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On purpose   /ɑn pˈərpəs/   Listen
On purpose

adverb
1.
With intention; in an intentional manner.  Synonyms: advisedly, by choice, by design, deliberately, designedly, intentionally, purposely.  "I did this by choice"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"On purpose" Quotes from Famous Books



... it possible Lady Donegall, being Irish, might be a patroness of * *, and was rather sorry for my opinion, as I hate putting people into fusses, either with themselves or their favourites; it looks as if one did it on purpose. The party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after dinner that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... scratch—I'll tie it up with a bit of rag," and he began fumbling about in his dirty pockets as he spoke. "There's the donkey and the others waiting for us just five minutes farther;" and for once the gipsy spoke the truth. The way he had brought the children was in reality a great round, chosen on purpose to bewilder them, so that the rest of his party had been able to reach the meeting-place he had appointed very much more quickly ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth

... stone struck a horse that was bringing up a sheaf of arrows in a cart, bowled the horse over dead like a rabbit, and spilt the cart. It was then turned at the besiegers' wooden tower, supposed to be out of shot. Sir Turk slung stones cut with sharp edges on purpose, and struck it repeatedly, and broke it in several places. The besiegers turned two of their slinging engines on this monster, and kept constantly slinging smaller stones on to the platform of the barbican, and killed two of the engineers. But the Turk disdained to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... a bad horse," said Deerfoot, feeling that it was time to have a little sport with him. "He ran away from Deerfoot on purpose. If he had had any sense he would have left the Assiniboines and set out to find Deerfoot instead of making Deerfoot travel so ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... in by Jessie Litton and left the place next Nell vacant for Billy. "People never empty their champagne glasses when Mr. Goodloe gets to talking, and you can put the extra bottles back in the cellar for next time. Do you suppose he does it on purpose?" ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... that time only to have your wheat frozen later on and when you took three days on purpose to haul in a wagonload to the elevator you couldn't get a decent offer for it. So that you pulled off your mitts and clenched your frost-cracked hands as you prepared to turn homeward with but a pitiful portion of the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... to be able to do that. I was much amused when Peterkin said this; for if he could only have seen his own face when he happened to take a short dive, he would have seen that Jack's was far surpassed by it. The great difference being, however, that Jack made faces on purpose—Peterkin couldn't help it! ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... before Christmas our hostess, or landlady, was very busy with an old body in the kitchen, who had come to make sundry cakes in preparation for that festive season. We were all called down to see what was going on, and our attention was particularly directed to the great oven which was heated on purpose to bake them. One kind of cake was made of chesnut flour, another of eggs and broche (a kind of curds made from goats' milk), but the principal sort was composed chiefly of almonds, extremely good and not unlike macaroons, but thicker and more substantial. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... believe my words. Who, then, is to blame?" Upon this the kazi began to cool, and said so the dyer, "I must tell you, friend Omar, that this morning there came to me a most beautiful damsel, who pretended that you were her father, and that you represented her to everybody as a monster, on purpose to deter all suitors that came to ask her in marriage." "My lord," answered the dyer, "this beautiful damsel must be an impostor; some one, undoubtedly, owes you a grudge." Then the kazi, having reflected ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... a very safe tool, indeed, for the cutting part, which consists of a plate of iron, faced with steel for an edge, is almost embedded in the wood. It is made in fact on purpose to take off a thin shaving only, from a board, and it would be impossible to make a deep cut into any thing ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott

... so much heroism, candour and self-sacrifice. All my life I have been accustomed to see him more or less indifferent to everything but his own pleasure, and more or less careless of the griefs of others; but now it seems as if he had kept himself back on purpose, only to declare his true character more openly and ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... the cause at full, The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings Of counsel to nonsuit, or to annul, There 's more than one edition, and the readings Are various, but they none of them are dull; The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney, Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... been superfluous, for Mr. Gruppe deals principally with the history of classical mythology, not with the history of the belief in the gods of antiquity. So I have ventured to let my sketch stand as it is, only reducing some of the notes (which I had on purpose made rather full, to aid others who might pursue the subject) by referring to Mr. Gruppe instead of to the ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... was impossible now through want of means and time. Besides, his stubborn will looked upon such flight as a shameful concession. "We must finish what we have begun!" he said to himself. He had made the trip on purpose to guard his own, and he must not flee at the approach of danger. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... that. You loved her, but she did not love you. She loved me and married me. And it is I who know her character, not you. She is very clever and pretends a great deal more than she feels. If she makes you think she is unhappy and helpless, she does it on purpose. She may be unhappy, because to keep secrets is often to court unhappiness; but she is not helpless at all. Her eyes look helpless; her mouth never. There is power and will ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... mother would not let me know you. She and I are always—always—we never agree, you know. I don't think we can help it; we certainly don't do it on purpose—at least I don't; but there's something in us that makes us jar about everything. I was going to tell her all about you on Sunday night; but when I got in I couldn't. She began by being angry because I was late, without waiting ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... it on purpose, you horrid boy! I 'll never let you have anything to do with my fun again!" cried Fan, in a passion, trying to catch and shake him, while he dodged and chuckled in ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... and then they seized the skewer, which I gave up to them, and danced with it to the spot where the delicate moss grew, and set it up in the middle of the green. They wanted a maypole, and the one they now had seemed cut out on purpose for them. Then they decorated it so beautifully that it was quite dazzling to look at. Little spiders spun golden threads around it, and then it was hung with fluttering veils and flags so delicately white that they glittered like snow in the moonshine. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... treatment he had received from England said that she had violated every sacred right in making him prisoner, that he should have been much better treated in Russia, Austria, or even Prussia; that he was sent to the horrible rock of St. Helena on purpose to die; that he had been purposely placed on the most uninhabitable spot of that inhospitable island, and kept six years a close prisoner, and that Sir Hudson Lowe was his executioner. He concluded with these words: "You will end like the proud republic of Venice; and I, dying upon this dreary ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... Aernem which was a howitzer's shot astern of us; in the evening, having come to anchor in 31/2 fathom 11/2 mile from the land, we hung out a lantern, that the Aernem might keep clear of us in dropping anchor, but this proved to be useless, for on purpose and with malice prepense she away from us against her instructions and our resolution, and seems to have set her course for Aru (to have a good time of it there), but we shall learn in time whether she ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... one vex us on purpose, Isabella. It is the bad state of our own hearts that makes us think we are not liked; and, besides, Jesus Christ has forbidden us to be angry even when there are real faults. He tells us to forgive others, ...
— The Good Resolution • Anonymous

... distinguishing the ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and began the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and Miss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to Longbourn on purpose to inquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other, was all ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Eustacia?" he asked. "'Tis almost bedtime. I've been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely 'tis somewhat childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing, that I laid by on purpose for Christmas—you have burnt 'em ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... within an hour she had returned. With an important look, she commenced her narrative, the daughters being accidentally present, and it might be on purpose. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... a devotion to the work of my Commission which was quite unusual with him, and he cut short his holiday and returned from Royat to London on purpose for our meeting.' ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... should be in the inner circle of knowledge of the life of her husband and herself, without her self-esteem being hurt like this. She was very woman, and the look of the thing was not nice to her eyes, while it must belittle her in theirs. Had this girl done it on purpose? Yet why should she—she who had so appealed to her to come to him—have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... general! for daddy says, as how, he is quite sartin, if you'll be there to-morrow night, you may make a proper smash among the tories; for they'll be there thick and threefold. They have heard, so they say, of your doings, and are going to hold this great meeting, on purpose to come all the way down ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... it." He immediately withdrew into an adjoining room; but Dr. Pearson, not being willing to give up his argument, followed him, which so annoyed Hunter, that he vehemently exclaimed, "You have followed me on purpose to be the death of me! You have murdered me!" and instantly fell and expired! Mrs. Byron, the mother of the noble bard, is said to have died in a fit of passion. Mr. Moore, in his life of Lord Byron, in speaking of Mrs. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... myself," Law tells us, "the high Dutch language, on purpose to know the original words of the blessed Jacob."' Overton's Life of Law, p. 181. Behmen, or Bhme, the mystic shoemaker of Gorlitz, was born in 1575, and died in 1624. 'His books may not hold at all honourable places in libraries; his name may be ridiculous. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... the incident of Horace MacNair, for it seemed that the old artist had walked over to the Ezekiels that night on purpose to talk with Auber about making a series of pictures of the salt marshes along the Passaic River. Old Horace was dead of his heart before Auber arrived, but the suggestion was repeated by Ezekiel; and ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... the literature of Rome reached its highest purity and terseness. Livy, the historian, secured the friendship of Augustus, and his reputation was so high that an enthusiastic Spaniard traveled from Cadiz on purpose to see him, and having gratified his curiosity, immediately returned home. He took the dry chronicles of his country, drew forth from them the poetry of the old traditions, and incited a patriotic spirit. A friend of the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... putting little Alured into the place I have held. My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he added to her. He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as if he had invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but my father ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... other, "we've come to the city on purpose to have a talk with you about that line you had run between your ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... laden with the rich smell of the dinner which he had eaten and was repaying in mean dirty slanders. There's for your truffes farcies; there's for your gelinottes, and your 'chateaux' at fifteen shillings a glass! Danjou and he have got together on purpose to play this popular game of running-down; and a great deal they know and a great deal they tell. Lavaux serves the ball and Danjou returns. And the simple Guardsman, not knowing how much to believe, tries to laugh, with a horrid fear lest the ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... them made small on purpose," he said. But she seemed to have forgotten the chocolates already, for her hand did ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... his feet, and his eyes were no laughing matter. He gripped his chair back, and leaned toward Jimmy. "You walked me into that cattle-guard on purpose!" he cried. ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... or pet the cat, or watch me knead the bread. She and Nathaniel got on famously together, and often I have found her helping him with the books, and laughing so merrily when he made a mistake. I used to think Nathaniel did it on purpose sometimes, just for the fun ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... flicking at his stirrup with his crop. "He's on formal terms with everybody, including himself. He never laughed on purpose in his life; once a month only, to keep his mouth in; that's his limit. Do you suppose any woman would stand for him if a better man looked sideways at her?" And, reversing his riding crop, he deliberately poked ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... even have an extraordinary knack of lending themselves to deception, a sort of curious and inexplicable propensity to allow themselves to be led by the nose with their eyes open. But a ship is a creature which we have brought into the world, as it were on purpose to keep us up to the mark. In her handling a ship will not put up with a mere pretender, as, for instance, the public will do with Mr. X, the popular statesman, Mr. Y, the popular scientist, or Mr. Z, the popular—what shall we say?—anything ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... who spoke were in haste. With a wild start the boy sprang to his feet, and the first thing he knew he was standing bolt upright, looking straight down the vista, which ran along the crest of the ridge, as if his head had been turned by him that had spoken on purpose that way, that he might see what there he saw. And had Sprigg seen the bison, the wild-cat, the wolf, all there in a row, the sight could hardly have daunted him more than did that of the object which now met his eyes. A sight, it was, which brought to his memory all that ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... and men, between men and animals—and finally, as a grand finish, the Christians and the condemned slaves were thrown to wild lions. Many of the lions had recently been captured from the jungle; so they were quite wild. And as they had been kept without food for two or three days on purpose, they were very ferocious and quite eager to eat the Christians and ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh

... was white, plaited in close like a curtain, and the dark soft weeping of her hair, and the shadowy light of her eyes (like a wood rayed through with sunset), made it seem yet whiter, as if it were done on purpose. As for the rest, she knew what it was a great deal better than I did, for I never could look far away from her eyes when ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... went on board of the ship which was waiting to carry them home. It was a beau-ti-ful ship with white sails and white masts, and it had been fitted up on purpose ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... event, and not relate fully the manner of it, lest a suspicion of blood-guiltiness should rest upon some innocent head? But while he was thus cogitating, he heard footsteps approaching along the wood-path; and half-impulsively, half on purpose, he stept aside into the shrubbery, but still where he could see the dead body, ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Oh, no; not leave the house, Jack. I have no son but you. Then do as you please—but you will not send away my butler—he escaped hanging last assizes on an undoubted charge of murder? I selected him on purpose, and must have him cured, and shown as a proof of a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... account—and the sooner the better! Later on, it would look to other people like a rupture. It must be done now, before we settle down to this state of things; for if we were to do that, it would be all up with us. To acquiesce in such an unnatural state of affairs would be like crippling one's self on purpose. I am entangled hand and foot here in the meshes of a net of circumspection. I shall have to sail along at "dead slow" all my life—creep about among their furniture and their flowers as warily as ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... Election. The 17th Article treats of Predestination, but in such a way as to make it very difficult to comprehend what it teaches with regard to this most controverted subject. It seems designedly drawn up, in guarded and general terms, on purpose to embrace all persons of tolerably moderate views. ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... Congregational Union was initiated in the Albany Convention on purpose to protect Eastern friends from the miscellaneous and irresponsible and persistent solicitation for individual church enterprise. It is the business of that Society to receive, inspect and decide upon all such applications. Take ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various

