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Set back   /sɛt bæk/   Listen
Set back

verb
1.
Hold back to a later time.  Synonyms: defer, hold over, postpone, prorogue, put off, put over, remit, shelve, table.
2.
Slow down the progress of; hinder.
3.
Cost a certain amount.  Synonyms: knock back, put back.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Set back" Quotes from Famous Books



... asunder on this merciless rack Of imagery! O, let me sleep a while! Would I could sleep, and wake to find me back In that sweet summer afternoon with you. Summer? 'Tis summer still by the calendar! How easily could God, if He so willed, Set back the world a little turn or two! Correct its griefs, and ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... flooded as far back or as far forward as the engine room and she would float, though she might take on a heavy list, or settle considerably at one end. To provide against just such an accident as she is said to have encountered she had set back a good distance from the bows an extra heavy cross partition known as the collision bulkhead, which would prevent water getting in amidships, even though a good part of her bow should be torn away. What a ship ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... and disingenuous are human affairs. Mr. Brumley had made himself see and had made her see how inevitable these big wholesale ways of doing things, these organizations and close social co-operations, have become unless there is to be a social disintegration and set back, and he had also brought himself and her to realize how easily they may develop into a new servitude, how high and difficult is the way towards methods of association that will ensure freedom and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... knew the gigantic character of the stakes for which men played. If the French triumphed here in America, then the old Bourbon monarchy, which Willet told him was so diseased and corrupt, would appear triumphant to all the world. It would invent new tyrannies, the cause of liberty and growth would be set back generations, and nobody would be trodden under the heel more than the French people themselves. Robert liked the French, and sometimes the thought occurred to him that the English and Americans were fighting not only their own battle but that of the ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to the Place des Quinconces, crossed it, and entered the Jardin Public. The band was not playing and, though there were a number of people about, the place was by no means crowded, and they were able to find under a large tree set back a little from one of the walks, two vacant chairs. Here they sat down, enjoying the soft evening air, warm but no longer too warm, and watching the ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... alarmed over the fate of the king of France, began to fear for themselves. They, too, had taxed and oppressed their subjects. They felt that this revolt of the French people must be put down, and the king of France set back upon his throne, otherwise the same kind of revolt might take place in their countries as well. Accordingly, the king of Prussia, the king of England, and the emperor of Austria all made war on the new French Republic. They proposed ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... town are quite irregular, and in a general way run from north to south. The houses are constructed to face the east. They are of stone laid in mortar, and are usually three or four stories high. The second story stands back upon the first, leaving a terrace over one tier of rooms. The third is set back of the second, and the fourth back of the third; so that their houses are terraced to face the east. These terraces on the top are all flat, and the people usually ascend to the first terrace by a ladder and then by another ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... trials of a machine for the United States Government at Fort Myer, just across the Potomac from Washington, the Wrights seriously offended a certain sort of public sentiment in a way which undoubtedly set back the encouragement of aviation by the United ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... bacteria and germs—the yeasty forms of life—are familiar to many of us. And yet there are forms of life still below these. The line between living forms and non-living forms is being set back further and further by science. Living creatures are now known that resemble the non-living so closely that the line cannot ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... and he came towards me, a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... wolf of the Rocky Mountains.' There were six of them in all. Each of them was twice the size of the prairie wolf; and their long dark bodies, gaunt with hunger, and crested from head to tail with a high bristling mane, gave them a most fearful appearance. They ran with their ears set back, and their jaws apart, so that we could see the red ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... been wrote about, I guess; at least if it was I never read it, and I read considerable. But the trouble is, them that know ain't in the writing business, and them that write don't know. The way I've figured it, they set back East somewhere and write it like they think maybe it is; and it's a hell of a job they ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... at their extremities near the doors, held two very small chapels set back in niches painted blue, like the cupola, containing above two stone altars without ornament, two mediocre statues, one of Saint ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... stream that, for the greater part of the year, ran beneath them. It was a large stream at some seasons, however, and so was the Single River into which it fell; and the water from the Single sometimes set back under the bridges and over the low land till the house seemed to stand on an island. The Single River could not be seen from the house, although it was so near, because the railway hid it, and all else in that direction, except the ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson

... Bertrade. "Five of thy father's knights be ample protection for so short a journey. By evening it will have been accomplished; and, as the only one I fear in these parts received such a sound set back from Roger de Conde recently, I do not think he will venture again to ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... her father played cruel juggler's tricks upon her. For beside him now walked a man so strangely resembling him in height, in bearing and in build that, but for the difference of clothing and the bearded face, it might be himself had the clock of his life been set back ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... the Cap'n, in tones of authority. And when it was done, he straightened his hat, set back his shoulders, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... desert far below, and then they are thickly plastered with a mixture of adobe and water. Many families live in the same pueblo, but there are no openings from one room to another. Each house has its own entrance. There are generally three stories to each pueblo, the second one set back eight or ten feet on the roof of the first, and the third a like distance on the top of the second. This forms a terrace or balcony where many ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith

