Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Attitude   Listen
noun
Attitude  n.  
1.
(Paint. & Sculp.) The posture, action, or disposition of a figure or a statue.
2.
The posture or position of a person or an animal, or the manner in which the parts of his body are disposed; position assumed or studied to serve a purpose; as, a threatening attitude; an attitude of entreaty.
3.
Fig.: Position as indicating action, feeling, or mood; as, in times of trouble let a nation preserve a firm attitude; one's mental attitude in respect to religion. "The attitude of the country was rapidly changing."
To strike an attitude, to take an attitude for mere effect.
Synonyms: Attitude, Posture. Both of these words describe the visible disposition of the limbs. Posture relates to their position merely; attitude refers to their fitness for some specific object. The object of an attitude is to set forth exhibit some internal feeling; as, attitude of wonder, of admiration, of grief, etc. It is, therefore, essentially and designedly expressive. Its object is the same with that of gesture; viz., to hold forth and represent. Posture has no such design. If we speak of posture in prayer, or the posture of devotion, it is only the natural disposition of the limbs, without any intention to show forth or exhibit. "'T is business of a painter in his choice of attitudes (positurae) to foresee the effect and harmony of the lights and shadows." "Never to keep the body in the same posture half an hour at a time."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Attitude" Quotes from Famous Books



... knew her "In Memoriam" by heart—but our intellectual life centred on the weekly sermon. Men thought about Sabbath as they followed the plough in our caller air, and braced themselves for an effort at the giving out of the text. The hearer had his snuff and selected his attitude, and from that moment to the close he never moved nor took his eyes off the preacher. There was a tradition that one of the Disruption fathers had preached in the Free Kirk for one hour and fifty minutes on the bulwarks of Zion, and had left the impression that he ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... brusque command, implying so sudden a change in Erec's attitude toward his wife, initiates a long series of tests of Enide's devotion, which fill the rest of the romance. Why did Erec treat his wife with such severity? In the Mabinogi of "Geraint the Son of Erbin", it is plain that jealousy ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... fellow called John arose and placed himself in a neat fighting attitude.—Fetch on the fellah that makes them long words!—he said,—and planted a straight hit with the right fist in the concave palm of the left hand with a click like a cup and ball.—You small boy there, hurry up that ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... Church of England, whatever her attitude towards the traditional Catholic doctrines, never disputed the validity of Catholic orders whether Roman or Orthodox, nor the jurisdiction of Catholic bishops in foreign countries, the expansion of the Anglican Church has been in no sense conceived as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... have wished you had said more about the religious attitude of old age as such. Surely the thoughts of aged persons must be very much taken up with the question of what is to become of them. I should like to have The Dictator explain himself a little more fully on ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... crossing experiments Mendel adopted an attitude which marked him off sharply from the earlier hybridisers. He realised that their failure to elucidate any general principle of heredity from the results of cross fertilisation was due to their not having concentrated upon ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... thinking this all; but his tears and sobs choked him in the midst of his complaints. Toussaint turned again to the fire, and presently began to sing one of the most familiar songs of Saint Domingo. He had not sung a stanza before, as he had anticipated, his servant joined in, rising from his attitude of despair, and singing with as much animation as if he had been on the Haut-du-Cap. This was soon put a stop to by a sentinel, who knocked at the door ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... many pieces of the wreck in the opposite bay. We descended towards it and one of the first objects that struck my sight upon the beach was the corpse of Virginia. The body was half covered with sand, and preserved the attitude in which we had seen her perish. Her features were not sensibly changed, her eyes were closed, and her countenance was still serene; but the pale purple hues of death were blended on her cheek with the blush of virgin modesty. One of her hands was placed upon her clothes: and the other, which ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... differences in attitude, on the part of male and female as such, which are inherent and not artificial: and, in the psychic human world, it is exactly as we approach the sphere of sexual and reproductive activity, with those emotions and instincts connected directly with sex and the reproduction of ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... himself is in the church degli Angeli, where his remains were interred, and he introduced his own portrait into several of his pictures, one of which is in the Chigi gallery, representing a wild scene with a poet in a sitting attitude, (with the features of Salvator); before him stands a satyr, allusive to his satiric style of poetry. During his life-time, his works were much sought after by princes and nobles, and they are now to be found in the choicest collections of Italy ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... purchase. What, in the name of common sense, has land purchase to do with education? What indissoluble relationship is there between the two that the expenditure upon the one should be made dependent upon the requirements of the other? This niggardly and short-sighted attitude is hardly worthy of one of the richest countries in the world. It is but a matter of a few thousands, and surely the efficient training of the youth of Ireland is quite as important as buying out the Irish landlords ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... first result of this transformation was that he unconsciously assumed a different attitude toward the unhappy passage in his life wherein Mercy Fisher was chiefly concerned. What his feeling was before Mr. Bonnithorne's revelation, we have already seen. Now the sentiment that made much of such an "accident" was fit only for a "turgid melodrama," and the idea of "atonement" by "marriage" ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... to the door. At the threshold he turned and spoke with one foot on the step and the other on the ground, taking up that attitude of unaffected ease that gives an air of friendliness to even the most ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... and