Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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



Circle   Listen
noun
Circle  n.  
1.
A plane figure, bounded by a single curve line called its circumference, every part of which is equally distant from a point within it, called the center.
2.
The line that bounds such a figure; a circumference; a ring.
3.
(Astron.) An instrument of observation, the graduated limb of which consists of an entire circle. Note: When it is fixed to a wall in an observatory, it is called a mural circle; when mounted with a telescope on an axis and in Y's, in the plane of the meridian, a meridian circle or transit circle; when involving the principle of reflection, like the sextant, a reflecting circle; and when that of repeating an angle several times continuously along the graduated limb, a repeating circle.
4.
A round body; a sphere; an orb. "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth."
5.
Compass; circuit; inclosure. "In the circle of this forest."
6.
A company assembled, or conceived to assemble, about a central point of interest, or bound by a common tie; a class or division of society; a coterie; a set. "As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintance widened."
7.
A circular group of persons; a ring.
8.
A series ending where it begins, and repeating itself. "Thus in a circle runs the peasant's pain."
9.
(Logic) A form of argument in which two or more unproved statements are used to prove each other; inconclusive reasoning. "That heavy bodies descend by gravity; and, again, that gravity is a quality whereby a heavy body descends, is an impertinent circle and teaches nothing."
10.
Indirect form of words; circumlocution. (R.) "Has he given the lie, In circle, or oblique, or semicircle."
11.
A territorial division or district. Note: The Circles of the Holy Roman Empire, ten in number, were those principalities or provinces which had seats in the German Diet.
Azimuth circle. See under Azimuth.
Circle of altitude (Astron.), a circle parallel to the horizon, having its pole in the zenith; an almucantar.
Circle of curvature. See Osculating circle of a curve (Below).
Circle of declination. See under Declination.
Circle of latitude.
(a)
(Astron.) A great circle perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, passing through its poles.
(b)
(Spherical Projection) A small circle of the sphere whose plane is perpendicular to the axis.
Circles of longitude, lesser circles parallel to the ecliptic, diminishing as they recede from it.
Circle of perpetual apparition, at any given place, the boundary of that space around the elevated pole, within which the stars never set. Its distance from the pole is equal to the latitude of the place.
Circle of perpetual occultation, at any given place, the boundary of the space around the depressed pole, within which the stars never rise.
Circle of the sphere, a circle upon the surface of the sphere, called a great circle when its plane passes through the center of the sphere; in all other cases, a small circle.
Diurnal circle. See under Diurnal.
Dress circle, a gallery in a theater, generally the one containing the prominent and more expensive seats.
Druidical circles (Eng. Antiq.), a popular name for certain ancient inclosures formed by rude stones circularly arranged, as at Stonehenge, near Salisbury.
Family circle, a gallery in a theater, usually one containing inexpensive seats.
Horary circles (Dialing), the lines on dials which show the hours.
Osculating circle of a curve (Geom.), the circle which touches the curve at some point in the curve, and close to the point more nearly coincides with the curve than any other circle. This circle is used as a measure of the curvature of the curve at the point, and hence is called circle of curvature.
Pitch circle. See under Pitch.
Vertical circle, an azimuth circle.
Voltaic circuit or Voltaic circle. See under Circuit.
To square the circle. See under Square.
Synonyms: Ring; circlet; compass; circuit; inclosure.






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 |





"Circle" Quotes from Famous Books



... is, first, a steady change through the whole line from less to more curvature, or more to less, so that no part of the line is a segment of a circle, or can be drawn by compasses in any way whatever. Thus, in Fig. 36., a is a bad curve, because it is part of a circle, and is therefore monotonous throughout; but b is a good curve, because it continually changes its ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... dependent on her—a state of affairs which, if it occasionally leads to loneliness, has its compensations. Her salary as a stenographer amply covered her living expenses, and even permitted her to put by a few dollars monthly. She had grown up in Granville. She had her own circle of friends. So that she was comfortable, even happy, in the present—and Jack Barrow proposed to settle the problem of her future; with youth's optimism, they two considered it already settled. Six months more, and ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The morn the marshalling in arms—the day Battle's magnificently stern array. The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse—friend, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... adventurers, would inevitably be seen here; the bayonet alone would be relied on for the preservation of the nearest and dearest of human rights. There could and would be no other security for the peace of society, and that circle of power which, rising in the masses, ends in the sceptre of the single despot, would once more be made as it might be in derision of all our ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper

... we found ourselves convinced that it would prove minor and unsatisfactory. For Wagner's music had for us an incandescence which no other possessed. It was the magnetic spot of music. Its colors blazed and glowed with a depth and ardor that seemed to set it apart from other music as in an enchanted circle. It unlocked us as did no other. We demanded just such orchestral movement, just such superb gestures, just such warm, immersing floods, and were fulfilled by them. That there would come a day when the magnetism which it exerted on us ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... a room filled with Mission furniture and reading-lamps under green shades. It was empty, except for a young girl in deep black, who was seated facing him, her head bent above a writing-desk. As he came into the circle of the lamps the girl raised her eyes and as though lifted to her feet by what she saw, and through no effort of her own, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... The inner circle train from the City rushed impetuously out of a black hole and pulled up with a discordant, grinding racket in the smirched twilight