But in some grasses axillary buds, instead ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar

... maiden name of Madge was Home; and when her pride was touched, it was her habit to run over the genealogical tree of her father's family, which she could illustrate upon her fingers, beginning on all occasions—"I am, and so is every Home in Berwickshire, descended frae the Saxon kings o' England and the first Earls o' Northumberland." Thus did she run on, tracing their ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... with his God, to end the day deliberately at His feet. And here accordingly is another occasion for watchfulness, and for method, and for will. Do not drift into the night. Have a settled hour when, as a habit, you lay interests and intercourse of other sorts down, and turn unhurried to the holy interview, spreading open your Bible by the lamp, the Bible marked and scored with signs of past research, and then kneeling, or standing, or pacing, for your prayer—your prayer which is to be the very ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... was the extreme temperance and the regularity of his habits. At first sight he would seem the most irregular of men, sitting up till two or three in the morning and rising late; but, in fact, this habit, persisted in for so many years, became fixed; and, as nature requires regular periods of rest rather than any special time for taking it, he suffered no material inconvenience in that respect. But his main source of exemption from ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... think that it would not be very difficult to abolish it among the blacks, who are struck with the pomp of our religious ceremonies: they would be much more inclined to the Catholic religion, if it tolerated polygamy, a habit which will inevitably render all the efforts of the Missionaries abortive, as long as they commence their instruction by ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... evil in their intrinsic natures are. Not the doing either of good or of evil is what nature cares for, but the knowing of them. Life is one long eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. I am in the habit, in thinking to myself, of calling this point of view the gnostical point of view. According to it, the world is neither an optimism nor a pessimism, but a gnosticism. But as this term may perhaps ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... me an' Glenister is gougin' into the bowels of Anvil Creek all last summer, we don't really get the fresh-grub habit fastened on us none. You see, the gamblers down-town cop out the few aigs an' green vegetables that stray off the ships, so they never get out as far as the Creek none; except, maybe, in ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... often at the Fabian meetings and elsewhere; till at last it became a habit with them to spend their Sunday mornings on some breezy wold in the country together. Herminia was still as free as ever from any shrinking terror as to what "people might say;" as of old, she lived her life for herself and her conscience, ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... which his heart felt. He only said that on the eve of a great battle he wished to bid his father farewell, and solemnly to implore his good offices for the wife—it might be for the child—whom he had left behind. His English habit, pride, awkwardness, perhaps, had prevented him from saying more. His father could not see the kiss George had placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr. Osborne dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... not courage but nerve control, cool-headedness. This he can get only by actual practice. He must, by custom and repeated exercise of self-mastery, get his nerves thoroughly under control. This is largely a matter of habit, in the sense of repeated effort and repeated exercise of will power. If the man has the right stuff in him, his will grows stronger and stronger with each exercise of it—and if he has not the right stuff in him he had better keep clear of dangerous ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... new Discovery of a little sort of People called Pigmies with a lively discription of their stature, habit manners, buildings, Knowledge and Government; by Joshua Barns, of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... apprehension he produced a couple of half-crowns, pointing out that they were worth four rupees, and offered these as payment when the work was done. The Hindu recognized the King's head on the coins, and eagerly assured the Baluchis that they were good English money; but the smith, true to the oriental habit of haggling, rejected them scornfully as insufficient, and was backed up by a chorus of ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... such idea. But even to her the idea must surely have come in some shape before the proposal. He had allowed her to feel that he was only happy in her company, and he had gradually fallen into the habit of confiding to her in everything. He had told her of his money, and of his future life. He had consulted her about his books, and pictures he had bought, and even about the servants of his establishment. She cannot but have expected it. But yet when the moment came she was unable ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... imitative speaking, so it required eight and a half months for it to be properly used as a predicate. At the same age on being asked, "Where is your beard?" the child would place its hand on its chin and move its thumb and fingers as if drawing hair through them, or as it was in the habit of doing if it touched its father's beard; this is evidence of imagination, which, however, certainly occurs much earlier in life. At the close of the second year a great advance was made in using two words together as a sentence—e.g., "home, milk," to signify ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... having once been told that her profile resembled George Eliot's, she made the pursuit of learning, music, and Knickerbocker genealogy her special aims. Derek had, all his life, felt for her a special tenderness; and having neither mother, wife, nor sister, he was in the habit of coming to her with ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King



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