... letter to Zulma earlier than he expected. He had intended to go out to the Sarpy mansion on purpose to do so, but to his surprise and pleasure, he encountered her that very day in the environs of Quebec. She was on horseback, accompanied by a servant. As soon as she spied the old soldier, she rode up to him and greeted him in the warmest language. A few ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... principle is unalterable which inspired the sympathy. Who will not venerate those master-spirits "whose PUBLISHED LABOURS advance the good of mankind," and those BOOKS which are "the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life?" But it has happened that I have more than once incurred the censure of the inconsiderate and the tasteless, for attempting to separate those writers who exist in a state of perpetual illusion; who live on querulously, which ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... over meditatively. The fancy seized me that it had been left there on purpose—my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a half away—a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as I summoned ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... day, and you're goin' to meetin'! It's a pretty business for a deacon!' That sort o' cooled me off. But I do say that, for about a minute, I wished I wasn't a deacon. But 't wouldn't made any difference, for I came down next day to mill on purpose, and I came down once or twice more, and nothin' was to be seen, tho' I tried him with the most temptin' things. Wal, next Sunday I came along ag'in, and, to save my life I couldn't keep off worldly and wanderin' thoughts. I tried to be sayin' my catechism, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the pond ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... couldn't get a decent pennyworth of milk in all Camden Town. He laughed, and said it would be a very desirable measure, only too great an interference with the liberty of the subject. I told him that kind of liberty was just what law in general owed its existence to, and was there on purpose to interfere with; but he did ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... exercise; take time for relaxation; but make steady reading your object and your business. Do not be so weak, or so unmanly, or so vain, as to be ashamed of being known to read. You went to Oxford on purpose to study; why should you be ashamed of keeping that purpose ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... her favorite habits, or her eternal longing,—everything about her offended them: and the worst of all was that, as she was, she did give pleasure. Frau Vogel could not forgive her that. It was almost as though Sabine did it on purpose, on purpose, ironically, to set at naught by her conduct the great traditions, the true principles, the savorless duty, the pleasureless labor, the restlessness, the noise, the quarrels, the mooning ways, the healthy ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... the historians, Livy is the only one whose writings are known to us, and only fragments of his history. [Footnote: Born B.C. 59.] He was a man of distinction at court, and had a great literary reputation—so great that a Spaniard traveled from Cadiz on purpose to see him. Most of the great historians of the world have occupied places of honor and rank, which were given to them not as prizes for literary successes, but for the experience, knowledge, and culture which high social position ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... Lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; Had, having had, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream; All this the world well knows; yet none knows well, To shun ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... me," Auntie told him; "for I have brought my valuables with me—jewellery and money, too. I always take them with me, in strange places. I could never enjoy the play if my mind were not at rest. I wear a bag concealed in the skirt of my dress on purpose." ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... angel, Dulcimer!" he repeated; "for Ruby's an angel of a horse, Dulcimer. He sprained his ankle and got fat on purpose." ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... accident return, think of me.'—'In another week you will have left Beaucaire.' remarked Caderousse, 'for the fair ends in a few days.'—'True, but that makes no difference. Write to me at Paris, to M. Joannes, in the Palais Royal, arcade Pierre, No. 45. I will make the journey on purpose to see him, if it is worth while.' At this moment there was a tremendous clap of thunder, accompanied by a flash of lightning so vivid, that it quite eclipsed ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... again. Tinker, tailor, soldier! Lucky you! My plum stones generally give me beggar-man or thief. Silk, satin, muslin, rags; silk, satin! You've got all the luck to-night. Coach, carriage! You're not blowing fair, Renie! You did that on purpose so that it shouldn't come wheelbarrow! Only one candle left—let's leave it lighted ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... interwoven with every part of the Oration which were displeasing to the Auditory. It was remarkd that he could not even keep their Attention. A Circle of Ladies, who had seated themselves in a convenient place on purpose to see as well as hear the Orator, that they might take every Advantage for the Indulgence of Griefe on so melancholly an Occasion, were observd to look much disappointed and chagrind. The next day a Motion was made in Congress for requesting a ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... and she had done it on purpose, but he could not know that, and as she dropped the rupees into the craving hands, and turned and walked away with him, he was held in a frightened silence. There was nothing perhaps that he wanted to talk of more than of his experience at the theatre; he longed to have ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... her part, and declaring that Judith could not help it if little miss would come into her room; but Dan, who had qualified last night's revel with another mug of ale, was quite past all reason, and declared that Judith called the girl up on purpose to bring him into trouble, and that nothing but harm had ever come of her canting, Methody