the Elizabethan drama; the poetic masters of his youth; state of the Church of England; Baxter's testimony; growing unrest; Milton's early poems; the intrusion of politics; the farewell to mirth; the Restoration, and Milton's attitude; the lost paradise of the early poems; Milton's Puritanism; his melancholy; the political and public preoccupations of the later poems; the drama of Milton's life; his egotism explained; an illustration from Lycidas; the lost cause; ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account to attack the French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an end, they were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with their hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which they were declared rebels. The ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... friends absorbed their attention and normal life was resumed with the difference that a great gap was always present and unfilled. Aunt Trudy was kindness itself and overflowing with affection for her nieces, but her attitude toward them was that of a placid outsider, gently watching them from a little distance. Aunt Trudy did their mending exquisitely, because she liked to sew, but she would not leave the mending and come down stairs to meet Nina Edmonds, a new-comer to the neighborhood, though Rosemary was ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... (The Madre Pia), in which the mother's attitude is one of humility, contemplating her child ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... you talk for?" asked Cahill. His attitude was still that of shocked disbelief, but his tone expressed a full acceptance of the situation and a ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... ulster and the Derby hat became apparent on English yachts, where women learned to put themselves in the attitude of men, and very properly adopted the storm jib; but, if one of those women had been told that she would, sooner or later, appear in this dress in the streets of London, she would have ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... A few feet from the mouth of the cave on one side grew a stout bush that added to the shelter and the concealment, and on the other the men themselves had placed two or three huge stones, which, from the attitude the rogues had given them, appeared, like many others, to have rolled thither years ago ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... merino to hold, take another one," she said. "I want that. And as to being a burnt-offering on the shrine of Bilberry, my dear Griffith, you must know it is policy," and immediately went on with her unpicking again, while Griffith, bending over in an attitude more remarkable for ease than grace, looked on at her sharp little glancing scissors with an appearance ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... to look after our own men." I recalled, too, the British nurse who said in my presence, with a snap of her fingers, "We have not that much sympathy with the German wounded." I want to believe that in the great majority of cases the attitude on both sides is very different; but what a sundering influence war-like patriotism is! We must surely reach brotherhood by some ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... Miss MAY SINCLAIR'S latest story, The Romantic (COLLINS), will entirely depend upon your attitude towards the long-vexed question of the permissible in art. If you hold that all life (which in this association generally means something disagreeable) is its legitimate province and that genius can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... fruits, sweetmeats, and milk, made to the god, he carries home after the close of the service. A conch is blown, a bell is rung, and a gong beaten at the time of worship, when the religiously disposed portion of the inmates, male and female, in a quasi-penitent attitude, make their obeisance to the god and receive in return the ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... occasion, had for her so positive a taste and so deep an undertone. The smallest things, the faces, the hands, the jewels of the women, the sound of words, especially of names, across the table, the shape of the forks, the arrangement of the flowers, the attitude of the servants, the walls of the room, were all touches in a picture and denotements in a play; and they marked for her, moreover, her alertness of vision. She had never, she might well believe, been in such a state of vibration; ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... the nation, constitute the "PEOPLE." What they represent is the "people's rights"; their interests are the "people's interests." Hence, they do not consider that, at an impending struggle, they need to examine the interests and attitude of the different classes. They need not too seriously weigh their own means. All they have to do is to give the signal in order to have the "people" fall upon the "oppressors" with all its inexhaustible resources. If, thereupon, in the execution, their interests turn out ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... of solitude, moreover, had ill prepared him for social intercourse; the laughter, the clash of conversation, the noise on every side, the length of the meal, the strain to maintain a fit and proper attitude as host, had tried to the utmost nerves by ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... melancholy waters, seeing the three-edged dagger passed from hand to hand, hearing how the woman had been found dead in her beauty on her old golden and crimson bed with the lilies on her breast, and looking at the attitude of the prisoner—in which the judges saw remorse and guilt, and he could only see the unutterable horror of a bereaved lover to whom the world ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... attitude of the United States with respect to the question of general peace on the American continent is well known through its persistent efforts for years past to avert the evils of warfare, or, these efforts failing, to bring positive conflicts to an end through pacific counsels or ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... laughing frankness, the confidence of her attitude toward him were delightfully refreshing. He looked into her pretty, eager, engaging ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... her remarks with the clashing of a pair of cymbals, observed that as a thorough-going Dadaist she had no sympathy with the half-hearted attitude of the Chairman. It was a battle between Dada and Gaga, and emphatically ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various

