Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Key   /ki/   Listen
Key

adjective
1.
Serving as an essential component.  Synonyms: cardinal, central, fundamental, primal.  "The central cause of the problem" , "An example that was fundamental to the argument" , "Computers are fundamental to modern industrial structure"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Key" Quotes from Famous Books



... sometimes seems afar off, but He will never leave or forsake anyone who puts his trust in Him. The day will come when the good as well as evil will all meet on one broad platform, to be rewarded for the deeds done in the body, when time shall end, with the gates of eternity closed, and the key fastened to the girdle of God forever. Pardon me, reader, I have wandered. But when my mind reverts to those scenes and times, I seem to live in another age and time and I sometime think that "after us comes the end ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... KEY was born in Frederick county, Maryland, and was educated at St. John's College, Annapolis. He became a lawyer, was appointed District Attorney of the District of Columbia, and spent his ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... wind there, boy? keep them in that key. The wench is ours before to-morrow day. Well, Hal and Frank, as ye are gentlemen, Stick to us close this once! You know your fathers Have men and horse lie ready still at Chesson, To watch the coast be clear, to scout about, And have an eye unto Mountchensey's walks: ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare

... cannon-ball to him, he lifted it very gently on to the glass plate, and then taking a key from his pocket he appeared to wind up on the inside of the instrument some mechanism which gave off a buzzing sound. Next he drew on a pair of rubber gloves with vulcanized rubber finger tips, and moistening with his lips ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... have changed its tone, and taken the low mournful intonation of her Indian race; but she moved calmly away, replaced the contents of the desk with care, and closed and locked it. Then she gave the key to her mother, and bent over her ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... were expected to fall, I was glad; yet, if the contrary were true, I drew from opium some means of consoling myself. For opium (like the bee, that extracts its materials indiscriminately from roses and from the soot of chimneys) can overrule all feelings into compliance with the master-key. Some of these rambles led me to great distances, for an opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time; and sometimes in my attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and seeking ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... that the invocation of the saints and of the Virgin is nothing more than a request, that they would intercede with God, and implore his mercy for the suppliants. But whatever implicit reliance we may place on the good faith with which these declarations are made, we can discover no new key by which to interpret the forms of prayer and praise satisfactorily. Confessedly there are no changes in the authorized services. We discover no traces of change in the worship of private devotion. The Breviary ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... well," said Strout. "You'll find them O. K. But now's you're here there's one thing I want to say. Hiram don't agree with me, but he ain't progressive. There's no crescendo to him. He wants to play in one key all the ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... occupants of the hotel were running down the hall, while others were hammering at the door. Lasar had turned the key ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... years old, was "hired out." He early developed a burning desire for an education, and took advantage of every opportunity that he could find to study and to learn. He soon learned to read. With this key he opened up to his enquiring mind a wide vista of knowledge and saw through many things which before had seemed dark. The family remained in St. Louis two years, but in very poor circumstances. During this period Andrew was able to attend school but little, yet he was so anxious to ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... apply are coarse developments of insanity. Dr. Prichard was among the first of English medico-psychologists to recognize the existence of a more subtle form of disease, which he termed "moral insanity." Herbert Spencer supplied the key-note to this mystery of madness when he propounded the doctrine of "dissolution;" and Dr. Hughlings Jackson has since applied that hypothesis to the elucidation of morbid mental states and their correlated phenomena. When disorganizing—or, if we may borrow an expression ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... Past those proud lips whose key their sovereign claimed No accent fell to chide or to betray, Only it chanced that bound beside the king Lay one whom Nature, more than other men Framing for delicate and perfumed ease, Not yet, along the happy ways of Youth, Had weaned from gentle ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... saying that the most northern point at Belle Isle Strait is in the same latitude as that of Edinburgh, whilst St. John's, near the southern extremity, lies in the same latitude as that of Paris. Strategically it forms the key to British North America. St. John's lies about half-way between Liverpool and New York, so that it offers a haven of refuge for needy craft plying between England and the American metropolis. The adjacent part of the coast is also the landing-place for most of the Transatlantic cables: ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... girl to desperation; she lay awake nights, trying to puzzle out the reason, for this was a new experience to her. Recalling their meeting and the incidents of that first night at White Horse, she realized that here was a baffling secret and that she did not possess the key to it. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... connexion with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interest, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumour had long ago ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in a high key. "Can't you see that for yourself! And I'm going to have that girl cured of the plague, if there is such a thing as a doctor to be had for love or money ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up the glen leaves the road at the side of the 'Green Dragon' at Hardraw, where the innkeeper hands us a key to open the gate we must pass through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... desirable things, to a cross between a sick-bay attendant and a junior writer (but he was really an expert burglar), "No! An' you can tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compliments, that the storekeeper's gone away—right away—with the key of these stores in his pocket. Understand me? In his ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... to her bright apartment she repairs, Sacred to dress and beauty's pleasing cares: With skill divine had Vulcan form'd the bower, Safe from access of each intruding power. Touch'd with her secret key, the doors unfold: Self-closed, behind her shut the valves of gold. Here first she bathes; and round her body pours Soft oils of fragrance, and ambrosial showers: The winds, perfumed, the balmy gale convey ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... a large key, threw open the door and half the battery was ushered inside. It immediately fell their task to brush the cow-webs from the ceilings; gather up the fallen plaster from the floor; sweep out several years' accumulation of dirt and dust; ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... has but just joined, is already their captain;—him, the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his return, in his bed. It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here is the key to his door. He is a giant in strength; and will never be taken alive if up ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... conch-shell, its beautiful red lip serving to hold a loose bunch of cigars. In the chimney-breast was a little door, and the Captain, pulling his son into the room after that call upon Mrs. North, fumbled in his pocket for the key. "Here," he said; "(as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina)—Cyrus, she handed round ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland

... a blacksmith. Jacob was the carpenter. 'Now look here, Mose,' says Mister John, 'you raise plenty of hogs. Mind you give all the folks plenty of meat. Then you take the rest to Miss Polly and let her lock it in the smokehouse.' Miss Polly carried the key, but Mose was head man and had ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... old votive homage to Isis, "the Lotus-crowned" Venus of Egypt. For the symbolic Water-Lily, recreated by human Art, blooms forever in the capitals of Karnac and Thebes, and wherever columns were reared and lintels laid throughout the length and breadth of the "Land of Bondage." It is the key-note of all that architecture; and a brief examination into the principles of this, new birth of the Lotus, of the monumental straightening and stiffening of its graceful and easy lines, will afford some insight into the strange processes of the human mind, when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... were discussing the matter in all its bearings, and casting about for an acceptable alternative, that my mother let fall a remark, which, little as we suspected it at the moment, proved to be the key-note ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... dressed for a journey, sat on a trunk, nervously watching the clock, patiently awaiting John's return. Annie was still on her knees, struggling with the key of an obstinate suitcase. ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... while he is just as much a slave as any of the rest. Trustworthy, upright, intelligent, he may be flogged to-morrow if Mr. O—— or Mr. —— so please it, and sold the next day like a cart horse, at the will of the latter. Besides his various other responsibilities, he has the key of all the stores, and gives out the people's rations weekly; nor is it only the people's provisions that are put under his charge—meat, which is only given out to them occasionally, and provisions for the use ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... Taverneau's fat substitute, but I am principled against asking questions; things are explained soon enough. Disenchantment is the key to all things. When I like a woman I carefully avoid all her acquaintance, any one who can tell me aught about her. The sound of her name pronounced by careless lips, puts me to flight; the letters that she receives might be given me open and I should throw them, unread, into the fire. ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... I tell you the Daily Leader will not shrink from its duty. It'll leave no stone unturned to hound the offenders down. I dare say they may be making arrests even now, and once started, we'll never pause till every Spanish sympathiser who has knowledge of the plot is under lock and key." ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... a bright box with a hole in the lid, through which she had dropped many a bright piece of silver; and it is also true that the box had a lock, and the key of the lock lay quietly in one of Helen's drawers; but the money there was destined to some very great and vague purpose; and she never would have dreamed of unlocking the box and taking from it any silver for the Christ-child. ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins

... secret space behind the back of the drawer. There were three other bank-notes lying loose, about twenty golden louis, two ruby rings, and lastly a safe-key, which Ralph held up ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... on the pavement outside; then the click of a latch-key; a step on the stairs, at the threshold, and Mr. Pilkington walked in with the air of being the master of the house ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... through the doorway of the great kitchen, and down the open chimney. It woke up the old, grey-haired farmer who dozed on the "skew" in the ingle-nook by the crackling wood-fire; it almost made him feel young again with the vigour of the boisterous spring. It sang in the key-hole of the door between the passage and the best parlour; the mat at the threshold flapped with a sound as of pattering feet; and the gaudy calendars on the wall flew up like banners streaming in the breeze. The old man turned, and eagerly ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after