of a West-End station. A line of doors flew open and a lot of men stepped ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... that," said Nat, as he sent the ball, at his first bat, over the heads of all, so far that he had time to run round the whole circle of goals, turning a somerset as he ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... the one who can't trust his compass who loses his head, once he knows he's mixed up. Big Louie was that way. He was lost once, for two days, before we found him; he was half mad with terror and pretty near dead with fatigue. He had been running in a big circle for hours, and we had to corner him before he would see that we were friends. He'd been listening to the night noises, you see; dwelling on the blackness and the silence and his lack of a fire, until his brain was no longer ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... such theologic and metaphysical substitutes for scientific thought as the declaration that the perfect line is a circle, and hence that the planets must move in absolute circles—a statement which led astronomy astray even when the great truths of the Copernican theory were well in sight; also, the declaration that nature ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... found, was some three-quarters of a mile from point to point, built in a circle, or wide horseshoe, with an opening of twenty feet at the mouth of the lagoon. Pine-trees grew thickly all over, but here and there were patches of silver birch, scrub oak, and considerable colonies of wild raspberry and gooseberry ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... heard the tread of the Pandavas as they approached the river. On hearing the sounds of their foot-steps, the mighty Gandharvas were inflamed with wrath, and beholding those chastisers of foes, the Pandavas, approach towards him with their mother, he drew his frightful bow to a circle and said, 'It is known that excepting the first forty seconds the grey twilight preceding nightfall hath been appointed for the wandering of the Yakshas, the Gandharvas and the Rakshasas, all of whom are capable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... easy thing. Vinicius remembered the difficulty with which he had passed from the Appian Way to the Trans-Tiber, and how he must circle around to reach the Via Portuensis. He resolved, therefore, to go around the city this time in the opposite direction. Going by the Via Triumphatoris, it was possible to reach the AEmilian bridge by going along the river, thence passing the Pincian Hill, all the Campus Martius, outside ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of a circular, thick mat of straw, from two to four feet in diameter, covered with canvas, painted in a series of circles. The inner circle is a gold color, then comes red, white, black, and the outer circle white. The score for a gold hit is nine; the red 7, the inner white 5; the black 3, and the ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... cat. "Oh, save him, save him!" shrieked out Bella; but it was too late. Though the boys paddled with might and main, before they reached the shore the crocodile sank beneath the surface, dragging the poor ape with him. A little circle alone marked the spot where ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... and spirits; the military inhabitants amused themselves with polo and cricket, as though there was no chance of being bowled out by "Long Tom," while the ladies gave little concerts for the amusement of the select circle. So great was the pluck of this little community, that they even edited a paper called the Ladysmith Lyre, a species of Transvaal edition of Truth, which, if not vero, was certainly ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... large number of citizens, withdrew. But a great multitude still remained upon the benches and in the semi-circle of the Chamber. ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... concerned with all that is least generic, least specific, all that is most intimately personal and individual, in sexual selection. It is the final point in which the decreasing circle of sexual attractiveness is fixed. In the widest and most abstract form sexual selection in man is merely human, and we are attracted to that which bears most fully the marks of humanity; in a less abstract form it is sexual, and we are ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... dead thus honored is to be included one class of heroes. A Greek "hero" was sometimes an eminent man, sometimes such a man divinized, sometimes an old god reduced to human dimensions, reckoned in some cases to belong to the circle of the gods proper.[696] Such personages might be worshiped as gods, with the sacrifices appropriate to the gods, or as departed men, with the sacrifices that custom fixed for the dead. The hero-cult included many ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... church, in the soul garden of which are two Runic cross tombstones. One day I went farther afield to a more ancient shrine, on the top of a high mountain. This was to the summit of Cader Idris, sixteen miles off. On this summit there is a Druidical circle, of which the stones, themselves to ruin grown, are strange and death-like old. Legend says that this is the burial-place of Taliesin, the first of Welsh bards, the primeval poet of Celtic time. Whoever sleeps on the grave will ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... every way where he was faltering and deficient, and he poured out his heart in praises of her that made her brain reel. They talked of a thousand things, touching them, and leaving them, and coming back, but always keeping within the circle of their relation to themselves. They flattered one another with the tireless and credulous egotism of love; they tried to tell what they had thought of each other from the first moment they met, and tried to make out that they neither had ever since had a ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... Baal Shem with all his pupils met the wizard with his fellows in an open field; and there, under the blue circle of Heaven, the Baal Shem made two circles around himself and one in another place around his pupils, enjoining them to keep their eyes fixed on his face, and, if they noticed any change in it, immediately to begin crying ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... 