... that in the actual world it is not possible for the best of men to satisfy all the demands of their fidgety followers. In the picture of the battle between St. George and the dragon, the attitude of St. George is all that could be desired. There is an easy grace in the way in which he deals with the dragon that is greatly to his credit. There is a mingling of knightly pride and Christian resignation over his own inevitable victory, ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... verandahs and the doors of the king's or caboceer's houses are generally carved in has relief, with figures representing the boa killing an antelope or a hog, or with processions of warriors attended by drummers. The latter are by no means meanly executed, conveying the expression and attitude of the principal man in the groupe with a lofty air, and the drummer well pleased with his own music, or rather deafening noise. There are seven different markets, which are held every evening, being generally opened about three or four o'clock. The chief articles exposed for sale are yams, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... Man's presence; he was in the habit of appearing on the poop at all hours of the night, though he never went forward. But for the mate to give up his sleep in fair weather was unprecedented. There was something in the carriage and attitude of the two, as they slowly paced fore and aft, or stood at the break staring forward, that gave me a feeling of impending disaster. Aye, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... wild or free; but the whole race is enslaved by man, and brought up to drudgery from the first moment of their existence. As soon as he is born, they seize him, and force him to recline upon the ground, with his legs doubled up under his belly. To keep him in this attitude, they extend a piece of canvass over his body, and fix it to the ground by laying heavy weights upon the edge. In this manner he is tutored to obedience, and taught to kneel down at the orders of his master, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... made of carved ebony and cramoisie velvet, her elbow supported by one arm of this seat, her head a little bent down, she supported her cheek upon the back of her small white hand, delicately veined with azure. The languishing attitude of Fleur-de-Marie, her paleness, the fixedness of her gaze, the bitterness of her half-smile, revealed a deep melancholy. After some moments, a heavy, sad sigh relieved her breast. Then, letting her hand which supported her cheek fall again, she bent her head further upon her breast. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... words of conventional sympathy would jar here; indeed, the Professor's attitude and expression reminded him irresistibly of a certain "Blondin Donkey" he had seen enacted by music-hall artists, at the point where it becomes sullen and defiant. Only, he had laughed helplessly at the Blondin Donkey, and somehow he felt no ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... the service a few months afterwards, the arduous task of representing the Government without the command of any force to back up his authority developed on Mr. WITTI. In the case of the Pappar River, the former Chief, Datu BAHAR, declined to relinquish his position, and assumed a very defiant attitude. I was at that time in the Labuan service, and I remember proceeding to Pappar in an English man-of-war, in consequence of the disquieting rumours which had reached us, and finding the Resident, Mr. A. H. EVERETT, on one side ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... that piquant feature and the rest of her rosy face behind the other's shoulder, which was suddenly and significantly opposed to the advance of this handsome intruder, with a certain dignity, half real, half affected, but wholly charming. The protectress appeared—possibly from her defensive attitude—the superior of ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... of this attitude towards the Church, readers may be reminded that Huxley[23] called the Catholic Church "the vigorous enemy of the highest life of mankind," and rejoiced that evolution, "in addition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of irreconcilable antagonism to ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... me at once. I am astonished at you. The only decent thing you have!" Mrs. Parton sat down and clasped her hands in an attitude of desperation. ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... understand the importance of this early training. They are too often too absorbed in their own sorrow at having a child so afflicted, too sure that loss of eyesight means loss of mental vigor, to realize that their own attitude, their own self-pity, may prove a greater handicap to the child than blindness itself. If a child lives in a house where he is waited upon, and made to feel that mere existence and the ability to eat and sleep are all ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... beautiful, so masterly both in structure and in style, that his work, in artistry alone, is its own excuse for being. Were it not for the confinement of his fiction—its lack of range and sweep, both in subject-matter and in attitude of mind—his work on this account might be regarded as an illustration of all that may be great in the threefold ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... the poor fellow had no bed at all! His servant had not been given any order, and my dear, precious husband was sitting in the cold, before a dead fire, looking the picture of desolation and grief. It made me cry like anything to see his head bowed upon his arms, his whole attitude so dejected! and by the heaving of his shoulders, I knew he was crying. Think of it!—crying because of what he had done! and for my cruelty and unforgivingness! It is dreadful to see a strong man all broken up and humiliated for the sake of his wife. Oh, Honey! ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... nature of a rapid, lying half asleep while the others examined the place, and entirely willing to run anything or make a portage or even swim; he cared not. "Nothing ever happens to any outfit I belong to," he would declare shifting to an easier position, "Let her go!" and now so far as Andy's attitude was concerned we might have possessed unlimited rations. Jack lightened the situation yet more with his jolly songs and humorous expressions and no one viewing that camp would have thought the ten men had before them a possibility of several days ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... reduced his external advantages to such a severe simplicity by wearing his hair closely cropped, and his every movement was marked by that languid, lazy stooping attitude which is usually the special peculiarity of those who busy themselves with agricultural work, that Melanie's eyes had no reason to be ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... preeminently Russian, in that he is a revolutionist; not because most Russians are revolutionists (for I imagine that they are not), but because most Russians—indeed, nearly all Russian— are in that attitude of mind which makes revolution possible, and which makes religion possible, an attitude of primary and dogmatic assertion. To be a revolutionist it is first necessary to be a revelationist. It is necessary to believe in the sufficiency ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... His certain coming, and consequently a habitual realising of the transience of the existing order of things, and of the fast-approaching realities of the future. Further, it is the keeping of our minds in an attitude of expectation and desire, our eyes ever travelling to the dim distance to mark the far-off shining of His coming. What a miserable contrast to this is the temper of professing Christendom as a whole! It is swallowed up in the present, wide awake to interests and hopes belonging to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... Her father was standing near the fire in an attitude of deep thought. He lifted his eyes as she entered, and looked her inquiringly in the face for some moments. She saw in an instant that he was greatly changed—that reason had, in fact, again assumed her sway over ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... order to regain the usual equipoise of your mental attitude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow. My white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon. Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride for penance; ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... of love, had experienced a curious revulsion from her maiden dreams. She had such instinctive docility of character that she was at times amenable to influences entirely beyond her own knowledge. Not understanding in the least Jerome's attitude of renunciation, she accepted it for herself also. She no longer builded bridal air-castles. She still embroidered her chair-covers, thinking that they would look very pretty in the north parlor, and some of the old chairs ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... proper to the noblest Roman type. The head is thrown backward from the throat; and there is a something of menace or defiance or suffering in the suggestion of brusque movement given to the sinews of the neck. This attitude, together with the tension of the forehead, and the fixed expression of pain and strain communicated by the lines of the mouth—strong muscles of the upper lip and abruptly chiselled under lip—in relation to the small eyes, deep set beneath their cavernous and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... a steamer in the Baltic in the year '34, if I mistake not. There was a drizzling rain and a high sea, when I observed a young man of about two and twenty leaning in a melancholy attitude against the side of the vessel. By his countenance I knew him to be one of the Hebrew race, nevertheless there was something very singular in his appearance, something which is rarely found amongst that people, a certain air of nobleness ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... you, he's the most deceitful rummy I ever seen. What's more, he's got the homicide habit, and the habit has got its eye on me." Glass was in deadly earnest, and his alarm contrasted so strongly with his former contemptuous attitude toward the cowboys that Speed ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... religious difficulties of the time, the priests of St. Sulpice preserved an equally neutral and sagacious attitude, the only occasions upon which they betrayed anything like warmth of feeling being when the episcopal authority was threatened. They soon found out the spitefulness of M. de Lamennais, and would have ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... physical sensation? How great is their variety? Do they deal with many parts of Nature, for example the sea, mountains, plains, forests, and clouds? Is the love of external beauty a passion with the author? What is the author's attitude toward Nature—(1) does he view Nature in a purely objective way, as a mass of material things, a series of material phenomena or a mere embodiment of sensuous beauty; or (2) is there symbolism or mysticism in his attitude, that is—does he view Nature with awe ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... "Donauwarth! Give up Donauworth!"—and an "Evangelical Union," with moneys, with theoretic contingents of force, being on foot for that and the like objects;—we can fancy what a scramble this of Cleve-Julich was like to be; and especially what effect this duelling attitude of Brandenburg and Neuburg had on the Protestant mind. Protestant neighbors, Landgraf Moritz of Hessen-Cassel at their head, intervene in tremulous haste, in the Cleve-Julich affair: "Peace, O friends! ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... Malone of a professor he'd had in college for one of the law courses. He had, Malone thought, the same smiling gravity of demeanor, the same condescending attitude of absolute authority. It was clear that Dr. O'Connor lived in a world of his own, a world that was not even touched by the common run ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... Rachel in the sitting-room, while Janet tidied up in the kitchen. Janet, the warm-hearted, had become much attached to him. He had been at no pains to hide the state of his feelings from her. Indeed, though he had said nothing explicit, his whole attitude to Rachel's friend and partner was now one of tacit appeal for sympathy. And she was more than ready to give it. Her uprightness, and the touch of austerity in her, reached out to similar qualities in him; and the intellectual ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... laughter. It was, in fact, an odd and interesting sight to witness its grotesque movements, as it turned first its body, and then its head around, without moving the shoulders, while its great honey-coloured eyes glared in the light of the fire. At the end of every attitude and utterance, it would snap its bill with such violence, that the cracking of the mandibles upon each other might have been heard to the distance ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... to her own high-backed armchair, took her seat deliberately, put her feet on the crimson hassock, and leaned forward, resting her hands on the crutch-top of her stick, and her chin on her hands. In this attitude she looked more elfin than human, and the light that danced in her black eyes was not ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards

... and his threatening attitude on the north-eastern border of Egypt, drew upon him the jealousy of Ramesses I., father of the great Seti, and (according to the prevalent tradition) founder of the "nineteenth dynasty." To defend oneself it is often best to attack, and Ramesses, taking this view, in his first or second ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... how it 'oud be, Scotty,' yelled his partner, and with a deplorable attitude the pair were marched over the 'Bridge ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... The Attitude of the Community toward Striking Laborers.—So long as a local community sympathizes with the worker's dread of competition and tolerates his claim of ownership of his position, it does not utterly condemn and repress every use of force in asserting his ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... fair, rather florid face glowed with a perpetual good nature. He treated MacRae to the same cheerful, careless air that he had for everything and everybody. And when he was about Uncle Peter's house at the Cove he monopolized Dolly, an attitude which Dolly herself as well as her uncle seemed ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... was her one tribute to sentiment. Towards all others of the male sex she maintained an attitude of callous unsusceptibility, and her engagements with them (which were numerous) were entered into or abandoned on grounds so sordid as to ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... the boy, but to what he was expected to grow to,—going where glory awaited him. In his observation of pictures, it was the common soldier who was always falling and dying, while the officer stood unharmed in the storm of bullets and waved his sword in a heroic attitude. John ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the countries of the world. Some of the milder socialists in western Europe and America disavowed the acts of the Russian group, but the majority of socialists beyond Russia appear to have at least secretly sympathized with the bolshevists. Encouraged by this attitude, Lenin and Trotzky frankly admitted their intention of fomenting world-wide revolution. The bolshevist government appropriated large sums for propaganda in countries beyond Russia, and socialist sympathizers everywhere advocated an attempt to overthrow "world capitalism." In the period of ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... young, and too mentally independent, to enter very sympathetically into her mother's side of the matter. The younger woman's attitude was tinged with affectionate contempt, and when the stupidity of the maid, or the inconvenience of having no maid at all, interfered with the smooth current of her life, or her busy comings and goings, she became ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... man, who was seated at the far side of the room untying his garters. Having aired the bed I went out, and shutting the door after me, I peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the bed, and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time. When returning I found him still at prayer—-and this was his custom every night as long as he stayed at our house—I concluded he must be a good man, and this opinion I always maintained, though I heard him blamed and ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... in the center of the room drew their attention and they saw that Phaestra had risen from her seat in a deeply cushioned divan and now stood at its side in an attitude of welcome. Nearly as tall as Frank, she was a figure of commanding and imperious beauty. The whiteness of her body was accentuated by the silver embroidered and tightly fitted black vestments that covered yet did not conceal ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... hills, can be the possession only of the few, but the paths that lead thither this empire shall open to the daring climber. Humanity has left the Calvinist and Jacobin behind. And thus Britain shall become the name of an ideal as well as the designation of a race, the description of an attitude of mind as well ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... head of the table and passed out large helpings of something from a big pot, to the fair-haired young fellow at the foot, who could scarcely wait for his share, there was only one thing about them which might have been labeled pious; and that was their attitude, which could have been interpreted: "Give us this day our daily ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... to Washington, you mean?" Andy asked, resuming his chair, and his attitude of earnest inquiry, while Ethelyn, forgetting all her reserve, replied: "Yes, I mean that and everything else. It has been nothing but disappointment ever since I left Chicopee, and I sometimes wish I had died before I promised to go away from dear ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... first questions to be asked when we take up this inquiry is, What is the attitude of our religion toward the other religions? Perhaps it is better to put the question in a concrete form and ask, What is the attitude of the Christian people toward the people of ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... Berene Dumont sitting in his chair fast asleep, her head framed by her folded arms, which rested on his desk. Against the dark maroon of her sleeve, her classic face was outlined like a marble statuette. Her long lashes swept her cheek, and in the attitude in which she sat, her graceful, perfectly-proportioned figure displayed each beautiful curve ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... village inn, I called a halt with such suddenness as to create great confusion in the swarming ranks that followed in our wake. But while they sorted themselves, I slipped the booth off my shoulders, gave one long, echoing call upon the reed, and, striking an attitude, made ready to ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... has nothing of the bear but his skin," was Goldsmith's comment upon his clumsy friend, and the two men appreciated each other at bottom. Some of their readers may be inclined to resent Johnson's attitude of superiority. The admirably pure and tender heart, and the exquisite intellectual refinement implied in the Vicar and the Traveller, force us to love Goldsmith in spite of superficial foibles, and when Johnson prunes or interpolates lines in the Traveller, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... well your attitude to life, this conventional surface of it. You had none of that curiosity for the social stage directions, the trivial ficelles of the business; it is simian, but that is how the wild youth of man is captured; you wouldn't imitate, hence you kept ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... against the wall, bright with lights, reflected the pair of them sitting face to face in the attitude of intimacy. The Prince, bearded and big, felt protective and paternal, for Truda, muffled in her great cloak, looked very small and feminine ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... of the back door sat Bas Rowlett gazing outward, and his physical position, beyond the margin of the group proper, seemed to typify a mental attitude of detachment from those mounting tides of passion ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... as to the hereafter is in keeping with his whole attitude, which is that of cheerful acquiescence in the divine order, whatever it be. "To be free, not hindered, not compelled, conforming yourself to the administration of Zeus, obeying it, well satisfied with this, ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... procession, were five allegorical cars. One represented a gilded boat containing pretty girls; it was arranged to seem to rise and fall upon a billowy sea. A second float represented the well-known ancient statue, the Chacmool; an indian, in the attitude of the figure mentioned, held an olla upon his breast, while one or two others stood near him as guards or companions. The most attractive float was loaded with the products of Yucatan, and a group of figures symbolizing its industries and interests. Upon the fourth, a female figure ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... to the landing with JEYES and parts from him at the top of the stairs. Then FARNCOMBE slowly returns, closes the door, and finds LILY sitting upon the settee in a woeful attitude. ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... not many roods removed from the royal suite, was one heart struggling with its lone agony, striving for calm, for peace, for rest, to escape from the deep waters threatening to overwhelm it. Hour after hour beheld the Countess of Buchan in the same spot, well-nigh in the same attitude; the agonized dream of her youth had come upon her yet once again, the voice whose musical echoes had never faded from her ear, once more had sounded in its own deep thrilling tones, his hand had pressed her own, his eye had met hers, aye, and dwelt upon her ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... munition factories in the next emergency. In the same way, conceivably, concentration on modern history might be supposed to equip a student for securing concessions abroad for a firm, or for winning a parliamentary election. Of course, this attitude, though it is rather widespread just now, is absurd. The fallacy lies in confusing the general theoretical knowledge of a subject acquired through being educated in it with the technical knowledge and personal experience which one must have to turn the same subject to practical account in after ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... stranger's side for some evidence of human presence aboard, but the Spaniard exhibited no particular interest in the proceedings, standing motionless, the smoke of the cheroot blown idly from his mouth, The fellow's face was turned from me, yet I could not help note the insolence of his attitude, in spite of my occupation at the wheel. A hundred feet distant, I held the dancing sloop to mere steerage-way, while Fairfax hailed in a voice which went roaring across the water like ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... The attitude taken up by France was so doubtful that it was expected that at any moment war might break out, and the officers of the British squadron were cautioned to be on their guard against surprise. It was, indeed, the most exciting time since the last war. While Sir Robert Stopford was ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... well-knit, broad-chested form, the rosy embrowned honest face, the shining light-brown curly locks, the dancing well-opened blue eyes, and merry hearty smile showed to the best advantage, in array that even Tom would not have spurned, put on with naval neatness; and his attitude and manner were so full of manly ease, that it was no wonder that every eye rested on him with pleasure. Norman smiled at his own mistake, and asked who were the lady and gentleman conversing with him. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... restful condition, that you may be able to meditate upon the matters that we shall place before you for consideration. Allow the matters presented to meet with a hospitable reception from you, and hold a mental attitude of willingness to receive what may be waiting for you in the higher regions ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... tender-hearted man. Perhaps his own children had suffered from the gentleness of his nature; if they had, the injury had been more than compensated for in the blessings imparted by his tenderness. He was more than astonished at the attitude of the returned wanderer. Fanny had never before been known to be in such a frame of mind. The sternness of his expression passed away; there was nothing but the sadness left. Probably he doubted the sincerity of the culprit's ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... staring angrily at the distant group on the terrace, and Gordon turned his eyes in the same direction. Something he saw in the strained and eager attitude of the four conspirators moved ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis

... whose courtesy I am much indebted for some of the data of this paper. "It is a pleasure to give any information for The Inter-Ocean," remarked Mrs. Hanna, "for it is the great daily that is so fair and so just in its attitude toward ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... Frank, who were seated back to back and in an easy attitude, had sunk into a doze, when both were startled by a bump which swung them partly over. They straightened up and looked around in the gloom, wondering what ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... the Mass was begun by a discharge of artillery, and after the Exaudiat and prayer for the King, was closed by a loud 'Vive la Roi!' from the throats of the buccaneers. A single incident, however, somewhat disturbed the devotions. One of the buccaneers, remaining in an indecent attitude during the Elevation, was rebuked by the captain, and instead of heeding the correction, replied with an impertinence and a fearful oath. Quick as a flash Daniel whipped out his pistol and shot the buccaneer through the head, adjuring God that he would do as much to the first who ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... Mr. Gollop, resuming a placid mental attitude, and the celebrated Gollop grin. "It's a wise man who knows where he's not welcome. Both celebrity and notoriety are distinctions to be shunned. A mud-cat is the most secure of all fish because nobody wishes to either catch and eat, or ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... although he noted that she was extremely attractive in face and figure, did not give her a second thought. He was amused at the attitude of the Duchess and her class, and was willing to accept it, but it did not arouse any desire on his part to follow the lead of the gentleman from Broadway and seek their acquaintance. As a matter of fact, he had always found the young women of the upper classes ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... firmly convinced that the office of Secretary-Treasurer was to be his for the asking, and he was decidedly put out when turned down, and was disposed to be decidedly ugly. That he had not gotten over it for some time afterward was shown by the attitude of his paper, which indulged in indiscriminate abuse of every one who ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... great use to me in judging of my success. He sat conspicuously in front of a pillar: I had him constantly under my eye. If he leant forward to listen all was right, and I knew that I had the ear of my class; but if he leant back in an attitude of listlessness I felt at once that all was wrong, and that I must change either the subject or the style ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... them