a second ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... remains suspended and the yogi cheats death.... So the yogi should carefully practice the various mudras [exercises] to rouse the great goddess [kundalini] who sleeps closing the mouth of susumna." (Hatha Yoga Prad., Ill, 1-5.) "As one forces open a door [door symbolism] with a key [the 'Diederich' of the wanderer in the parable] so the yogi should force open the door of moksa [deliverance] by the kundalini. The Paramesoari [great goddess] sleeps, closing with her mouth the hole through which one should go to the brahmarandhra [the opening or place ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... eleven years ago, in the year 1638, one Minne-wits,(4) who before that time had had the direction at the Manathans, on behalf of the West India Company, arrived in the river with the ship Kalmer-Sleutel [Key of Calmar], and the yacht Vogel-Gryp [Griffin], giving out to the Netherlanders who lived up the river, under the Company and Heer vander Nederhorst, that he was on a voyage to the West Indies, and that passing by there, he wished to arrange some matters and to furnish the ship with ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... take our car again and rattle back over the road to Ballintubber Abbey. Ballintobar (town of the well) near this was one of the sacred wells of St. Patrick. The abbey gates were locked, and it was some time before the key was forthcoming. The church part of the abbey is entire except the roof and the lofty bell tower. The arch that supported the tower was forty-five feet in height, but I do not know how high the tower was which it supported. At last the key was found and we were admitted into the church. The chancel ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... by those who maintain that the modern methods of critical biblical study give us the key to scriptural meanings. There is no doubt that many doors have been opened by critical methods. Now that the flurries of misunderstanding which attended the first application of such methods to biblical ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... bound, was shuddering to the first slow revolutions of her propeller when Bainbridge turned the key in the door of the stuffy little state-room to which he had been directed, and went ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... house, like lambs destined to slaughter," and here they are separated into two flocks; on the one hand the seventy-three, and on the other, the ten or twelve who, with the Girondins already kept under lock and key, are to furnish the sacramental and popular number, the twenty-two traitors, whose punishment is a requirement of the Jacobin imagination;[11105] on the left, the batch for the prison; on the right, the batch ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... full that the lid would not close, Mary was jumping up and down on it when Elizabeth entered. She hailed her with an exclamation of delight. "I'm so glad you weigh something! Come, sit on my trunk while I turn the key. I can get the lid down, but it springs open the instant I get off, and I cannot stand up there and turn the key at the same time. I have been bouncing on it ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... of a quarter of an hour, beyond making the car secure, he had accomplished nothing. The key which bound the wheel on its axle was rusted and jammed. He hammered at it with one hand and held on the best he could with the other, but the wind persisted in swinging and twisting his body, and made his blows miss more often than not. Nine-tenths of the strength he expended ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... little girl about thirteen years old, set her on a table with her feet fastened in a pair of stocks. He then locked the door and took out the key. When the door was opened she was found dead, having fallen from the table. When I asked a prominent lawyer, who belonged to one of the first families in the State, whether the murderer of this helpless child ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... of the P. and S. W., painted in the grey and white, which seemed to be the official colours of all the buildings owned by the corporation. The station was deserted. No trains passed at this hour. From the direction of the ticket window, Presley heard the unsteady chittering of the telegraph key. In the shadow of one of the baggage trucks upon the platform, the great yellow cat that belonged to the agent dozed complacently, her paws tucked under her body. Three flat cars, loaded with bright-painted farming machines, were on the siding above the station, while, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... have nothing to fear. In Aheer, people will not call out to you in the streets as in Ghat. We have a Sultan. Here there is no Sultan." They were amazed at my little keys. I promised one of them, that, in case of my arriving safe in Aheer, I would give him a little lock and key. This delighted him; and two pieces of sugar, one each, made these Aheer Touaricks excellent friends. Have visits from the Ghateen. Several of these people are going to ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... turning box. Having made these arrangements, Carrizales invested part of his money in sundry good securities; part he placed in the bank, and the rest he kept by him to meet any emergencies that might arise. He also had a master key made for his whole house; and he laid up a whole year's store of all such things as it is usual to purchase in bulk at their respective seasons; and everything being now ready to his mind, he went to his father-in-law's house and claimed his bride, whom her parents delivered up ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... service, where he reposed in him the utmost confidence, and treated him with the kindest indulgence. He had not been long in his house before Mr. Johnson was informed that his servant, having taken an impression of the key of his storeroom in clay, had procured one that would fit the lock. He scarcely credited the information; but, being urged to furnish him with an opportunity, he consented that a constable should be concealed in the house, on a Sunday, when all the family, this servant excepted, would be ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... said that Hermione's room was dark. Perhaps he had been mistaken. The key