... I remembered in Virginia. He was tall and slender, and his thin shoulders stooped. He looked at us understandingly, then took grandmother's hand and bent over it. I noticed how white and well-shaped his own hands were. They looked calm, somehow, and skilled. His eyes were melancholy, and were set back deep under his brow. His face was ruggedly formed, but it looked like ashes—like something from which all the warmth and light had died out. Everything about this old man was in keeping with his dignified manner. He was ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... attained a height that would give ample shade under most conditions, and too much when we were there, for the roads were very muddy, although they had dried in all other sections. Nearing Vernal, we passed Nathan Galloway's home, a cozy place set back some distance from the road. We had hoped to meet Galloway and have an opportunity of talking over his experiences with him, but found he was absent on a hunting trip, in fact was up in the mountains we had ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... safely. With his back to the wall he might tell of many shady transactions implicating prominent people. There were strong influences which did not want him pressed too hard. The charge remained on the docket, but it was set back from term to term and ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... see out our windows right over the lot of the Wisners'; we could see into their house same as they could see into ours. There was a garridge set back toward the lake, same as ours, about on the same line, and beyond that you could see a boathouse. They had trees in their yard like ours, but ours was almost as big, though just planted. You could see where our flower beds was laid out, ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough

... break sudden from her rapture, and to set back her speech an Eternity with vague words, and memories so olden and englamoured that they did be as moonlight that once hath shone. And in a moment she to be forward again into that far future time and speech, and all her being to be close ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... Kijabe[17] well after dark. It is situated on a ledge in the escarpment, is perhaps a quarter-mile wide, and includes nothing more elaborate than the station, a row of Indian dukkas, and two houses of South Africans set back towards the rise in the cliffs. A mile or so away, and on a little higher level, stand the extensive buildings of an American mission. It is, I believe, educational as well as sectarian, is situated in one of the most healthful climates of East ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... you'd be more comf'table in the armchair. I fight shy of it because it's too comf'table. If I set back into the hollow, it's because my work's done for the day. And here's a palm-leaf. You look ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... wearily along, full of these good resolutions, they came to a row of houses set back a little in the yards with ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... transportation might have been discouraged by this discovery, but it is a characteristic of an inventor that he is not set back by opposition, which, in fact, only serves to stimulate his zeal. The projectors of inclined roads and mountain engines kept steadily on, and in France, Germany, England, and the United States many experimental roads were constructed, each of a few hundred yards in length, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... on Brown, short and sharp, "let's talk business. Count," he says, "you are set back on the books about sixty odd for old home comforts. We'll cut off half of that and charge it to advertising. You draw well, as the man said about the pipe. But the other thirty you'll have to work out. You used to shave like a bird. I'll give you twelve dollars ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... daze when we found the other three-quarters of the sketch, and Marjorie was some set back herself when I springs the scheme. But she's a good sport, Marjorie is, and if she was hooked up to a live one she'd travel just as lively ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... with a flashlight set back in a metal tube so that the rays of the light are not diffused but can be focussed only on one spot at ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... to attempt to set back the great social flood. The New-England housekeeper will never be killed by idleness, at any rate; and if she is exposed to the opposite danger, we must fit her for it, that is all. There is reason to be hopeful; the human race as a whole is tending ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... that, in dry seasons, if they dammed the little streems which crossed their farms, the water would set back, and overflow their land, and keep their garden sas sozzlin' wet, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... should never be boiled. Place in boiling water and set back on the stove for from seven to ten minutes. A little experience will enable anyone ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... diminutive heads. All the shafting is ornamented with a small ball-like enrichment. Above the panelling is some open tracery of beautiful design. By reference to the plan it will be seen that much of this original screen-work has been set back several feet, possibly to make room ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... still led in the direction they wished and they rode on silently for hours. Once they saw a farmhouse set back in the woods, and they were in fear lest dogs come out and bark alarm, but there was no sound and they soon left ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... "She won't set back," he responded; "at least, not more than once. To-morrow's Sunday; I'll have to hitch ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... declarations. No conceivable day could ever deserve that. Ah! you do not know, as I do, the devastations of the memorable. My poor grandparents were—RUBRICATED. The worst of these huge celebrations is that they break up the dignified succession of one's contemporary emotions. They interrupt. They set back. Suddenly out come the flags and fireworks, and the old enthusiasms are furbished up—and it's sheer destruction of the proper thing that ought to be going on. Sufficient unto the day is the celebration thereof. ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... is as though another and a more exacting and commanding fellow-man were added to the universe. But a moment's reflection will show that, when we pass from the vague sense of power or mana felt by the savage to the personal god, to Dionysos or Apollo, though it may seem a set back it is a real advance. It is the substitution of a human and tolerably humane power for an incalculable whimsical and often cruel force. The idol is a step towards, not a step from, the ideal. Ritual makes these idols, and it is the business of science to shatter them and ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for me to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the brick wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... off, wither, molder, rot, rankle, decay, go bad; go to decay, fall into decay; fall into the sear and yellow leaf, rust, crumble, shake; totter, totter to its fall; perish &c 162; die &c 360. [Render less good] deteriorate; weaken &c 160; put back, set back; taint, infect, contaminate, poison, empoison^, envenom, canker, corrupt, exulcerate^, pollute, vitiate, inquinate^; debase, embase^; denaturalize, denature, leaven; deflower, debauch, defile, deprave, degrade; ulcerate; stain &c (dirt) 653; discolor; alloy, adulterate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... general structure, merely a deeper and wider moat than that already described as forming the valley of Chamouni. It lies, in the same manner, between two banks of mountain; and the principal peaks are precisely in the same manner set back upon the tops of these banks; and so provokingly far back, that throughout the whole length of the valley not one of the summits of the chief chain can be seen from it. That usually pointed out to travellers as Monte Rosa is a subordinate, though ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... on some primitive planet. Usually, they're caught pretty quickly. But sometimes they evade capture. And they can end up by exerting serious influence in cultural patterns. Some planets have been set back, and even destroyed as a result of drone activity. Although their motives are different, drones're just as bad and just as dangerous as any ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... was this that pleased him, and made him stop; and we couldn't help looking at him. His hat was a little set back for the heat, his black triangular feet were in the third ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... is true that Eusebius, in his Chronicle, dates his first appearance from A.D. 133, but according to Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv. 7 ss. 6-8, Agrippa Castor, who lived under Hadrian (117-138), already wrote a polemic against him, so that his activity may perhaps be set back to a date earlier than 138. Basilides wrote an exegetical work in twenty-four books on "his" gospel, but which this was is not known. In addition to this there are certain writings by his son Isidorus [Greek: Peri prosphuous psuches]; [Greek: Exegetika] on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... kind of money. He wanted a money system by which a farmer could borrow money to put in his crop, then having failed to raise a crop (I have mentioned the great drought years) could yet pay back the money. But no farming nation can suffer great crop losses without being set back financially and starved to where it hurts. You've got to figure God's laws into ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... within two blocks of the address on the tag, and Bud walked through thickening fog and dusk to the place. Foster had a good-looking house, he observed. Set back on the middle of two lots, it was, with a cement drive sloping up from the street to the garage backed against the alley. Under cover of lighting a cigarette, he inspected the place before he ventured farther. The blinds were drawn down—at ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... ostensible cause of her preparations, pressed her thin dress to her form and showed with sportive candour the fine modelling of bosom and limbs. Chiefly, however, I was attracted by the superb disdain in the poise of the head. It was a dark head, coiled heavily with black hair and set back in the hollow of the shoulders. Her face may be called dark too, the black eye-brows and olive skin being unrelieved by colour in the cheeks. Her whole expression was, you might say, forbidding, and I was not surprised when one of the boys ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... Buck Looker and his crowd that's responsible for this, we'll have your set back or know the reason why," said Bob, throwing down his tools. "Let's go around and get the others, and we'll have ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... with George. If not dazed by stunning shock, he was at least awhirl by set back of the swift sequence of events which suddenly had buffeted him; and it was not until strolling up from Paltley Hill railway station to Herons' Holt that one cooling fact emerged from which he might make an ordered examination of what ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner." ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... shining on blue ice. Their large, full-moulded limbs and erect bodies are distinct, separate, as if they were perfectly chiselled out of the stuff of life, static, cut off. Where they are everything is set back, as ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... hard stroll told us how little we could know of Bruges in a day, a week or a month. Bag and baggage we moved up from Brussels and wished that the clock and the calendar could be set back several centuries. At twilight the unusual happened: the Sandman appeared with his hour-glass and beckoned to bed. There is no night in Bruges for the visitor within the gates; there is only slumber. Perhaps that is why the cockneys call it Bruges ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... born of his invulnerable presence of mind. He gave me a taste of its quality then. Standing in the attitude which has been familiarised to us by caricaturists, his feet apart, his broad shoulders well set back, his handsome head a little advanced, his keen blue eyes having in them something suggestive of a bird of prey considering just when, where, and how to pounce, he regarded me for some seconds in perfect silence,—whether outwardly ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... the same effect that is produced in many cases so successfully in boiling. Instead of rakes the inventor has placed four hexagonal drums into the trough, marked D, E, F, G. The flat parts of these drums are made of perforated metal and set back a little. This produces an alternate passing of the water into and out of them during their revolution and consequent sucking and repulsing of the wool, which also likewise agitates it. These drums are made wide at the entrance end of the trough and gradually ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... other articles are removed by the shepherds when they prepare the stage for their scene, in this manner: at the cue "Sir, we are always ready. . . . Play the play!", Corydon and Thyrsis come down stage, Corydon to Pierrot's end of the table, Thyrsis to Columbia's; simultaneously, first, they set back the chairs against the wall, Pierrot's left front, Columbine's right front; next they remove the two big bowls and set them in symmetrical positions on the floor, left front and right front, in such ...