13th I circulated an Address, proposing to discontinue the use of the Zenith Tube, because it had been found by a long course of comparative trials that the Zenith Tube was not more accurate than the Mural Circle. The Address stated that 'This want of superior efficiency of the Zenith Tube (which, considered in reference to the expectations that had been formed of its accuracy, must be estimated as a positive failure) ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... from real and genuine sources three glimpses of the man: in youth as the disciple of St. John, in middle age as the champion of Ignatius, in closing life as the teacher of Irenaeus. Of the circle of disciples who gathered round St. John, Polycarp is indubitably the most famous. He delighted, in his declining years, to tell his younger friends what he had himself heard from eye-witnesses of the Lord's life on earth; and he would ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... is all that he requires as the final "assault upon his feelings." The phrase, of course, is Stevenson's, and it can hardly be avoided. Popularity rewards the writer who can assault the feelings of his readers, and anyone who uses a more delicate method must be content with a smaller circle of readers. ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... the palace, and, after kneeling before the Sultan, stood in a half-circle round the throne with their arms crossed, while Aladdin's mother presented them to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... aloft and brought it slowly down, staying it just ere the edge touched the flesh. There, for an instant, he held it, measuring his distance, while the sunlight flashed along its polished face. Suddenly it rose again, and sweeping in a wide circle of shimmering steel fell with ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... discipline of humanity." Whenever and wherever I met this charming person, I learned a lesson of gentleness and patience; for, steeped to the lips in poverty as he was, he was ever the most cheerful, the most genial companion and friend. He never left his good-nature outside the family circle, as a Mussulman leaves his slippers outside a mosque, but he always brought a smiling face into the house with him. T—— A——, whose fine floating wit has never yet quite condensed itself into a star, said one day of a Boston man that he was "east-wind made flesh." Leigh Hunt was exactly the opposite ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... Maynard, as he looked at the red, laughing faces, and moist, tumbled curls. "You look just like a lot of healthy, happy boys and girls should look, but that's enough of that. Now, we'll sit down in a circle, and ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... warm-hearted frankness of the Irish character, and offers the civilities of life with the air and manner of a prince. I flatter myself with the opportunity of profiting greatly while under his roof, in the polished circle of his household, and in his ripe experience and knowledge of the Indian character, manners, and customs, and in the curious philosophical traits of the Indian language. It is refreshing to find a person who, in reference ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... circle of the starry Sieve,141 through which God, as they say, gifted grains of corn, when he cast them down from heaven for Adam our father, who had been banished ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... the men, wheeling in a circle, forming a solid row. The men stood up, Taylor reaching awkwardly for his weapon, his fingers numb and stupid. The men stood facing ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick

... man of the 18th Reserve Division, "we had to go out again; we were to learn to sing. The greater part did not join in, and the song went feebly. Then we had to march round in a circle and sing, and that went no better. After that we had an hour off, and on the way back to billets we were to sing 'Deutschland uber Alles,' but this broke down completely. One never hears songs ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... a terrible stimulus. Hannah unfastened the lace gown with fingers trembling with haste. She stepped out of the shimmering circle which it made; she was in her own costume in an incredibly short space of time, and the lace gown was in its accustomed place in the closet. Then suddenly Miss Hart ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... to the throne. Each, too, of the great Catholic powers has a right to exclude one among the candidates, if the exclusion be announced before the votes are all given in: a privilege which, as it narrows the circle of the eligible and increases individual chances, seldom fails to be faithfully exercised. Indeed, up to the last moment, no one can tell who may and who may not be chosen. The most prominent candidates are often the first to be set aside; and the election, like all elections, from that ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... in the clear waters of the Jordan, the god of which river waits upon Him. S. John high up on the bank, his staff, topped with a cross, in his hand, pours the water from a shell upon Our Lord's head while the Dove, an almost heraldic figure, is seen above About this circular mosaic is set a greater circle in which we see, upon a blue ground, the twelve Apostles in procession, each bearing his crown. Nothing left to us of that age is finer or more gravely splendid than these mosaics, they seem to be the highest expression of a great ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... man, however, saw his horse galloping in a circle back to the other horses. Meantime I had dropped my muzzle loader and with revolver stood looking at the Indian kicking in the grass forty rods away. Mr. Driskol flow ran up to where I was standing and pointing to the Indian, I said, "It wasn't a goose this ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... on a wiry, jerking little fellow, whom he recognized as Jean La Marche, the fiddler, a censitaire of the manor of Tilly. He was a well-known character, and had drawn a large circle of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... all was gloom and sorrow except in the little circle of society which boasted of its loyalty to the Crown. Scarcely a family but had some representative in the Continental ranks, and as all intelligence reached the city through British channels, the darkest side of every encounter between the armies was the first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... gentlemen can make of themselves for lovely woman—look yonder!' 'Where?' says she. 'There!' says I, 'the dark, dazzling beauty yonder!' So Loveliness looks, and at that very moment Beauty breaks from the abject circle of her fawning slaves and comes running. 'Diana!' cries Loveliness. 