ways, and he had a good mind to kick her out at once to the workhouse, and would do so, if she brought them Gobblealls down on him again. There had been nothing but plague ever since they came into ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not apostles he writ to," said my Aunt Kezia. "And he says he writ on purpose that ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... you any precedent to show that an action of this sort will lie, without proof of malice in the defendants, or that the act of disfranchisement was done on purpose to deprive the plaintiff of the particular advantage which resulted to him from his corporate character? I believe this is a case of the first impression, where an action of this kind had been brought, ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... his whip and said gruffly, "Come on!" as though the animal had shaken its load loose on purpose. The little caravan started again, ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith

... it with the white of four or five eggs; let it boil one hour, and when it is almost cold work it with strong ale yeast, and tun it, filling up the vessel from time to time with the same liquor, saved on purpose, as it sinks by working. In a month's time, if the vessel holds about eight gallons, it will be fine and fit to bottle, and after bottling, will be fit to ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... fond of looking into it, and would ask many questions about the papal cruelties he saw depicted there, which I explained to him. I made such progress with this youth, especially in religion, that when I used to go to bed at different hours of the night, if he was in his bed, he would get up on purpose to go to prayer with me, without any other clothes than his shirt; and before he would eat any of his meals amongst the gentlemen in the cabin, he would first come to me to pray, as he called it. I was well pleased at this, and took great delight in him, ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... meet the beguiling glance of the deep blue eyes. Peggy's heart went out towards the beautiful creature, and she felt a thrill of complacent pride in the knowledge that Rosalind had left her other friends on purpose to enjoy her own society. They sat down in a corner of the refreshment-room and smiled at one another shyly, while Rob went in search of ices, for though there was much to say, it was not easy to know where to begin, and after four years' separation ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... tree: it was about thirty feet high, and its slender trunk was covered with large star-like crimson flowers, which surrounded it like a garland, and Grace and Emily declared they thought some one had come on purpose to adorn it. In one spot a number of these trees grew all together, producing a most beautiful and brilliant effect; others were immense trees with furrowed stems; and now and then we came to a magnificent fig-tree, which ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... joined together as if on purpose to disgust him with it. The bad season of the year was nigh when he began to reside there. Autumn rains had started, and the mornings and evenings were cold. What with his delicate chest, and his African constitution sensitive to cold, he must have suffered from this ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... transpired that by shooting himself at that time he saved my money. One cannot take proceedings against a dead man, it appears. So I was left a rich woman, after all, and my husband had frustrated Otto von Holzen. The world did not believe that my husband had done it on purpose; but I knew better. It is one of those beliefs that one keeps to one's self, and is indifferent whether the world believes or not. So there remain but two things for me to do—the one is to enjoy the money, and to let my husband see that ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... his entrance upon personal exercise of the kingly power produced no change in the conduct of public affairs. There was no vain seeking after innovation on purpose to mark the accession of a new master, and no reaction in the deeds and words of the sovereign or in the choice and treatment of his advisers; the kingship of the son was a continuance of the mother's government. Louis persisted in struggling for the preponderance ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... evolved an idea: "It is like enough that that pig of an Emperor has sat himself down in the road, with his baggage, on purpose to keep us here." ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... she dropped it on purpose?" I exclaimed with more interest, for I suddenly foresaw the remainder ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... heat was but short. The girl was wearying already, and had made for the shelter of the hill on purpose to avoid being caught in sight of the rest. Olof tore madly down the slope. The girl gave one glance round, turned vaguely with an instinct of defence; next moment she felt Olof's two hands ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... of Shoreditch, or merely an old building converted into a playhouse, we cannot say. It seems to have been something more than an inn-yard fitted up for dramatic purposes, and yet something less than the "sumptuous theatre houses" erected "on purpose" for plays to the north ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... brought Grannie back with me on purpose to give you what you deserve," he said. "She told me she was going to take a stick to you as soon as she saw you, for playing ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... the wickedness of men produces every day, than it would have done in a state of innocence, it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show to all the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who should suffer seditions and factions to increase through all his kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them.... This is that doctrine of a Father of the Church who said, 'Felix ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... had a consultation, "and your priests were put to it, how to prove them as your law had said: and ye had them before you again, and your priests were with you, every one by his side (so came ye to your court) and John Norton must ask them questions, on purpose to ensnare them, that by your standing law for hereticks, ye might condemn them (as your priests before consulted) and when this would not do (for the Lord was with them, and made them wiser than your teachers) ye made a law to banish them, upon pain of death...." [Footnote: ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... Gray contrived to be tardy that morning on purpose, in order to set an example of exact and cheerful submission to the law, and to give a practical illustration, in her own case, of the strictness with which, when once enacted, such laws ought to be enforced. She knew very well that if she had once submitted to be fined, when she was only a minute ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