— Aria da Capo • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... this dream life in "David Copperfield.'' Sully adds, that we also generate illusions of memory when we assign to experiences false dates, and believe ourselves to have felt, as children, something we experienced later and merely set back into our childhood. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... Gloria's mother watched the girl tripping away through the meadow to the stable, set back among the trees. King was leading the saddled horses to meet her; Gloria gave him her gauntleted hand in a greeting the degree of friendliness of which was gauged by the clever eyes at the window; friendliness ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... red in the west as though a brush fire flamed behind their crests. Abner stole a furtive glance at his companion in misery, and the dolor of Ross's countenance somewhat assuaged his anguish. The freckle-faced boy was thinking of the village over the hill, a certain pleasant white house set back in a green yard, past whose gate, the two-plank sidewalk ran. He knew lamps were beginning to wink in the windows of the neighbors about, as though the houses said, "Our boys are all at home—but Ross Pryor's out trying to call on the girls, and can't ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... up from Italy and met the chaos in the North. They had met again in the damp forests of the Ardennes and the vague lands beyond the Rhine, when the Roman auxiliaries of the decline pushed out into the Germanies to set back the frontiers of barbarism. It was the clash between strong continuity, multiple energies, a lucid possession of the real world, a creative proportion in all things—all that we call the ancient civilization of Europe—and the unstable, quickly growing, quickly dissolving ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... had expressed in speeches and conversation against the Southern people, and I feared that his course towards them would be such as to repel, and make them unwilling citizens; and if they became such they would remain so for a long while. I felt that reconstruction had been set back, no telling ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... blue skies behind a waft of cloud. Out of this lay the dining-room, all in green, and the windows of both rooms looked on a gigantic lilac hedge, and beyond it the glimmer of a white colonial house set back in its own grounds. The kitchen was in a lean-to, a good little kitchen brown with smoke, and behind that was the shed with dark cobwebbed rafters and corners that cried out for hoes and garden tools. Lydia went through the rooms in a rush of happiness, Anne in a still rapt imagining. Things ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... The long log-cabin of the Cove-Millses, where room had been added to room in a straight line, until it looked like the side of a log fort, peeped from its pines across at the clearing where the hardly more pretentious home of Darby Stanley was set back amid a little orchard of ragged peach-trees, and half hidden under a great wistaria vine. But though the two places lay within rifle shot of each other, they were almost as completely divided as if the big river below had rolled between them. ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... a collector crazy, Chippendale chairs with the seats out, Windsor chairs with the backs broken, gilt mirror frames with no glass in them—boxes—books—bottles—all the flotsam and jetsam of such old establishments. Most of the things had been set back against the wall, but right in the middle of the floor was an object which I took at first for a ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... perchance tomorrow, yet both to depart, he'll take his leave again, and again, and then come back again, look after, and shake his hand, wave his hat afar off. Now gone, he thinks it long till he see her again, and she him, the clocks are surely set back, the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... mountain-stream that irrigates the city, flowing to all the gardens through open ditches on each side of the street, passes through Brigham's inclosure: if the saints needed drought to humble them, he could set back the waters to their source. The road to the only canon where firewood is attainable runs through the same close, and is barred by a gate of which he holds the sole key. A family-man, wishing to cut fuel, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... encouragingly. But despite my faith in Anthony as a fighting man, I felt—well, somewhat dismayed at the picture called up. "Rechid and anyhow three men!" It was rather a large order. If with a wish I could have sent every member of the Set back to their peaceful homes in England and America, and thus rid myself of them in a second, they would all have found themselves walking in at ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... years," he observed, leaning over his side of the barouche, and peering down one of the side streets that led past the churchyard. "Sorry they've been meddling with that old church. Better have left it as it used to be in my boyhood. Do you see that little house there, set back in the yard, with the chimney crumbling to pieces? That was the first school I ever went to, and it was taught by old Miss Deborah Timberlake, the sister of William Timberlake who shot all those stags' heads you've ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... of his humours of sour silence; and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie nursed the enthusiasm of rebellion. It seemed to him, from the top of his nineteen years' experience, as if he were marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some signal action, to set back fallen Mercy, to overthrow the usurping devil that sat, horned and hoofed, on her throne. Seductive Jacobin figments, which he had often refuted at the Speculative, swam up in his mind and startled him as with voices: and he seemed to himself to ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Space Academy sends the crew a 'well done!' Everything's set back home to take over the beam as soon as Junior starts on his way back. How much time until zero blast-off on ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell

... through which he had just passed began to seem to him like a half-forgotten dream. The refluent thoughts and feelings of his religious life began to set back into every bay and estuary of ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... into a paved and curbed avenue, lined with seemingly unending aisles of the tall gum trees. Soon you begin to skitter past the suburban villas of rich men, set back in ornamental landscape effects of green lawns and among tropical verdure. You emerge from this into a gently rolling plateau, upon which flower gardens of incomparable richness are interspersed with the homely structures that ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... pulling brought them to this lake, and Frank, who was seated at the helm, turned the boat's head toward a high point that projected for some distance out into the lake, and behind which a little bay set back into the land. This point was the only high land about the swamp, and stretched away back into the woods for several miles. It was a favorite place for sunfish and perch; and the boys landed, and were rigging their poles, intending to catch some for their dinner, ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon

... purpose we broke up, and Povy acquainted me before Creed (having said something of it also this morning at our office to me) what he had done in speaking to the Duke and others about his making me Treasurer, and has carried it a great way, so as I think it cannot well be set back. Creed, I perceive, envies me in it, but I think as that will do me no hurte, so if it did I am at a great losse to think whether it were not best for me to let it wholly alone, for it will much disquiett me and my business of the Navy, which in this warr will certainly be ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... our use, by that peculiar function or power of man for the binding of time. That the natural trend of life and the progress of the development of this treasury is so often checked, turned from its natural course, or set back, is due to ignorance of human nature, to metaphysical speculation and sophistry. Those who, with or without intention, keep the rate of humanity's mental advancement down to that of an arithmetic progression are the real enemies of ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... neatly, and the next moment his left was shot into Quigley's cheek, sending the big man staggering, and raising a purple wheal under the eye almost instantly. Pete's composure forsook him at the first set back, and uttering a furious oath he rushed in again, swinging both fists; but that shooting left hand met him full in the mouth, and balked him again, his own sledge-hammer blows falling short of his opponent. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... have shown their profound ignorance of the first principles of canal navigation in taking it for granted that the canals of Mexico were filled with stagnant water, that had "set back" from the stagnant pond of Tezcuco; and that the level of the pond must at all times have been so high as to fill the canals, thus keeping the city in constant danger from any sudden rise in the laguna. But, aside from the rules of canal construction, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... for that compliment," cried Ruth, dimpling and running into the kitchen to set back the coffee-pot in which the coffee was threatening to ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... of the atmosphere, the difficulty becomes pronounced. The problem has been solved in some cases by packing the bullets in fine grain black powder (instead of resin) and compressing both bullets and powder in order to prevent the generation of heat when the bullets set back on the discharge of the gun. In Germany a mixture of red amorphous phosphorus and fine grain powder is used for the same purpose and produces a dense white cloud of smoke. In Russia a mixture of magnesium and antimony ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... contempt but also of mysterious derision. It was an expression that should have put any pedestrian in his place, and it seems a pity that the long street before her appeared to be empty of human life. No one even so much as glanced from a window of any of the comfortable houses, set back at the end of their "front walks" and basking amid pleasant lawns; for, naturally, this was the "best residence street" in the town, since all the Atwaters and other relatives of Florence dwelt there. Happily, an ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... "I set back my chair and stood erect before him. This groveling wretch, forcing the words through his dry lips, was the thief who had made another of my father and had brought to miserable ends the lives of both my parents! ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... must be dry and airy. Any low site, especially in river towns, will be damp, and among the enemies of books, moisture holds a foremost place. Next, the site should afford light on all sides, and if necessary to place it near any thoroughfare, it should be set back so as to afford ample light ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... impossibility, and I believe it to be our duty to make it so." And, as he afterwards explained in Ireland, he considered that if the Tories were able to carry on the government with the ordinary law, the cause of Home Rule might be set back for a generation; but if the Nationalists could succeed in making such government impossible, and the Tories were obliged to have recourse to coercion, the people of Great Britain would turn them out of office, and Gladstone would return to power and carry Home Rule. (This avowed ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... her trances became habitual, assumed, and always retained, the most