'Barbara!' cries Beauty, and they are in each other's arms—and there you are, Perry. Astonishing how they love each other. So when I left to attend this birthday of yours, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... to communicate some inexplicable perversity to her thoughts. They wandered back from present things to past, in spite of her. They brought her old master back to life again; they revived forgotten sayings and doings in the English circle at Zurich; they veered away to the old man's death-bed at Brighton; they moved from Brighton to London; they entered the bare, comfortless room at Vauxhall Walk; they set the Aquarium back in its place on the kitchen table, and put the false Miss Garth in the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... at this period apparently averse to making use of his degree even on public and formal occasions, as it always was to using it in private life. He described himself on his visiting cards as "Mr. Adam Smith," he was known in the inner circle of his personal friends as Mr. Smith, and when Dugald Stewart was found fault with by certain critics for speaking of him so in his memoirs, he replied that he never heard Smith ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... authority, that they entered it from Spain, from Italy, from Denmark, and from Sweden. We find, by comparison of accounts, that they appeared within the space of a few years at every point of a circle of which Germany was the centre, and everywhere they were regarded as foreigners,—even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... reinforced by North American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently labeled with logical rather than physical directions. A similar situation exists at MIT: Route 128 (famous for the electronics industry that has grown up along it) is a 3-quarters circle surrounding Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe the two directions along this highway as 'clockwise' and 'counterclockwise', but the road signs ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... your idea that you are enlarging your circle of intimate friends by the way you go about slamming into folks?" inquired Mahaffy, with ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... the older and leading laymen and ministers is admirably illustrated in Rev. O.B. Frothingham's account of his father in his book entitled Boston Unitarianism. They were interested in many, public-spirited enterprises, and the social circle in which they moved was cultivated and refined; but they were provincial, and little inclined to look beyond the limits of their own immediate interests. Dr. Nathaniel L. Frothingham, minister of the First ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... foundation established by usage as a recognition of social needs, and intended to prevent rudeness and confusion; intended also to make polite society polite. We must conform, according to our circle, to social conventions as thus established, since they are the ripened results of long and varied experience in what is most suitable and becoming. Not to observe them is to advertise our ignorance and expose ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... decorated and carried them to a large council-house, where they were placed on a dressed buffalo-skin by the side of the grand chief. The hall or council-room was in the shape of three-quarters of a circle, covered at the top and sides with skins well dressed and sewed together. Under this shelter sat about seventy men, forming a circle round the chief, before whom were placed a Spanish flag and the one we had ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... the state of heart in which he had left him, was the sun, was life to two men who were very dear to our captain. He directed his course, therefore, to the spot where he knew he should find Mademoiselle de la Valliere. D'Artagnan found La Valliere the center of a circle. In her apparent solitude, the king's favorite received, like a queen, more perhaps than the queen, a homage of which Madame had been so proud, when all the king's looks were directed to her, and commanded the looks of the courtiers. D'Artagnan, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... negligence of a handsome father. Along one side sat Hilda, next to Janet, and these two were flanked by Jimmie and Johnnie, tall, unbending, apparently determined to prove by a politely supercilious demeanor that to pass a whole evening thus in the home circle was considered by them to be a concession on their part rather than a privilege. Edwin Clayhanger sat exactly opposite to Hilda, with Charlie for sponsor; and Tom's ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... Sultan was stabled, and we five were accommodated in the great hall, for the host and the ostler stayed on the ground that so dangerous a villain as Swift Nicks wanted a strong guard. They put me under the great chimney and sat round me, in a half circle, each man with a loaded pistol in one hand and a jug of ale in the other. The Squire's lady came in and stood afar off examining me, and I saw that she was in deadly fear of me, handcuffed and guarded ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the WHIZZER was moving about in a big circle, for the rudder had been automatically set to so swing the craft. It was about two hundred feet high, but soon after the gas began to enter the bag it rose until it was nearly five thousand feet high. This satisfied Tom that the ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... in London. In 1764 he published Economical and Medical Observations, which contained suggestions for improving the hygiene of army hospitals. In his latter years he withdrew altogether into private life. The circle of his friends included some of the most distinguished literary men of the age. He was warmly attached to Dr Johnson, to whom about 1784 he offered an annuity of L100 for life, and whom he attended ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... the flat back of Sandy Hook run past as though wound on rollers; the pilot goes over the side with a bag of farewell letters; the white yacht which has followed down the bay blows a parting blast, dips her ensign, and swings in a wide circle toward New York; the pursuing tug comes up and puts a tardy passenger aboard. Then, suddenly, like a sleep-walking dragon that wakes up, the liner shakes herself; her propellers lash the sea to suds; a wedge-shaped ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street