might have been so placed in the lock that he had been deceived. As Artois walked to a point from which he could see one of the windows of Hermione's bedroom, he knew that he longed to see a light there. If the window was dark the form of his fear would be more distinct. He reached the point ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... located the key-hole in the pedestal, the one key saved from the ring which Mr. Swain had so unfortunately and unaccountably lost opened the door—the key, of course, that Mr. Swain had used under Lanyard's eyes when demonstrating the functions of the binnacle to ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... causing malaria, Dr Livingstone was compelled to abandon the intention he had formed of removing his own people thither that they might be out of the reach of their savage neighbours, the Dutch boers. It was, however, he at once saw, the key of Southern ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... vice is punished; and that which makes us sometimes believe in the impunity of evil-doers is that riches, those instruments of good and of evil, seem sometimes to be given them at hazard. But woe to unjust men, when they possess the key of gold! It opens, for them, only the gate of the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... joyous service was not o'er; Some met at night with GOODWORTH'S family, And there together searched the hidden store Of Bible truth, the prayer of Faith the key That did unlock each wondrous mystery. All were invited, nay were pressed to speak, And show the light which God gave them to see. This course served well to strengthen what was weak, And all learned much who ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... was in the minor key, the voice of the singer thrilled to the very nerves, every word ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... best to help it, for Mrs Stirling came bustling out again, and they set off down the brae. She had leisure to help it, too; for from the moment the great door-key was hidden in the thatch, till they paused beside the stepping-stones, she did not need to speak a word. Nancy had all the talk to herself, and rambled on from one thing to another, never pausing for an answer, till they stood beside the brook. Here ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson

... economy has made progress in several key areas since Benazir BHUTTO became Prime Minister in October 1993. She has been under pressure from international donors and the IMF - which gave Pakistan a $1.3 billion structural adjustment credit in February 1994 - to continue the economic reforms and austerity measures begun by her ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... himself mentally. All his strength was suddenly gone as if taken out by a hand. Then by a mighty effort of will it came back because he was afraid of fainting in the street and being picked up by the police with the key of his lodgings in his pocket. They would find Haldin there, and then, indeed, he would ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... The key to the door was in the merchant's pocket, and this I could, not obtain. The windows were closed, and the ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... was to finish the work of the summer. This alone would have gained for England the control of the valley of the Ohio, and made Braddock's expedition superfluous. One marvels at the short-sightedness, the dissensions, the apathy which had left this key of the interior so long in the hands of France without an effort to wrest it from her. To master Niagara would be to cut the communications of Canada with the whole system of French forts and settlements ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... California, but I could not now sell it for what it cost me. When I went away I had left my chest and contents with my friend Samuel Zollinger, and he had kept it safely, so I now made him my lawful agent. I placed my narrative and some other papers in the chest and gave the key into his charge, while I went north, across the Wisconsin River, to visit my old hunting and trapping friend, Robert McCloud. Here I made a very pleasant visit of perhaps a week, and the common prospects of the country were freely talked over. It seemed to us as if the good ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... those prophecies and promises that to this day lie as under lock and key, and that cannot be opened until they be fulfilled. Now the church of God shall read with great plainness the depths of providence, and the turnings and windings of all God's dark and intricate dispensations, through which ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... come all at once, but John and Meg had found the key to it, and each year of married life taught them how to use it, unlocking the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy. This is the sort of shelf on which young ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... soils, drainage is the key to all improvement, and its advantage is to be measured not simply by the effect which it directly produces in increasing production, but, in still greater degree, by the extent to which it prepares the way for the successful application of improved processes, makes the farmer independent of weather ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... As a key to mythology this theory was especially associated with the name of Plutarch among ancient writers, and it has been accepted more or less completely by a vast number of moderns. In the late Sir George Cox's fascinating stories it was run to utter absurdity. The story is beautifully ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... key of the handcuffs from his pocket, and toyed with it. Mr. McEachern emitted a low growl. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... chimney, however, and the smoke had to go out through the open door. The door itself was generally fastened to a post, the lower end of which turned in a hollow socket in a heavy stone. When the family went away from home the door was locked with a huge wooden key, which was carried, not in the pocket, like our keys, but over the shoulder. Such keys had this advantage, at any rate, over ours. You could not very well lose them and you did not need ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... He did not stick out at the top. Mr. Pellew remained on the shady terrace, to end up his cigar. He was a little disquieted by the recollection of his very last words, which remembered themselves on his tongue-tip as a key remembers itself in one's hand, when one has forgotten if one really locked that box. Why, though, should he not say to a maiden lady of a certain age—these are the words he thought in—that it was very nice on this terrace? Why not indeed? But that wasn't exactly ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... earnestly expressed wishes for another and another song, until the sisters, feeling at length that many must be wearied with their long continued occupation of the piano, felt themselves compelled to decline further invitations to sing. No one else ventured to touch a key of the instrument ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... and he was within the converted box car, to find it deserted and silent, except for the constant clackle of the telegraph key, rattling off the business of a mountain railroad system, like some garrulous old woman, to any one who would listen. There was no private office, only a railing and a counter, which Barry crossed easily. ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... savant ever confided to a few trustworthy friends while awaiting a suitable time to make it public. It was a secret as full of significance as that which Galileo concealed for a time in his celebrated anagram, which, when at length he furnished the key, still remained a riddle, for then it read: "The Mother of the Loves imitates the Shapes of Cynthia," meaning that the planet Venus, when viewed with a telescope, shows phases like those of the moon. The secret imparted in confidence to the knot of astronomers at ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... who are shut up in Missolonghi. If it fall, Athens will be in danger, and thousands of throats cut: a few thousand dollars would provide ships to relieve it; a portion of this sum is raised, and I would coin my heart to save this key of Greece." Bravely said! but deserving of little attention. The fate of Missolonghi could have had no visible effect on that ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... the mind. It is a more reliable key to character than the physiognomy of the body. To imitate another person's style is like wearing a mask. However fine the mask, it soon becomes insipid and intolerable because it is without life; so that even the ugliest ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... impressions of his guilt, and I determined to tax him with it, and take him into custody the instant he appeared. It was two in the morning before he did so; and the nervous fumbling, for full ten minutes, with his latch-key, before he could open the door, quite prepared me for the spectral-like aspect he presented on entering. He had met somebody, it afterwards appeared, outside, who had assured him that the mother of the drowned child was either dead or dying. He never ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... out the hymn on Sabbaths, I cannot tell whether it is the seventieth or the hundredth. When you read the chapter, you are half through with it before I know whether it is Exodus or Deuteronomy. Why do you begin your sermon in so low a key? If the introduction is not worth hearing, it is not worth delivering. Are you explaining the text? If so, the Lord's meaning is as important as anything you will have in your sermon. Throw back your shoulders, open your mouth! Make your voice strike against the opposite wall! Pray ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... plans with Evans. We knew there was a stair up in the corner of the transept which you can get up to the triforium, and in them days the door to it was pretty well always open, and even if it wasn't we knew the key usually laid under a bit of matting hard by. So we made up our minds we'd be putting away music and that, next morning while the rest of the boys was clearing off, and then slip up the stairs and watch from ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James

... over—if it were only done—if he could only swallow up the next six months and be dead and forgotten! If he had got past that dreadful trial—that cold unfeeling prison, with the harsh noise of the large key and the fetters, the stern judge, and the twelve stern men sworn to hang him if he deserved it! If he could escape the eyes of the whole country which would then be on him; the harsh, cold, solemn words which would then be addressed to him—the sorrow of his father—the shame of ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... the sheet, with the air of a showman who has just given an exhibition, when there came a sharp rapping on the mortuary door. The officer finished spreading the sheet with official precision, and having ushered me out into the lobby, turned the key and admitted three persons, holding the door open after they had entered for me to go out. But the appearance of the new-comers inclined me to linger. One of them was a local constable, evidently in official charge; ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... she was superior to most women in the habit of close attention to whatever she undertook. This was the real key to her facility in languages, history, music, drawing, and calisthenics, as her professor called female gymnastics. The flexible creature's limbs were in secret steel. She could go thirty feet up a slack rope hand over hand with wonderful ease and grace, and ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... instructions and a key with which to open the street door. The young man pressed the cold, inert hand, ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin

... next-door building and opened the front door with his key. Inside, a night watchman lounged behind a desk, smoking a blackened briar. He looked up, smiled, ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