singular expression I ever saw on any face. They were oblong and narrow, and set back in her head like the eyes of a snake. They were not—smile if you will, O practical and incredulous reader! but they were not—eyes. The eyes of Elsie Venner are the only eyes I can think of as at all like them. The most horrible ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... engaged herself to bring an army of 60,000 men, nominally of the King of the Romans, into Hungary, to drive out utterly the common enemy. German officers would be admitted, like French, into this Roman army; and more, the King of France and the new King of the Romans engaged themselves to set back the imperial frontiers on that side as far as Belgrade, or Weissembourg in Greece. A powerful fleet was to appear in the Mediterranean to support these operations; and the King, wishing to crown his generosity, offered to renounce forever the ancient ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... old hunter's misgiving, Aldous prepared to leave. It was nearly ten o'clock when he set back in the direction of Tete Jaune, Donald accompanying him as far as the moonlit amphitheatre in the forest. There they separated, and ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... The history of a hundred years has made it plain that nations cannot live in isolation any more than individuals can, and that the tendency toward social solidarity must be the permanent tendency if society is to exist and prosper, even though civilization and peace may be temporarily set back ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... into had already several customers. As he entered, the clerks saw a tall boy wearing a blouse shirt and cottonade trousers, and having on his head a broad-brimmed straw hat well set back. And they seemed not at all interested in him. The basket on his arm was also against him. "Some greeny that wants a nickel's worth of beans, I ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... light to enable our eyes to discern dimly the faint track we followed. I remember remarking the blacker figure of the Sergeant ahead of us, and already halfway down the long decline. I caught a swift glimpse of a rough log house on the right, so set back among trees that I half doubted its real existence, when—there was a slip, the crunching of a stone, a long stumble forward that fairly wrenched my hand loose from the woman's rein, and then, hopelessly struggling to regain his feet, my ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... set back on the desk in silence. Kars had something of the waiting attitude of a great watchful dog. He permitted no word or action of his to urge the man before him. He wanted the story in Murray's own ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... country in an early stage of economic development, Burundi since October 1993 has suffered from massive ethnic-based violence that has displaced an estimated million people, disrupted production, and set back needed reform programs. Burundi is predominately agricultural with roughly 90% of the population dependent on subsistence agriculture. Its economic health depends on the coffee crop, which accounts for 80% of foreign ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... gradually thinner towards the top, each course being slightly set back from the one below it on the inner face (see Fig. 45). This arrangement is general with these retaining-walls. The average diminution is from seven to ten feet at the base, to from three to six at ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... Mahina districts behind us, we were in Papenoo, a straggling village of a few hundred people along the road, the houses, all but the half-dozen stores of the Chinese, set back a hundred yards, and the domestic animals ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... to their pathetic work of looking over the orderly closets and making solemn researches into the suspected shelters of moths. Much talk of the past was suggested by the folding of blankets; and as they set back the chairs, and brushed the floors that were made untidy by the funeral guests of the day before, they wondered afresh what would become of Israel Haydon, and what plan he would make for himself; for Mrs. ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... rang the bell at Saton's new house. Mr. Saton was not at home, he was informed, but was expected back at any moment. Rochester accepted an invitation to wait, and was shown into a room which at first he thought empty. Then someone rose from an old-fashioned easy-chair, set back amongst the shadows. Rachael peered forward, leaning upon her stick, and shading her eyes as though ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I set back his hand then, and it seemed empty and helpless, not as a warrior's should be. So I ungirt my own weapon—a good plain sword that I had won from a viking in Caithness—and laid it in the place of that he had given me. And as I put the thin ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... patient had gone ad patres; the servant didn't let the doctor speak; you're no longer wanted, he told him. He hadn't expected this, got confused, and asked, "Why, did your master hiccup before his death?" "Yes." "Did he hiccup much?" "Yes." "Ah, well, that's all right," and off he set back again. Ha! ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... tree—sheer prodigality of space, the better to display a rambling but most artistic pile of gray granite. Masking the road and the adjoining grounds was thick, impenetrable shrubbery, a ring of miniature forest land about the estate. There was a garage, set back, and tennis courts, and a practice golf green. In the center of a garden in a far corner a summerhouse was placed so as to reflect itself in the surface of ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... the "Jenkinses," it took hours of quiet argument before Caleb could convince those shy and suspicious people that his errand was an honest one. Eventually they did come to believe him; they led him, a-foot, another half mile up the timber-fringed stream, to a log cabin set back in the balsams upon a needle carpeted knoll. And they stood and stared in stolid wonder at this portly man in riding breeches and leather puttees, when he finally emerged from that small shack, "Old Tom's" tin box under his arm, and, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... or at any time did Mr. Gladstone set too low a value on that great dead-lift effort, not too familiar in history, to heave off a burden from the conscience of the nation, and set back the bounds of cruel wrong upon the earth. On the day after this performance, the entry in his diary is—'In the morning my father was greatly overcome, and I could hardly speak to him. Now is the time to turn this attack into measures of benefit for the negroes.' ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... the concrete lining was carried completely through the junction, and covered the whole construction, while in the remaining two tunnels it was omitted at the rolled-steel ring, leaving the latter exposed and set back about 3 in. from the face of ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace, Francis Mason and S. H. Woodard

... you let me handle this thing for you? I can do it better'n you. I see Cap'n Jed every night, you might say. And I see consider'ble of Mr. Colton. He knows I'm postmaster in this town and sort of prominent. All the smart folks ain't in the Board of Selectmen. I'll keep you posted; see? You just set back and pretend you don't want to sell at all. Colton, he'll bid and Jed and his gang'll bid. I'll tell each what the other bids, and we'll keep her jumpin'. When we get to the last jump, we'll sell—and not afore. Of course Mr. Colton 'll get it, in ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... had written approvingly of these passages, you would not have brought in this resolution because you thought the cause might be injured among the liberals in religion. In other words, if she had written your views, you would not have considered a resolution necessary. To pass this one is to set back the hands on the dial of reform. It is the reviving of the old time censorship, which I hoped ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... little old-fashioned house, set back in its own garden, a great "find" in a good quarter of Paris; and her house could he reached in ten minutes' drive from my hotel. I would not go as far as the gate, but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet street, as it would not he wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... and a work table built at the end of it. Another set of shelves was made for the pantry, and soon all was in readiness at that end of the house. The old grub box was converted into a bread box, and the little old stove was set back in an out-of-the-way corner. It was, indeed, the passing of the old to give place ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... not expect to mistake it, once he found it; he knew by heart what it appeared like from Sidney's description: an old stately mansion of mellowed brick, covered with ivy and set back from the highway amid fine ancestral trees, with a pine-grove behind it, a river to the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... onions, yolks of four eggs, three tablespoonfuls of butter, a large one of flour, one cup full of cream, salt, pepper. Put the butter in a frying pan. Cut the onions into thin slices and drop in the butter. Stir until they begin to cook; then cover tight and set back where they will simmer, but not burn, for half an hour. Now put the milk on to boil, and then add the dry flour to the onions and stir constantly for three minutes over the fire; then turn the mixture into the milk and cook fifteen ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... had lied in his letter. He was not in any way happy at all. He had lied because he knew that it would have hurt Stephen if he had told him the truth—and the truth was something that must be met with clenched teeth and shoulders set back. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... order, and he might possibly have prepared the way for some scientific examination of the problem. But a thing happened: one of those shocking blunders we too often let happen. The efforts of the chief of police were set back, because of that blunder, no one can tell how far. A new hysteria of vice and disorder dates from the hour the blunder ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... little likely to be entered after a first examination. Nor was it at all probable that females, in particular, would seek a refuge in such a place. But the Chippewa had found the means to obviate the natural obstacles of the low land. There were several spots where the water from the river set back into the swamp, forming so many little creeks; and into the largest of one of these he pushed his canoe, the others following where he led. By resorting to such means, the shelter now obtained was more complete, perhaps, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... to explain at large how the northern route had been chosen for its very hazards, the better to throw the partizans off the scent. I listened, eager for every word, but when the horses stirred behind me I was set back upon the oft-recurrent under-thought of how the gloom did also hide a silent figure lying prone, with the three bridle reins knotted ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... must be tension, strain, a tiptoe attitude, a strong "Excelsior"-like ambition to climb, and a corresponding horror of inferiority, Miderwertigkeit. Youth is an age of idealism, and the tension decade of adolescence needs a regimen and an idealization all its own, to set back-fires to temptation. Instead of the current altogether too plain talk on sex hygiene and teaching, we must realize that every enthusiasm or real interest, be it in the multiplication table or in literature, debate, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... groceries, and wear dresses from the same