... hyacinths and such aromatic pinks,—and many others, some of which seemed to be of new shapes and colors. Two or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. Proserpina's apron was soon filled and brimming over with delightful blossoms. She was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea-nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together. ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... abusing me; and every time he thought he saw a chance he tried to pass me. But the pony was always a bit too smart for him. You might have thought the brute was doing it on purpose. ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... perfectly right about your Uncle Donald's moustache, but I don't agree with you that it is more his misfortune than his fault. I think he does it on purpose. ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... must hear of the corn-shucking. The one at which I was present was given on purpose that I might witness the humors of the Carolina negroes. A huge fire of light-wood was made near the corn-house. Light-wood is the wood of the long-leaved pine, and is so called, not because it is light, for it is almost the heaviest wood in the world, but because it gives more light ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... to theire being and subsistence." Rumors had been raised, the declaration went on, that by a recent ordinance of Parliament, all foreigners were prohibited from trading with any of the English plantations "which wee conceive to bee the invention of some English merchants on purpose to affright and expell the Dutch, and make way for themselves to monopolize not onely our labours and fortunes, but even our persons." The declaration noted the baneful effects on the colony of ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... to deliver them is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end: and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account; for, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it, for they ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... Boris seriously, "I got up on purpose, for I sent to ask uncle whether he would see me directly after breakfast; I must ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... richest Genoa velvet, the astonished boy could not at first account for his difficulty in putting them on. "Marry," said he, "these breeches that my blessed mother" (tears filled his fine eyes as he thought of her)—"that my blessed mother had made long on purpose, are now ten inches too short for me. Whir-r-r! my coat cracks i' the back, as in vain I try to buckle it round me; and the sleeves reach no farther than my elbows! What is this mystery? Am I grown fat and tall in a single night? Ah! ah! ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to cross by ferry to get to Groton—old Fort Griswold—and the New London side is too amusing. Practically all the boy population of America seemed to be there to see us off. They had come on purpose to tell motorists what to do and whither to proceed, thus extracting dimes in gratitude or blackmail. Good gracious! If we tried to do half the things they advised, nay, insisted on, we'd be as busy as bees the rest of our lives or else go mad! I can tell you we were thankful ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor which may be due"—as a debt payable in service or labor. Also it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... said to himself, 'If ever the naughty Ganimard is on the track of the Blonde Lady, how useful it will be for me to shunt him on to the track of the honest tradeswoman!' A wise precaution, which has borne fruit. A little note sent to the naughty Ganimard's newspaper, a bottle of scent forgotten on purpose at the Hotel Beaurivage by the real Blonde Lady, Mme. Real's name and address written by the real Blonde Lady in the visitors' book at the hotel, and the trick is done. What do you say to it, Ganimard? ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... aware o', p'raps," says he. "An' it's a bad sign o' a man whan he'll no tell his name," says he. This touched me to the quick, an' I dare say the vagabond kent it wad, an' did it on purpose. It was a wipe at my character which I could by nae means submit to. So says I ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... to work helping to unfasten the ropes, which were laced in and out of the basket-handles, and through the iron stays, and beneath the hooks placed on purpose about the cart, after which the ropes were made into neat bunches by Ike, who passed them from hand to elbow over and over and tied them in the middle, and then in a row to the ladder of ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... quality of an intelligent, almost sophisticated mind, which had repudiated education. On purpose he kept the midland accent in his speech. He understood perfectly what a personification was—and an allegory. But he ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... Haven't you come on purpose to see it?" asked the keeper, in astonishment,—and then proceeded to explain, that this is the famous Fresnel light, the identical structure exhibited at the great Exposition at Paris, bought there by an agent of the United States, and shipped by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... booksellers. It would make you stare to read their answers.... One man publishes nothing but school-books; another has five novels already under examination; ... another