... the relative of the pentatonic major of F-sharp. A-sharp belongs to this scale, but B-natural does not. The singer, with his instinct for the five-note scale, avoids the B-natural until the tonality shifts back to the original key. The song is therefore ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... evening, a fortnight after Martin Warlock's first meeting with Maggie, he arrived at the door of his house in Garrick Street, and having forgotten his latch-key, was compelled to ring the old screaming bell that had long survived its respectable reputable days. The Warlocks had lived during the last ten years in an upper part above a curiosity shop four doors from the Garrick Club in Garrick Street. There was a house-door that abutted on to the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... Intermediate Life I am still "I," the same conscious self through the whole life of Earth. and Hades and Heaven, and therefore the real life, the inner life can still be understood. So when we enquire what can be known about the meaning of Heaven—at the very start I strike the key-note of the thoughts that follow, in the words of Christ Himself, "The Kingdom of God is within you." Heaven is a something within you rather than without you. Heaven means character rather than possessions. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but Righteousness and Peace ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... to help cook in this sudden emergency, she ran upstairs to put on her bonnet and jacket, for the time had almost arrived when she must start on her journey. She had just come downstairs when the click of the latch-key was heard, and Jasper, in excellent spirits, entered ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... plainly the great truth of our time; that the wealth of the state is not the prosperity of the people. Macaulay and the Mills and all the regular run of the Early Victorians, took it for granted that if Manchester was getting richer, we had got hold of the key to comfort and progress. Carlyle pointed out (with stronger sagacity and humour than he showed on any other question) that it was just as true to say that Manchester was getting poorer as that it was getting richer: or, in other words, that Manchester ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... was asleep at a desk. Sara Lee roused her to half wakefulness, no interest and extremely poor English. A drowsy porter led her up a staircase and down an endless corridor. Then at last he was gone, and Sara Lee turned the key in her door and burst ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... but abandoned this position as untenable. She despatched the maid with the key to the wall safe in her husband's room. "Why isn't there?" she demanded. "Rodney won't look at young girls. They bore him to death—and no wonder, because he freezes them perfectly brittle with fright. But Hermione's really pretty intelligent. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... is one of those who often speak from the heart. All these players love the note of sincerity when they hear it. In the salon it is out of key, but away from the ladies the men are often living and not playing. Mirabeau, Condorcet, Turgot and others have heard the call of Human Liberty. Often they come to this house and speak out with ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... fruitful kingdom; for in Alhama were collected the royal rents and tributes of the surrounding country: it was the richest town in the Moorish territory, and from its great strength and its peculiar situation was called the key to Granada. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... Tou, in a high key of indignation at this monstrously palpable instance of unveracity, and nearly capsizing, as she speaks, into a rabbit-hole, which, in her backward progress—we are crossing ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... of Resentment at myselfe came over me, unlike to what I had ever felt before; in spite of my Folly about my Curls. Seeking for some Trifle in a Bag that had not been shaken out since I brought it from London, out tumbled a Key with curious Wards—I knew it at once for one that belonged to a certayn Algum-wood Casket Mr. Milton had Recourse to dailie, because he kept small Change in it; and I knew not I had brought it away! 'Twas worked in Grotesque, the Casket, by Benvenuto, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... that the key of the mystery had been in her hands only a few minutes was a solace to Crewe, as it detracted but little from the story he had to tell of patient investigations extending ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... who has fluttered, right under my eyes, from girl to girl—this man, I say, has the right to demand from me a shameful and infamous concession. I have no right to hide myself; I have no right even to a key to my own door. Everything belongs to him—the key, the door, and even the woman who hates him. It is monstrous! Can you imagine such a horrible situation? That a woman should not be mistress of herself, should not even have the sacred right of preserving her person from a loathsome ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... (the rat was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors to get through with it in time for the bowstringing), there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... it requires, if we would compel these ancient epics to yield up their greatness or their beauty, or even their logical coherence and imaginative unity—broken, scattered portions as they all are of that one enormous epic, the bardic history of Ireland. At the best we read without the key. The magic of the names is gone, or can only be partially recovered by the most tender and sympathetic study. Indeed, without reading all or many, we will not understand the superficial meaning of even one. For instance, ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... feet long. I had it loose in a moment. A minute later and I had wheedled it round the baluster I could clutch. Buckled, it made a loop three feet in length that would have supported a bullock. I was about to soar, when I remembered the car. I jumped down once more, turned the key of the switch, and slipped it into my pocket. No one could steal her now. The next second I had my ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... beasts, the better far Their drossy exhalations a star Their brainless admirations may render; For learning in the wise sort is but lender Of men's prime notion's doctrine; their own way Of all skills' perceptible forms a key Forging to wealth, and honour-soothed sense, Never exploring truth or consequence, Informing any virtue or good life; And therefore Player, Bookseller, or Wife Of either, (needing no such curious key) All men and things, may know their own rude way. Imagination and our ...