piece, and talk scandal about each other, all in as neighborly a manner as they have been accustomed to do all their lives. Indeed, whatever aristocracy of wealth and elegance was growing up among us has been set back at least a generation by this war, which has brought out into such prominent notice and elevated so high in our hearts the rougher merits of the strong arm and the dextrous hand. Every month sees a larger proportion of officers coming from among ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... your fresh meats and the bones and tough pieces left from roasts or broils into the soup pot with one quart of water to every two pounds of meat and bones. When it comes to a boil, skim and set back where it will simmer six hours; then add a bouquet of sweet herbs, one onion, six cloves and twelve pepper-corns to each gallon of stock. Cook two hours longer; strain and set in a cool place. In the morning skim off the fat. Keep in a very cool place. This can be ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... in morality, the German people were set back two hundred years. All branches of industry had declined, commerce had almost entirely ceased, literature and the arts were suppressed, and except the astronomical discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler, there was no contribution to human knowledge. Even the modern High German ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... that trait of Mexican character which assists acquaintances to seclusion, when they are sought by strangers, I should have despaired. As it was, I kept on asking, and finally, from a child who could hardly speak on account of youth, I discovered the house which I sought. It was a little hut set back behind a yard of growing corn. I had inquired at the houses on either side and at the house across the road, as also of a man working in the corn in the yard itself. But everyone had been profoundly ignorant of the boy's existence. Walking ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... is that swaggering and often handsome fellow clad in red, and with a coloured scarf around his head, who, with shoulders well set back, carries, slung in a broad leather belt, a terra-cotta jar. This is the "sussi," who sells liquorice water, or a beverage made from prunes, and which he hands to his customers in a dainty blue ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... half!" Crayford had remarked when the curtain came down on the fourth act. "So we come ahead of the Metropolitan. I've just heard they've had a set back with Sennier's opera; can't produce for nearly a week after the date they'd settled. We needn't have been in such a devil of a hurry after all. But we've got the laugh on them now. Sennier's first opera was a white man. No doubt about that. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... lack of appreciation of the Emperor's demands on the part of the Bohemian Estates let loose all the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict which, waged under the cloak of religion and with the blessings of Rome, set back civilization in Central Europe for many generations. For the Czech inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia, as for those of Teuton origin who sympathized with the liberal movement of the time, the battle of the White Mountain and its tragic sequel on that 21st of June was the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... He's only got one year in this school, but we've had him in here several times. Know him pretty well by now. He got set back quite a bit in Primary, so he's some older than most of the Lower School ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... emperor was pretty; she had a kind face; she was without airs; she is known to be full of common human sympathies. There are many kinds of princesses, but this kind is the most harmful of all, for wherever they go they reconcile people to monarchy and set back the clock of progress. The valuable princes, the desirable princes, are the czars and their sort. By their mere dumb presence in the world they cover with derision every argument that can be invented in favor of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... marry me," Zebedee said, standing beside her and speaking quietly, "we'll leave this house to Daniel and Eliza. There's one outside the town, on the moor road, but set back in a big garden, a square house. Shall we—shall we go and ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... complete!' We're figgerin' on havin' the trial to-morrow mornin' between nine an' ten o'clock. The judge says it's all right, far as he's concerned. We'd have it to-day, only Moll's got to have a new dress an' bonnet an' such-like before she can appear in court. All you'll have to do, Kenny, is jest to set back,—look wise an' let her tell her story. 'Cordin' to law, she's got to stand trial fer murder an' she's got to have counsel. Nobody's goin' to object to you makin' a speech to the jury,—bringin' tears to our eyes, as the sayin' ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... of Carcassonne enforce its character. Up above the river, but a little set back from the valley, right against the dawn as you come to it from Toulouse through the morning, stands a long, steep, and isolated rock, the whole summit of which from the sharp cliff on the north to that other ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... how long would the material elements of our science and art or general culture remain with power to enlighten the barbarous tribes that would inherit the earth? Human progress has more than once been set back for centuries by such natural or unnatural causes, leaving the sites of once splendid civilizations to be overrun with barbaric hordes knowing nothing of the better ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various



Words linked to "Set back" :   cancel, impede, probate, setback, delay, respite, scrub, hold, cost, reschedule, scratch, call, call off, reprieve, be, suspend, hinder



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