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adjective
Common  adj.  (compar. commoner; superl. commonest)  
1.
Belonging or relating equally, or similarly, to more than one; as, you and I have a common interest in the property. "Though life and sense be common to men and brutes."
2.
Belonging to or shared by, affecting or serving, all the members of a class, considered together; general; public; as, properties common to all plants; the common schools; the Book of Common Prayer. "Such actions as the common good requireth." "The common enemy of man."
3.
Often met with; usual; frequent; customary. "Grief more than common grief."
4.
Not distinguished or exceptional; inconspicuous; ordinary; plebeian; often in a depreciatory sense. "The honest, heart-felt enjoyment of common life." "This fact was infamous And ill beseeming any common man, Much more a knight, a captain and a leader." "Above the vulgar flight of common souls."
5.
Profane; polluted. (Obs.) "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common."
6.
Given to habits of lewdness; prostitute. "A dame who herself was common."
Common bar (Law) Same as Blank bar, under Blank.
Common barrator (Law), one who makes a business of instigating litigation.
Common Bench, a name sometimes given to the English Court of Common Pleas.
Common brawler (Law), one addicted to public brawling and quarreling. See Brawler.
Common carrier (Law), one who undertakes the office of carrying (goods or persons) for hire. Such a carrier is bound to carry in all cases when he has accommodation, and when his fixed price is tendered, and he is liable for all losses and injuries to the goods, except those which happen in consequence of the act of God, or of the enemies of the country, or of the owner of the property himself.
Common chord (Mus.), a chord consisting of the fundamental tone, with its third and fifth.
Common council, the representative (legislative) body, or the lower branch of the representative body, of a city or other municipal corporation.
Common crier, the crier of a town or city.
Common divisor (Math.), a number or quantity that divides two or more numbers or quantities without a remainder; a common measure.
Common gender (Gram.), the gender comprising words that may be of either the masculine or the feminine gender.
Common law, a system of jurisprudence developing under the guidance of the courts so as to apply a consistent and reasonable rule to each litigated case. It may be superseded by statute, but unless superseded it controls. Note: It is by others defined as the unwritten law (especially of England), the law that receives its binding force from immemorial usage and universal reception, as ascertained and expressed in the judgments of the courts. This term is often used in contradistinction from statute law. Many use it to designate a law common to the whole country. It is also used to designate the whole body of English (or other) law, as distinguished from its subdivisions, local, civil, admiralty, equity, etc. See Law.
Common lawyer, one versed in common law.
Common lewdness (Law), the habitual performance of lewd acts in public.
Common multiple (Arith.) See under Multiple.
Common noun (Gram.), the name of any one of a class of objects, as distinguished from a proper noun (the name of a particular person or thing).
Common nuisance (Law), that which is deleterious to the health or comfort or sense of decency of the community at large.
Common pleas, one of the three superior courts of common law at Westminster, presided over by a chief justice and four puisne judges. Its jurisdiction is confined to civil matters. Courts bearing this title exist in several of the United States, having, however, in some cases, both civil and criminal jurisdiction extending over the whole State. In other States the jurisdiction of the common pleas is limited to a county, and it is sometimes called a county court. Its powers are generally defined by statute.
Common prayer, the liturgy of the Church of England, or of the Protestant Episcopal church of the United States, which all its clergy are enjoined to use. It is contained in the Book of Common Prayer.
Common school, a school maintained at the public expense, and open to all.
Common scold (Law), a woman addicted to scolding indiscriminately, in public.
Common seal, a seal adopted and used by a corporation.
Common sense.
(a)
A supposed sense which was held to be the common bond of all the others. (Obs.)
(b)
Sound judgment. See under Sense.
Common time (Mus.), that variety of time in which the measure consists of two or of four equal portions.
In common, equally with another, or with others; owned, shared, or used, in community with others; affecting or affected equally.
Out of the common, uncommon; extraordinary.
Tenant in common, one holding real or personal property in common with others, having distinct but undivided interests. See Joint tenant, under Joint.
To make common cause with, to join or ally one's self with.