into the arena into which they were of themselves quite eager to enter. As soon as the rule of the Catholic, in the persons and by the actions of the Guises, became sovereign and aggressive, the threatened Reformers put themselves into the attitude of defence. They too had got for themselves great leaders, some valiant and ardent, others prudent or even timid, but forced to declare themselves when the common cause was greatly imperilled. The house of Bourbon, issuing from St. Louis, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... to admire, but select no one feature of beauty or grandeur to dispute the palm of perfection with their own persons. Their rural descriptions are mere landscape backgrounds with their own portraits in an engaging attitude in front. They are not observing or enjoying the scene, but doing the honours as masters of the ceremonies to nature, and arbiters of elegance to all humanity. If they tell a love-tale of enamoured princesses, it is plain they fancy themselves the hero ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... though the rooms, the furniture, and my own figure—would to heavens that I could have changed my outer man for the better in the same way that I believed myself to have changed my inner I—were the same as before), I remained in that comfortable attitude of mine until ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... content to assume the same attitude towards the Church of Rome that Erasmus maintained. He did not repudiate its doctrines, but considered himself free to criticize its practice. Though he listened with interest to the arguments of the Reformers, he did not join their ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... for its policy toward the negro was laid on the table. The young man had succeeded in engineering it through the committee, but the chairman decided that its proper place was under the head of new business, where it might be taken up in the discussion of the administration's attitude toward ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... or unusual about camp much sooner than a man. They indicate this by turning in the direction from whence the object is approaching, holding their heads erect, projecting their ears forward, and standing in a fixed and attentive attitude. They exhibit the same signs of alarm when a wolf or other wild animal approaches the camp; but it is always wise, when they show fear in this manner, to be on the alert ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... use of the ports and waters of the United States by one of the belligerents in a war toward which a neutral attitude had been declared, it may be inquired how far the condition of affairs was known to the Administration and what opportunity there was for executive action, especially with reference to the allegation made by the Transvaal that the port ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... Campbellsville, but it is unsafe to rely on troops so suddenly armed and equipped. They are not yet clothed or uniformed. I know well you will think our force too widely distributed, but we are forced to it by the attitude of our enemies, whose force and numbers the country never has and probably ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... two newly-formed legions and the corps withdrawn from Lucania, Laevinus, stronger than before, followed the march of the king. He protected Capua against him, and frustrated his endeavours to enter into communications with Neapolis. So firm was the attitude of the Romans that, excepting the Greeks of Lower Italy, no allied state of any note dared to break off from the Roman alliance. Then Pyrrhus turned against Rome itself. Through a rich country, whose flourishing condition he beheld with astonishment, he marched against ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... muster-field, and some of the companies were on the village-common, there was still some skirmishing between a few individuals who had not had the fight taken out of them. The little Yorkshire groom thought he must serve out somebody. So he threw himself into an approved scientific attitude, and, in brief, emphatic language, expressed his urgent anxiety to accommodate any classical young gentleman who chose to consider himself a candidate for his attentions. I don't suppose there were many of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... plans were blocked by General Eckert, who had in some manner taken offence at a transaction effected without his active participation in all the details. Edison, who became under the agreement the electrician of the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, has testified to the unfriendly attitude assumed toward him by General Eckert, as president. In a graphic letter from Menlo Park to Mr. Gould, dated February 2, 1877, Edison makes a most vigorous and impassioned complaint of his treatment, "which, acting cumulatively, was a long, unbroken disappointment ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... him he had dashed forward, snatched the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most extraordinary. The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or make the slightest sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an attitude of somnolent repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It was like running about with a dog of wood. "Gibberne," I cried, "put it down!" Then I said something else. "If you run like that, Gibberne," I cried, "you'll set your clothes on ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... and elsewhere in Wales, one of the things I noticed was the difference of the people from the people over the English border in their attitude toward their betters. They might stand only five feet in their stockings, but they stood straight, and if they were respectful, they were first self-respectful. In our run from Shrewsbury, their language first made itself generally heard at Newport, and it increased in the unutterable ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... commander in a territory of which he is in occupation; while (3) most English and American writers look upon the meaning of the clause as doubtful. If Mr. Cohen will look at p. 44 of my Laws of War on Land, 1909, he will find that I carry this sceptical attitude so far as to include the clause in question in brackets as "apocryphal," with the comment that "it can hardly, till its policy has been seriously discussed, be treated as a rule of international law." I have accordingly maintained, in correspondence with my Continental ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... beginning to cook, but she turned it obediently and hid another slow smile. Rising, she passed behind his chair, and pretended to busy herself with something near the wall. This was the environment and attitude which would make him talk ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... the young sculptor Antide Pechine, who has perfectly understood his work, and has represented the inventor at the