gentleman is just giving up business on purpose, I verily believe, to escape publishing my book.... In short, of all the seventeen booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read my tales; and he—a literary dabbler himself, I should judge—has the impertinence to criticise them, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... half past one in the morning. We had sat up late on purpose; we had gone without our dinner; we had walked two miles. The professor suggested pinning up the tails of his clerically-cut coat and turning in his waistcoat. The doorkeeper feared it would not be quite ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... betters, that were soon expected under the reverend bodies of Father Philemy and his curate; whilst about half a bushel of oats was left in the manger, to regale them on their arrival. Little Richard Maguire was sent down to the five-acres, with the pigs, on purpose to keep them from about the house, they not being supposed fit company at a set-dinner. A roaring turf fire, which blazed two yards up the chimney, had been put down; on this was placed a large pot, filled with water for the tea, because ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... cou'd twist As tough as learned SORBONIST; And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull That's empty when the moon is full; 160 Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished. He could raise scruples dark and nice, And after solve 'em in a trice; As if Divinity had catch'd 165 The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd; Or, like a mountebank, did wound And stab herself with doubts profound, Only to show with how small pain The sores of Faith are cur'd again; 170 Although by woeful proof we find, They always leave a scar behind. He knew the seat of Paradise, Could tell in what degree ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... time, we discarded our naked candle in favour of the rising moon. We had started before the moon on purpose, but as we shall see she gave us little light. However, we owed our escape from a very sticky death to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... homeward, Thor met his brother at the entrance to the avenue. They had not spoken since the preceding night. On purpose to avoid a meeting, Claude had breakfasted early and escaped to town before Thor had come down-stairs. In the glimpse Thor had caught of his younger brother as the latter left the house he saw that he ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... dishes, and swims in grease; gravy is not an institution in American hotels, but grease has taken its place. It is palpable, undisguised grease, floating in rivers—not grease caused by accidental bad cookery, but grease on purpose. A beef-steak is not a beef-steak unless a quarter of a pound of butter be added to it. Those horrid little dishes! If one thinks of it, how could they have been made to contain Christian food? Every article in that long list is liable to the call of any number of guests for four ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... in summing up, "that, as a snobbish person, she could hardly be expected to forgive you for forgetting her, when she had been introduced to you four times in a season. She not unnaturally fancied you forgot her on purpose, so ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... whilst a story I tell, Of twenty black tradesmen who were brought up in hell, On purpose poor people to rob of their due; There's none shall be nooz'd if you find but one true. [1] The first was a coiner, that stampt in a mould; The second a voucher to put off his gold, [2] Toure you well; hark you well, see [3] Where they ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... false beliefe they have, that they can do such mischiefe, joyned with their purpose to do it if they can; their trade being neerer to a new Religion, than to a Craft or Science. And for Fayries, and walking Ghosts, the opinion of them has I think been on purpose, either taught, or not confuted, to keep in credit the use of Exorcisme, of Crosses, of holy Water, and other such inventions of Ghostly men. Neverthelesse, there is no doubt, but God can make unnaturall Apparitions. But that he does it so often, as men need to feare such things, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... himself, in his absurd attire and bound upon his ambiguous errand, he was all out of the picture—horribly suggestive of an addled sparrow who had stayed up all night on purpose to cheat some legitimately early bird out ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... her shoulder and nodded. The maid looked at me out of her great black eyes, as though daring me to follow them, and, was it my fancy, or did that little morsel of canine absurdity really show me its white teeth on purpose? Anyhow, they strolled away, and left me there. I waited ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... spirit. The Huckster soon afterwards set off for the sea-shore for some more Salt, and loaded the Ass, if possible, yet more heavily than before. On their return, as they crossed the stream into which he had formerly fallen, the Ass fell down on purpose, and by the dissolving of the Salt, was again released from his load. The Master, provoked at the loss, and thinking how he might cure him of this trick, on his next journey to the coast freighted the beast with a load of sponges. When they arrived at the same stream as before, the Ass was ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... frightened, daddy. I lay awake on purpose, at first, because you promised to come and kiss me when you came home ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... on a bare rock just above the water's edge. I pointed it out to Peter, and he said it was a pity I had not got my rifle with me. I did not agree with him. If I had brought the rifle Peter would have insisted on my shooting at the seal. I should certainly not have hit it on purpose, for I am averse from injuring gentle creatures; but I might perhaps have killed or wounded it by accident, for my shooting is very uncertain. In any case I should have broken nature's peace, and made a horrible commotion. Perhaps the seal heard Peter's remark or divined his feeling ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... voice