— English Satires • Various

... closed the door and locked it. He listened and presently he heard the sound of his daughter's door close also and heard the snap of the key as it turned. But it was a double snap, and he knew that the sound was intended for him and that the second click was the unlocking of the door. She had locked and unlocked it in one motion. He waited, sitting in an arm-chair before ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... came out with a rush, tumbling over one another till they suddenly broke off in a loud key of indignant scorn. Then 'Lias fell silent a moment, and slowly shook his head over the inveterate shuffling of the House ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... end, then I can show you in detail that the constituent parts of this trunk are found in all classes to be invariably in the same positions relatively to one another (p. 10). It is important to note this hypothesis of a "metastasis" which Geoffroy makes, for it is the key to the understanding of many of the far-fetched homologies which he tries to establish. It is, of course, clear that this hypothesis is in formal contradiction with his principal hypothesis of the invariability of ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... than that the apartment was apparently in the same condition as its tenant had left it. The door to the outside stairway at the back was locked and the key was missing. In addition to the regular lock a stout bolt was in place. The catches on all the windows were properly locked, and all the shades remained drawn down close to the sills. It was an empty, locked apartment, ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... began, "a most serious thing has occurred. I make no accusations. Miss Burrell, where is the key to your ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle into ghosts; and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fades towards night through a surprising key of colours. The latest gold leaps from the last mountain. Soon, perhaps, the moon shall rise, and in her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed and misted, and here and there a wisp of silver cloud upon a hilltop, and here and there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... my own inclination, I consented to open that desk with a key in Rosamond's possession. I did not pry into the secrets of its contents; but before me, in the tray intended for pens, I saw an object which could not fail to attract my attention—which riveted my gaze as surely as if I ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... time had come, she removed her shoes, and in stocking feet stole softly along the passage to the door of the apartment where the officers were in consultation. Here the key-hole served the purpose to which that useful opening has so often been put, and enabled her to hear tidings of vital interest. For some time only a murmur of voices reaches her ears. Then silence fell, followed by one of the officers reading in a clear ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... awfulness of the divine justice, he spoke also from the depths of his experience of the power of the divine love; and his influence on the ages has been rather that of the 'Confessions'—taking their key-note from the words of the first chapter, "Thou, O Lord, hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is unquiet until it find rest in Thee"—than that of the writings which have earned for their author the foremost ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... open, and not to have goods to sell, every demand is at first always answered in the negative, till a sort of intelligence becomes established betwixt the buyer and seller, when the former, if he may be trusted, is informed in a low key, that certain articles may be had, but not au maximum.—Thus even the rich cannot obtain the necessaries of life without difficulty and submitting to imposition—and the decent poor, who will not pillage nor intimidate the tradesmen, are ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... other side. The instructions which he received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be studied; for they furnish a key to the policy systematically pursued by his master towards England during the twenty years which preceded our revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis wrote, were alarming. Strong hopes were entertained there that James would ally himself closely with the House of Austria, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Again, the emotional key to Scott's poetry was on a comprehensible plane. The situations with which he deals, the passions, ambitions, satisfactions, which he portrays, belong, in one form or another, to all men, or at least are ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... and above me on the bank I saw calmly the stone where my living double had left his cripple's cane, and thought to myself for one sharp moment, "Fool!"—for I looked forward. If I had not drowned, that was the key-note of the theme. Something that was me and was not me rose up from the water-wall and went away,—a man racked and broken by a great sorrow, it is true, but a man conscious of God. Life had turned ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... a last leave. You will be amazed-even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning— instead of being under lock and key in the country—walked down stairs, took her footman, said she was going to breakfast with Lady Sarah, but would call at Miss Reade's; in the street, pretended to recollect a particular cap in which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... of the critical! Let us pause upon the phrase, for it is a key to the whole attitude of the Augustan mind toward "our old tragick poet." Shakspere was already a national possession. Indeed it is only after the Restoration that we find any clear recognition of him, as one of the greatest—as perhaps himself the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... a key to right thinking about gardens if you consider in what kind of places a garden is most desired. In a very beautiful country, especially if it be mountainous, we can do without it well enough; whereas in a flat and dull ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... sin; yet to escape from sin, is what the Bible demands. "Work 99:6 out your own salvation with fear and trembling," says the apostle, and he straightway adds: "for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good 99:9 pleasure" (Philippians ii. 12, 13). Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Sci- ence has opened the door of the human understanding. 99:12 None may pick the lock nor enter by some other door. The ordinary teachings are material and not spiritual. Christian Science teaches ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... with the New York survey gave him an excellent opportunity to become an expert practical geologist; his location being on the Hudson river district, offered him a fine field of action, as it is really the key to the geology and mineralogy ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... lips seemed to be framing certain words. Frederick understood legno santo, Toilers of the Light, and even what his uncle had said about "up with you in the dismal air." But Peter Schmidt thrust his fist through the glass door, pulled Rasmussen's embroidered cap off his head, took from it a little key, and beckoned Frederick to come away with him. They left the houses behind and stepped out into ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... door in the dead of night and trying to noiselessly turn the key in a pitiless lock, ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... True, the tribunal in question did not altogether believe in Gorshkov, but I do so. The matter is of a nature so complex and crooked that probably a hundred years would be insufficient to unravel it; and, though it has now to a certain extent been cleared up, the merchant still holds the key to the situation. Personally I side with Gorshkov, and am very sorry for him. Though lacking a post of any kind, he still refuses to despair, though his resources are completely exhausted. Yes, it is a tangled affair, and meanwhile he must live, for, unfortunately, another child which has been born ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... sent for you to ask if anybody has been here; that is to say, if anybody has applied to you for the key of my rooms ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... is falling down, Falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down My fair lady! You've stole my watch and kept my keys, My fair lady! Off to prison you must go, My fair lady! Take the key and lock her up, My ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... Five hundred and fifty-five is the Mark of the Man; the triumphant tribune and citizen. A number so symmetrical as that really rises out of the region of science into the region of art. It is a pattern, like the egg-and-dart ornament or the Greek key. One might edge a wall-paper or fringe a robe with a recurring decimal. And while the voter luxuriated in this light exactitude of the numbers, a thought crossed his mind and he almost leapt to his feet. "Why, good heavens!" he cried. "I won that election; and ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... roof,—the clerestory windows, they are called. Betty could see the massive roof, the long aisles crowded with marble monuments, and the pillars. The canon's voice was heard intoning in a deep, monotonous key; reading followed, and then some one sang, in a high, clear voice, which seemed to come from far away, and yet to fill all the space of the great building. Betty could not have spoken a word; she was filled with a kind of wondering awe such as she ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... thought the creature turned round and inserted the tip of his tail in the key hole. In a moment the door flew open, and seizing the silver teapot in his claws, the cat sprang back with it to his mistress, who, snatching the teapot, hid it under her red cloak. At this Polly sprang to her feet, with a cry of mingled ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... this bit of information to percolate Miss Penny's understanding, and when it did she uttered a shrill scream, banged her door, turned the key, and shot ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... a door and turned a key. He had other thoughts to occupy him—great thoughts. The light-house was all but built. The Chief Engineer had paid a surprise visit, praised his work, and talked about another sea light soon to be raised on the North Welsh Coast; used words that indeed hinted, not obscurely, at promotion. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... magnolia-tree. Going through glass doors that opened outwards into the verandah, Mrs. Carr entered a room luxuriously furnished as a boudoir. This had apparently no other exit, and Arthur was beginning to wonder where the museum could be, when she took a tiny bramah key from her watch-chain, and with it opened a door that was papered and painted to match the wall exactly. He followed her, and found himself in a stone passage, dimly lighted from above, and sloping downwards, that led to a doorway graven in the rock, on the model ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... 'tis the last instrument I sign, unless I get better. To think of Gar'ner's coming back, after all! It has put new life in me, and I shall be about, ag'in, in a week, if he has only not forgotten the key, and the ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... in order to drive Charles out of the central provinces, resolved to take Orleans, which was the key to the south,—a city on the north bank of the Loire, strongly fortified and well provisioned. This was in 1428. The probabilities were that this city would fall, for it was already besieged, and was beginning ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord



Words linked to "Key" :   space, device, coigne, backspacer, keyboard, achene, class, attorney, separate, backspace, atonality, samara, lever, important, action mechanism, poet, slang, chord, basketball game, foul line, render, latchkey, master key, Florida, basketball court, pitch, screw key, tab, lingo, kg, space bar, describe, kilo, paint, patois, action, basketball, harmonise, home key, assort, classify, musical notation, jargon, shift, of import, sort out, on-key, key stroke, fundamental, listing, argot, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, explanation, coral reef, major key, arch, furnish, bit, Key West, building block, mechanical device, Everglade State, minor mode, coign, kilogram, identify, positive identification, hoops, music, provide, list, major mode, primal, reconcile, FL, stem, lawyer, cant, master, passe-partout, vernacular, harmonize, return, Francis Scott Key, cay, quoin, vandalise, supply, name, sort, shank, key palm, return key, vandalize, Sunshine State



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com