... the horizon. The old Moorish garden, overrun with the brilliant blossoms that drink their hues from the sea, overlooked the harbor. Across the huddled many-colored houses the ten-year-old Beatriz and her playfellow Fernao could see the western ocean in a great half-circle, bounded by the mysterious line above which three tiny caravels had just risen. The sea to-day was exquisite, bluer than the heavens that arched above it. The wave-crests looked like a flock of sea-doves playing on the sunlit sparkling waters. Fernao from ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into the room. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circle round me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... qualities, which, had they been happily directed, would have conducted him to fame. Had the attention of a Grammont, or of a ——, been early turned towards what ought to be the objects desired, who can doubt that, instead of the heroes of a circle, they might have been worthy of becoming ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he was free; he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to some small circle, and lived, as we should say, under police surveillance; but to him, who had done so much from under lock and key, this would seem a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the second place, it will be impossible for the damned soul ever to say, I am now got half way through my sorrows. That which has no end, has no middle. Sinner, make a round circle, or ring, upon the ground, of what bigness thou wilt; this done, go thy way upon that circle, or ring, until thou comest to the end thereof; but that, sayest thou, I can never do; because it has no end. I answer, but thou mayest as soon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... so capable of disordering the intellects as an intense application to any one of these six things: the Quadrature of the Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology. "It is proper, however," Fontenelle remarks, "to apply one's self to these inquiries; because we find, as we proceed, many valuable discoveries of which ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... as you dwell on my thoughts, 'tis some wonder those thoughts came never yet in Contact with a poetical mood—But you dwell in my heart of hearts, and I love you in all the naked honesty of prose. God bless you, and all your little domestic circle—my tenderest remembrances to your Beloved Sara, & a smile and a kiss from me to your dear dear little David Hartley—The verses I refer to above, slightly amended, I have sent (forgetting to ask your leave, tho' indeed ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... niche of the principal chapel of the lower Church of S. Francesco, where the choir is; and although he did not finish it, it is seen from what he did that he used so great diligence that no greater could be desired. In this work there is seen begun a circle of saints, both male and female, with so beautiful variety in the faces of the young, the men of middle age, and the old, that nothing better could be desired. And there is seen a very sweet manner in these blessed spirits, with such great harmony ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari

... he told the assembled animals and birds to dance, taking up his drum and crying, "New songs from the south, come, brothers, dance." He directed them to pass in a circle around him, and to shut their eyes. They did so. When he saw a fat fowl pass by him, he adroitly wrung off its head, at the same time beating his drum and singing with greater vehemence, to drown the noise of the fluttering, and crying out, in a tone of admiration, "That's ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... charioteer of Castor and Pollux. (22) "Effusis telis". I have so taken this difficult expression. Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten thousands by being packed close together and having a circle drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. It is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being so measured, and Lucan's account would then be made ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... me to read her features. I lay back in the carriage, thinking that it would have been better for my poor little wild friend if I had never crossed the shadow of her tents. A life caught out of its natural circle is as much in danger of being lost as a limb given to a wheel in spinning machinery; so it occurred to me, until I reflected that Prince Ernest might make the same remark, and deplore the damage done to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is rarer than in more physical branches of art, but its productions are not likely to be of value outside the doting domestic circle. Even Pope who "lisped in numbers for the numbers came," did not add to our Anthology from his cradle, though he may therein have acquired his monotonous rocking-metre. Immaturity of mind and experience, so easily disguised ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin

... that you were a moderately rich man, in good health, young, without business or profession, without any special talent; and that your friends—your social circle—were very much like yourself. Suppose that your life was spent in clubs, country houses, travel—that you had nothing on earth to do but amuse yourself, nothing to look forward to but repetitions of the same amusement. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... advice in moments of personal perplexity. Always more or less of an invalid, he lived much in the life of his brothers, and his cheery fortitude, kindly humour, and unfailing sympathy made his loss keenly felt in our family circle. He died, by a strange coincidence, on the tenth anniversary of the death ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... identification of the name Tenduc with the Thiante of the Chinese, belonging to a city which had been destroyed 300 years before, whilst he himself will have that name to be a corruption of Tathung. The latter is still the name of a city and Fu of northern Shansi, but in Mongol time its circle of administration extended beyond the Chinese wall, and embraced territory on the left of the Hwang-Ho, being in fact the first Lu, or circle, entered on leaving Tangut, and therefore, Pauthier urges, the "Kingdom ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... able to say. The title of "Pilgrims' road" I take to be a piece of modern antiquarianism. In the immediate vicinity of this portion there are some druidical remains: some at Addington, and a portion of a small circle tolerably distinct in a field and lane between, I think, Trottescliffe and Ryarsh. In the absence of better information, you may perhaps make ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various