and continued gloomily: "Just now, in front of the girl, I said on purpose that it was empty. No, it's not empty. It's very ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so—and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some "females"—as he always calls women—in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannonblast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... hand, the locks of the strong-box had sustained no violence that he could observe, and, being of a particular and complicated construction, he thought they could scarce be opened without an instrument made on purpose, adapted to their peculiarities, and for this there had been no time. But, speculate as he would on the matter, it was clear that this important document was gone, and probable that it had passed into no friendly hands. "Let it be so," said Nigel to himself; ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... report of her majesty's being at Sir George Carew's, Sir W. Ralegh having gazed and sighed a long time at his study window, from whence he might discern the barges and boats about the Blackfriars stairs, suddenly brake out into a great distemper, and sware that his enemies had on purpose brought her majesty thither to break his gall in sunder with Tantalus's torments, that when she went away he might see death before his eyes; with many such like conceits. And, as a man transported with passion, he sware to Sir George Carew that he would disguise ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... strictly forbidden for a man to go without common air in his lungs for more than a very few minutes; and if by any chance he gets into the water, the air-god is very angry, and will not suffer it; no matter whether the man got into the water by accident or on purpose, whether through the attempt to save a child or through presumptuous contempt of the air-god, the air-god will kill him, unless he keeps his head high enough out of the water, and thus ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... please!) If I only was like that little butcher's boy that he lets ride on the seat with him, and hold the reins when he takes meat into the houses,—or if I only was that freckled-face boy with the straw hat that lives on the way to the store! His mother keeps coming out to the gate on purpose to kiss him. Or if I was even Billy Pennell! He's had three mothers and two fathers in three years, Jabe says. Jabe likes me, I think, but he can't have me live at his house, because his mother is the kind that needs plenty of ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... I ate no dinner, and when I did, it was almost drowned in grog. Occasionally I drove out in a coach, or a gig, and generally had something extra to pay for damages. One of these cruises cost me forty dollars, and I shall always think I was given a horse that sailed crab-fashion, on purpose to do me out of the money. At night, I generally went to the play, and felt bound to treat the landlord and his family to tickets and refreshments. We always had a coach to go in, and it was a reasonable night that cost me only ten dollars. At first I was a sort of "king ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... minister put it down, as the Raja knew he would, and going to the idol, prostrated himself before it preparatory to taking away the water. In that state he was cut down by Bihari,[6] another feudal Rajput baron, who aspired to the seals, and some of his friends, who had been placed there on purpose by the Raja. He obtained the seals by his service, and, as he was allowed to place one brother in command of the forces, and to make another chamberlain, he hoped to retain them longer than any of his predecessors had done. Gambhir ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Sam's departure that he spoke of his daughter and young Phillips. He mentioned them in a most casual fashion, as he was putting on his coat to go, but Jed had a feeling that his friend had stopped at the windmill shop on purpose to discuss that very subject and that all the detail of his Wapatomac trip had been in the nature of a subterfuge to conceal ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... sinister ambiguity of his expressions, hastened to explain. 'This time he shall go hunting in a carriage, with a good escort of our foreign lancers. His destination shall be the Felsenburg; it is healthy, the rock is high, the windows are small and barred; it might have been built on purpose. We shall intrust the captaincy to the Scotsman Gordon; he at least will have no scruple. Who will miss the sovereign? He is gone hunting; he came home on Tuesday, on Thursday he returned; all is usual in that. Meanwhile ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... through Jim's mind that the ancient servitor had brought the broom on purpose. It was clear that the servants did not have a very high opinion of their American visitors. The next time he returned he had gotten the right brush, and made a point of sneezing as the dust flew from their mud-dried clothes. ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt

... shepherd had made the leader of his people. No such hope was in his heart when, forty years before, he hid in the woods from a bloodthirsty enemy. For what he had done wrong as king, he asked the people's pardon; it was not done on purpose. He knew well that many thought him a hard ruler, but the time would come when they would gladly dig him up from his grave if they only could. And with that he went out, bowing deeply to the Diet, the tears streaming down ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... all right. I got him up when he wanted to be on the floor. He pinched my arm fearful. He's very strong, my Daddy is! He didn't pinch it on purpose, he couldn't help it." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... everything's done on purpose. My elephant raced away, trumpeting in agony, at twenty miles an hour. The driver lost his balance and fell off; the other man, scrambling along to take his place and steer the monster, fell off after him, taking both my guns ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood



Words linked to "On purpose" :   unintentionally, deliberately, accidentally



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