moment at which he observes a flame start from a glass balloon in which he had heated some sawdust. The attitude is graceful and the expression of the face is meditative and intelligent. The statue, which is ten feet in height, was exhibited at the last Salon. It was cast at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... affectionate, trustful, the disciple of love. Andrew appears only a few times, but in each of these cases he is engaged in the same way,—bringing some one to Jesus. Mary of Bethany comes into the story on only three occasions; but always we see her in the same attitude,—at Jesus' feet,—while Martha is ever active in ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... for afternoon tea. Brown flung open the door into his living-room, his face aglow, and stood laughing at the sight of Mrs. Brainard's posture in his red rocking-chair. As if exhausted by the tortures of fatigue and starvation she lay back in an attitude of utter abandonment to her fate, and only the gleam of her eyes and the smile on her lips belied the dejection of her pose. "It's a shame!" he cried, coming to her side. "Or would be if—you hadn't aided and abetted ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... not best pleased with us when we deface and dissemble all that he has given us and put about us to one common standard of——Highty-Tighty!—when was a jester obliged to finish his sentence? I cut so strong a pirouette that all my bells jingle, and come down in an attitude, with one hand upon my hip. The evening's entertainment is over,—"and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... she said to herself. "He thinks we are all half savages," and with the energy of her ill-humour she suddenly changed her attitude, drew her bow, and sent her arrow straight ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... woman's soul trembled, and for a moment she felt almost powerless to resist. His unreserved giving appeared to require that he should receive also. She would have soon realized, however, that Haldane's attitude was essentially that of an Oriental lover, who, in his strongest attachments, is ever prone to maintain the imperative mood, and to consult his own heart rather than that of the woman he loves. While in Laura's ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... the salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leaning to the side of the latter, intellectually, but retaining much of the finer morality that distinguished the best life of the former. Her attitude towards the disorders of the regency was similar to that which Mme. de Rambouillet had held towards the profligate court of Henry IV, though her salon never attained the vogue of its model. It lacked a certain ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... resumed an imposing attitude during the war for the independence of America; glorious peace with England had compensated for the former attacks of our enemies upon the fame of France; and the throne was surrounded by numerous heirs. The sole ground of uneasiness was in the finances, but that uneasiness related ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... their masters. Indeed, no white Southerner knows his own village so minutely as does any member of its colored population. The colored villagers see the whites off their guard and just as they are, and that is an attitude in which no one looks his best. The negroes might be called the black recording angels of the South. If what they know should be shouted aloud in any Southern town, its social life would disintegrate. Yet it is a strange fact that gossip seldom penetrates ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... the nobles on whose attachment she could reckon. The most vigorous measures were adopted. Noircarmes, governor of Hainault, appeared before Valenciennes, which, being in the power of the Calvinists, had assumed a most determined attitude of resistance. He vainly summoned the place to submission, and to admit a royalist garrison; and on receiving an obstinate refusal, he commenced the siege in form. An undisciplined rabble of between three thousand and four thousand Gueux, under the direction ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... occupy a position similar to the petty shop-keeper, because they possess a commodity to sell or to barter. Men, as a sex, are buyers of, or barterers for, this commodity. The general attitude on this question of sex may be, and in fact usually is, wholly unconscious; but the fact remains that men and women meet each other, in the capitalist system, as buyers and sellers of, or barterers for, ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias

... pointing at the piece of silver he so exultingly tossed upon the table. As if his brain were again seized by the destroyer's flame, his countenance becomes livid, his eyes glare wildly upon each object near him; then he draws himself into a tragic attitude, contorts hideously his more hideous face, throws his cap scornfully to the ground, and commences tearing from his head the matted black hair that confusedly covers it. "If my mother thinks this a fit place for me—" ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... the offer, Dick's partners regarded the man in the four-quart hat with some doubt. Often, when offered a courtesy from strangers that they would like to accept, these boys were likely to regard the offer with this same attitude of suspicion. It was not that Dick & Co. meant to be ungracious to strangers, but rather that their boyish experience with the world had taught them that such offers from strangers usually have ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock

... replied, rather softly, and he could feel that she was watching him and that Claybrook was, in a way, standing by in a condescending attitude, ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... found it necessary to issue proclamations and warnings against such demonstrations of national anger; and they ceased almost as quickly as they began. But there is no doubt that their cessation was due largely to recognition of the friendly attitude of England as a naval power, and the worth of her policy to Japan in a moment of danger to the world's peace. England, too, had first rendered treaty-revision possible,—in spite of the passionate outcries of her own subjects in the Far East; and the leaders of the people were grateful. ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn



Words linked to "Attitude" :   unerect, presentation, sprawling, intolerance, upright, mannerism, trim, tendency, high horse, mind-set, culture, credence, southernism, disrespect, mentality, posture, disposition, vertical, ballet position, irreverence, reverence, orientation, noesis, affectation, missionary position, attitudinize, position, inclination, hardball, defensive attitude, respect, affectedness, mental attitude, bodily property, esteem, tuck, asana, cognition, erect, paternalism, guard, lotus position, decubitus



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org