... Mary the Virgin was filled to overflowing, but it was not the church we know as such now. That more ancient edifice had been built in the days of Alfred, and its nave was closely packed with the clergy of Oxford and the neighbourhood, save a circle of curule chairs reserved for the members of the Council. Into the midst of the excited crowd of clergy—among whom were sprinkled as many laymen, chiefly of the upper class, as could find room to squeeze in—filed ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... buzzing sound, as the tail revolved, and a brisk flapping of the peculiar wings, but they were more interested just then in following with their eyes the tiny speck of light which marked the location of the candle. This light first made a great circle, then dropped slowly downward and suddenly was extinguished, leaving everything before them black ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... character assassins in political power.) It would require another book to catalogue in detail all the writings that include folk tales about Don Coyote. Ethnologists and scientific folklorists recognize what they call "the Coyote Circle" in the folklore of many tribes of Indians. Morris Edward Opler in Myths and Legends of the Lipan Apache Indians, 1940, and in Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians, 1942 (both issued by the American Folklore Society, New York) treats fully of ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances."[2] Such is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... valet, or for that matter why should a French valet attach himself to an Arab Sheik and exile himself in the wilds of the desert? Whichever way she turned, the mystery of the man she loved seemed to crop up. She started arguing with herself in a circle—why should the Sheik have a European servant or why should he not, until she gave it ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... "I watch the circle of the eternal years, And read forever in the storied page One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears— One onward step of Truth from age ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... know; your way of approaching a subject is to walk in a circle round it. But please dash into the middle ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... day school, watched. Propped up in the window frame with her pet cat, a Persian, with eyes like swimming pools with painted green bottoms, seated in a perfect circle in her quiet lap, for all the world in the attitude of a sardel except for the ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... small bands of the foe. And so, when they came to a high place not far from the city, but just beyond the range of missiles, they took their stand there. But Belisarius selected a thousand men, putting Bessas in command, and ordered them to engage with the enemy. And this force, by forming a circle around the enemy and always shooting at them from behind, killed a large number, and by pressing hard upon the rest compelled them to descend into the plain. There a hand-to-hand battle took place between forces not evenly matched in strength, and ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... certain pictures, which were backward, for forthcoming exhibition. Many similar acts of self-sacrifice are still remembered with gratitude by those who were the recipients of them. Rossetti was king of his circle, and it must be said, that in all that properly constituted kingship, he took care to rule. There was then a certain determination of purpose which occasionally had the look of arbitrariness, and sometimes, it is alleged, a disregard of opposing opinion which partook of tyranny: but where heart ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... sympathies stirred within her, the old lady advanced to the girl with the intention of gathering her to her bosom. But as she drew near, the black and white of the open diary attracted her eye under the circle of lamplight, and being possessed of excellent long sight, she thought it no shame to utilise the same across her grand-niece's prostrate, heaving form, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... place a few days before that night of first performance of The Devil's Betrothed, when the whole orchestra noticed how ill Pons was looking. But by that time all the circle of dinner-givers who were used to seeing Pons' face at their tables, and to send him on errands, had begun to ask each other for news of him, and uneasiness increased when it was reported by some who had ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... ma'am, Here is a paradox we should not pass Without inquiry. We are prone to say "This thing is Needful — that, Superfluous"— Yet they invariably co-exist! We find the Needful comprehended in The circle of the grand Superfluous, Yet the Superfluous cannot be brought Unless you're amply furnished with the Needful. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... from vagrancy and evictions were slowly passing away. Taxation was light. The country was firmly and steadily governed. The popular favour which had met Elizabeth at her accession was growing into a passionate devotion. Of her faults indeed England beyond the circle of her court knew little or nothing. The shiftings of her diplomacy were never seen outside the royal closet. The nation at large could only judge her foreign policy by its main outlines, by its temperance and good sense, and above all by its success. But every Englishman was ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... the most accurate astronomical instrument for relative measurements of position, as a transit circle is the most accurate for absolute determinations. It consists of an equatorial telescope with object-glass cut right across, and each half movable by a sliding movement one past the other, the amount by which the two halves are ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... the first mention of Thomas Allsop (1795-1880), Coleridge's friend and disciple, who, meeting Coleridge in 1818, had just come into Lamb's circle. We shall meet him frequently. Allsop's Letters, Conversations and Recollections of Samuel Taylor Coleridge contain much ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... on the edge of the cliff, from whence it hopped into the air, and seemed to let itself fall some forty feet, down behind a stunted patch of broom, which had rooted in a cleft. There it disappeared for a few moments, to reappear, diving down toward the stream, but only to circle upward again, rise higher and higher, and finally disappear over the cliff, half a quarter of ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... surprises, of particular and exceptional instances. The abnormal is the normal; and the most thrilling moments some of us know are the moments when we snatch an inspiration from a quarter outside our allotted circle. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... up and, leading me to a window, pointed to the extreme end of the horseshoe circle of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... of a circle of Society that did duty for a sphere, in the case of Mrs. Nightingale and Sally, was collectively surprised when it heard of the intended marriage of the former, having settled in its own mind that the latter was the magnet to Mr. Fenwick's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... ship they started preparing a larger quantity of the antibody suspension. Fuzzy had regenerated back to normal weight again, and much to Dal's delight had been splitting off small segments of pink protoplasm in a circle all around him, as though anticipating further demands on his resources. A quick test-run showed that the antibody was also being regenerated. Fuzzy was voraciously hungry, but the material in the second batch was still as powerful as in ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... fine fellow," exclaimed Captain Molineux, as the youth now joined their circle, "so you have clapped on the true harness at last. I always said that your figure became a red jacket a devilish deal better than a blue. But what new freak is this? Had you not a close enough berth to Jonathan in the Miami, without running ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... his claims. At the same time she had not keen, she had only absorbing feelings of her rights; there was nothing keen in lady Ann; neither sense nor desire, neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, neither love nor hate. Beyond her own order, beyond indeed her own circle in that order, the universe hardly existed. An age-long process of degeneration had been going on in her race, and she was the result: she was well born and well bred for feeling nothing. There is something fearful in the thought that through ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... my boyhood! shades of rhymes! Vain dreams and longings of my early times! The work of intervals, a ploughboy's lore, Oft conned by hearthlight when day's toil was o'er; Or when through roof-cracks could at night behold Bright stars in circle with pattens of gold; Or stretched at noon while oaken branches cast A restful shade, where rippling waters passed; The ox unconscious panted at my side, The good dog fondly his young master eyed, And on the boughs above the forest ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... moonlight, or else just at dusk, and, running about under the tree, bark sharply to attract the chickens' attention. If near the house, he does this by jumping, lest the dog or the farmer hear his barking. Once they have begun to flutter and cackle, as they always do when disturbed, he begins to circle the tree slowly, still jumping and clacking his teeth. The chickens crane their necks down to follow him. Faster and faster he goes, racing in small circles, till some foolish fowl grows dizzy with twisting her head, or loses her balance and tumbles ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... make one up." The boy took a bit of chalk from his pocket, and marked off the table into various sections, with a circle in each corner, ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... [58:11] Voltaire seemed to grow more bitter about Holbach's book as time went on. His letters and various works abound in references to it, and it is difficult to determine his motives. He was accused, as has been suggested, by Holbach's circle "de caresser les gens en place, et d'abandonner ceux qui n'y sont plus." [58:12] M. Avenel believed that he suspected Holbach himself of making these accusations. Voltaire's letter to the Duc de Richelieu, Nov. 1, 1770, [58:13] seems ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing

... those wearers of the cross, the square, the circle, the crescent, the star, the lozenge, and the tripod; emblemed representatives of the interests of a common humanity in the triumphal march that the world is witness to, of the progress of Universal Emancipation. Landed aristocracies of the Old World may avow their affinity ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... astonishment at the doctor's temerity. Parker Hitchcock shrugged his shoulders and muttered something to Miss Lindsay. The older men moved in their chairs. It was an unhappy topic for dinner conversation in this circle. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... children and our poor selves following along, dirty and ragged. Mrs. Bennett's dress hardly reached below her knees, and although her skirts were fringed about the bottom it was of a kind that had not been adopted as yet in general circle of either Spanish-American or good United States society. The shortness of the dress made the curious raw-hide moccasins only the more prominent, and the whole make-up of the party was ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... everything very plain, and by this light we could see that there were three crowded boats out in the blue circle of light, while we could just see the fourth beyond them upside down, the keel just above the water, and three men ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... alone or in groups, were tumuli, and leading away from the largest group of tumuli Ned saw a street or causeway, which, passing by the Pyramid of the Sun, ended in front of the Pyramid of the Moon, where it widened out into a great circle, with a tumulus standing in ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the artist richer material for dramatic fascination and to the reader more lively interest in characters intensely human, than does the less sensational story of the Elects finding peace and happiness in a realm transcending the experiences of human nature. Dante's Purgatorio also finds a wider circle of readers because his penitents, suffering, struggling and aspiring, like people upon earth, have more human traits and exhibit more human interest than the saints confirmed in grace ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... and looked at those breasts until Mina noticed him and actually began to blush. As if embarrassed, she picked up one of the other children and began to swing it around in a circle. Her movement turned Keith's attention to the petticoat, and suddenly he could ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... amusingly familiar with Bible facts and phrases. Mr. Sludge, "the Medium," thinks the Bible says the stars are "set for signs when we should shear sheep, sow corn, prune trees," and describes the skeptic in the magic circle of spiritual "investigators" as the "guest without the wedding-garb, the doubting Thomas." Some one has taken the trouble to count five hundred Biblical phrases or allusions in "The Ring and the Book." Mrs. Browning's "'Drama of Exile" is the woman's side of the ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... his mouth the horn he drew—(it hung below his cloak) His ten true men the signal knew, and through the ring they broke; With helm on head, and blade in hand, the knights the circle brake, And back the lordlings 'gan to stand, and ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... phenomena as a whole; they are treated as quite distinct from the rest of life, possessing both an independent origin and justification. The consequence is that what are usually called studies of religion move round and round the same circle of ideas, and a revolution is mistaken for progress. Genuine enlightenment has come to us from men who have attacked the subject from a quite different point of view. They recognised that whether the religious idea was accepted as true or rejected as false, it could not be separated ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... branches at a great height from the ground. They were probably after the honey-dew. Buttercups do not flourish under trees; in early summer, where elms or oaks stand in the mowing-grass, there is often a circle around almost bare of them and merely green, while the rest of the meadow glistens with the burnished gold of ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... exhaustion of a man still in the prime of life is betrayed by the metallic, brassy skin, discolored as if with verdigris. Such tints are seen on the faces of debauched gamblers who spend their nights in play: the eyes are sunken in a dusky circle, the lids are reddened rather than red, the brow is menacing from the wreck and ruin it reveals. Philippe's cheeks, which were sunken and wrinkled, showed signs of the illness from which he had scarcely recovered. His head was bald, except ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... without having the genius of conversation and discussion, lacked neither aplomb nor a taste for the proprieties; she knew how to support, or, at least, to preside over a circle. The young Dauphine had neither the desire, nor the patience, nor, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... and what the guy from the fort had said. Gee! but you'd oughta heard what the men said when he told 'em! Gee! but they was some mad! Bimeby we came to the woods round the cabin, and Jap Kemp made me stick alongside Long Bill, and he sent the men off in different directions all in a big circle, and waited till each man was in his place, and then we all rode hard as we could and came softly up round that cabin just as the sun was goin' down. Gee! but you'd oughta seen the scairt look on them women's faces; there was two of 'em—an old un an' ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... the water line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is, by the route that you can, and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... and believed in metempsychosis. The rule of life did not as a rule amount to asceticism in the Indian sense, which was most uncongenial to Hellenic ideas, but it comprised great self-restraint. The belief in metempsychosis finds remarkably clear expression: we hear in the Orphic fragments of the circle of birth and of escape from it, language strikingly parallel to many Indian utterances and strikingly unlike the usual turns of Greek speech and thought. Thus the soul is addressed as "Hail thou who hast suffered ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... c. 2. s. 24.), describes as making these cups, and carrying across the sea for sale in the great emporiums visited by these ships.[2] A variety of articles of silver are spoken of at very early periods. Dutugaimunu, when building the great dagoba, caused the circle of its base to be described by "a pair of compasses made of silver, and pointed with gold;"[3] parasols, vases, caranduas and numerous other regal or religious paraphernalia, were made from this precious material. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... opposite bank stretched a wide green level, called the Ham—dotted with pasturing cattle of all sorts. Beyond it was a second river, forming an arch of a circle round the verdant flat. But the stream itself lay so low as to be invisible from where we sat; you could only trace the line of its course by the small white sails that glided in and out, oddly enough, from behind clumps of trees, and ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... much broader and less special, than that which it had at the time when it signified only the material fact of existence. The voluptuaries of old Rome were by no means convinced that life without license was life. The women of easy virtue, living within the circle of their friendships, after the fashion best suited to their desires, understood that verb only after their own interpretation, and the philologists soon reconciled themselves to the change. In this sense it was that Varro employed "vivere," when he said: "Young women, make haste to ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... sought comfort on high, repeating to himself, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon us!" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his knees and prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that he would gladly do so if there were space. A wide circle was formed, and Ulrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been providently empowered to take advantage of final weakening, came forward, saying, "Dear sir and master, if you will recant your unbelief and heresy, for which you must suffer, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... seasons bring The hour of fate to those we love, Each pearl that leaves the broken string Is set in Friendship's crown above. As narrower grows the earthly chain, The circle widens in the sky; These are our treasures that remain, But those are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... the major proceeded to lay out all his notes upon the table, overlapping each other, but still so arranged that every separate one was visible. He then built in the centre ten little golden columns in a circle, each consisting of ten sovereigns, until the whole presented the appearance of a metallic Stonehenge upon a plain of bank notes. This done, he cocked his head on one side, like a fat and very ruddy turkey, and contemplated his little arrangement ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle



Words linked to "Circle" :   grand circle, Antarctic Circle, locomote, rope, ellipse, roofy, social group, seating, shape, circle of Willis, disc, double leg circle, family circle, oval, theater, travel, osculating circle, inner circle, rophy, pace lap, equator, lap, seating area, rotating mechanism, horsy set, Rohypnol, victory lap, coterie, dip circle, jet set, arc, vertical circle, circuit, quarter-circle, dress circle, great circle, orb, party, circle round, four hundred, circumambulate, lot, vicious circle, parhelic circle, route, circle around, cohort, Mexican valium, set, circumnavigate, equinoctial circle, seating room, walk around, company, confederacy, roundabout, house, form, disk, band, rotary, circlet, road, traffic circle, R-2, theatre, circulate



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org