Synonyms: General; public; popular; national; universal; frequent; ordinary; customary; usual; familiar; habitual; vulgar; mean; trite; stale; threadbare; commonplace. See Mutual, Ordinary, General.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Common" Quotes from Famous Books



... rocket vessel, weighing more than thirty tons and christened The Egg Nog, was launched from the opposite coast at Vandenburg. Hastily modified to take the new fuel, the weight and space originally designed for the common garden variety of rocket fuel was filled with automatic camera and television equipment. In its stern stood a six-egg, one-hundred-gallon engine, while in the nose was a small, one-egg, fourteen-quart braking ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... healthfulness and beauty of the climate, is strictly true. There are scarcely any diseases but what result immediately from intemperance. Dropsy, palsy, and the whole train of nervous complaints, are common enough; but then, drunkenness is the vice par excellence of the lower orders; and the better class of settlers have not learned those habits of temperance which are suited to the climate of Naples. The two classes often remind ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... green, and two of the tail-feathers are immensely lengthened; the female has an ordinary tail and inconspicuous colours; now the young males, instead of resembling the adult female, in accordance with the common rule, begin from the first to assume the colours proper to their sex, and their tail-feathers soon become elongated. I owe this information to Mr. Gould, who has given me the following more striking and as yet ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... thing about this strange journey all over Europe was the failure of Goldsmith to pick up even a common and ordinary acquaintance with the familiar facts of natural history. The ignorance on this point of the author of the Animated Nature was a constant subject of jest among Goldsmith's friends. They declared he could not tell the difference between any ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... was heightened rather than diminished. Margaret Cooper was beautiful after no ordinary mould. Tall in stature, with a frame rounded by the most natural proportions into symmetry, and so formed for grace; with a power of muscle more than common among women, which, by inducing activity, made her movements as easy as they were graceful; with an eye bright like the morning-star, and with a depth of expression darkly clear, like that of the same golden orb at night; ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... of a church's holy night, With low-browed chapels round, Where common sunshine dares not light On the too ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... affected him to the same extent. The idea, however, that his wife was suffering ill-effects from her terrible ordeal, braced him up. He remained with her for a time, then he sought Sir Nathaniel in order to talk over the matter with him. He knew that the calm common sense and self-reliance of the old man, as well as his experience, would ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... troubled him so much that at last he called to the red-haired policeman and begged to be put into a cell in preference; and to the common cell ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... the balance of creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the making of one woman were set free by the abstraction from inanimate nature of one man's-worth of masculine constituents. These combined to make our first mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous creation of our common father. All this, mythically, illustratively, and by ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... All exculpatory arguments were futile against the fact itself. In vain she blamed the wording of the telegram! In vain she tried to reason that chance, and not herself, was the evil-doer! In vain she invoked the aid of simple common sense against sentimental fancy! In vain she went over the events of the afternoon preceding the death, in order to prove that at no moment had she been aware of not acting in accordance with her conscience! The whole of her conduct had been against her conscience, but pride and ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... in the afternoon we met once more these Chilians of our hearts whom we had met in San Sebastian and Burgos and Valladolid and Madrid. We knew we should meet them in Seville and were not the least surprised. They were as glad and gay as ever, and in our common polyglot they possessed us of the fact that they had just completed the eastern hemicycle of their Peninsular tour. They were latest from Malaga, and now they were going northward. It was our last meeting, but better friends I could not hope ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... policy that we have been following—the policy that guided us at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran—is based on the common sense principle which was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin on July 4, 1776: "We must all hang together, or assuredly ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... ordered a copy, and have now read the "Few Words about Jane Eyre." The writer has certainly made many mistakes, but apparently not from any unkind motive, as he professes to be an admirer of Charlotte's works, pays a just tribute to her genius, and in common with thousands deplores her untimely death. His design seems rather to be to gratify the curiosity of the multitude in reference to one who had made such a sensation in the literary world. But even if the article had been of a less harmless character, we should not ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... were young men at that time, and remembered the fearful excitement that prevailed, and it was a common ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... of me without a fight for it, I tell you, my dear madam, one of the plainest truths I ever told to man or woman in the whole course of my life. Don't suppose I am invidiously separating my interests from yours in the common danger that now threatens us both. I simply indicate the difference in the risk that we have respectively run. You have not sunk the whole of your resources in establishing a Sanitarium; and you have not made ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... substances, perfectly similar to those of our earth's crust; and in the Siberian mass of meteoric iron investigated by Pallas, the olivine only differs from common olivine by the absence of nickel, which is replaced by the oxyd ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... oars it was for a good reason. I wanted to slip past a cove where some native craft were moored. That was common prudence in such a small boat, and not armed—as I am. I saw you right enough, but I had no intention to startle anybody. Take ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... were now exposed. A reign of terror began—a reign of terror heightened by mystery. No man knew what was next to be expected from this strange tribunal. It had collected round itself an army of the worst part of the native population—informers, and false witnesses, and common barrators, and agents of chicane; and above all, a banditti of bailiffs' followers compared with whom the retainers of the worst English spunging- houses, in the worst times, might be considered as upright ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... and is, he doubts not, a record of some great event that actually occurred; "but," he continues, "I confess that until Bishop Colenso brought his arithmetic to bear upon it and some other portions of Old Testament history, I was quite [why "quite?"] under the impression that the common sense of Christians abstained from criticising this ancient record by the canons applicable to ordinary history." This was not my own impression, but the Bishop's is doubtless more accurate. If things, ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... is a piece of acting that may do for the Theatre Francais, but is absurd to sensible men. Gentlemen, these two concocted this whole plan last night when together in their cell. I once knew old Montresor well, and this priest has not a feature in common with him." ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... established for the identity of the Version of the Syriac now called the 'PESHITO' with that used by the Eastern Church long before the great schism had its beginning, in the native land of the blessed Gospel." The Peshito is referred by common consent to the iind century of our aera; and is found to contain ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... surprised to hear that upsets and accidents were common on the road, and that the horses lasted but a very ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... the town.' Then said that mighty giant Beelzebub, 'The advice that already is given is safe; for though the men of Mansoul have seen such things as we once were, yet hitherto they did never behold such things as we now are; and it is best, in mine opinion, to come upon them in such a guise as is common to, and most familiar among them.' To this, when they had consented, the next thing to be considered was, in what shape, hue, or guise Diabolus had best to show himself when he went about to make Mansoul his own. Then one said one thing, and another the contrary. At last Lucifer answered, that, ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... little too common to suit me," remarked Frank. "The health of the boys here used to be fine. Now they say that the hospitals ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... of his eye, and those baffling intonations of voice that made it so difficult for her to be sure whether he were in jest or earnest. That he had confessedly been attracted by her was a matter of common knowledge. Why had she given him no encouragement? Perhaps it was because she had never understood him; because she had never been able to feel any real rapport between them, because their minds moved on different planes, and never seemed to meet. She had no ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... Christian faith," says Pedro II, of Aragon, "are also our enemies, and the public enemies of our kingdom; they must be treated as such."[1] It was in virtue of the same principle that Frederic II punished heretics as criminals according to the common law; ut crimina publica. He speaks of the "Ecclesiastical peace" as of old the emperors spoke of the "Roman peace." As Emperor, he considered it his duty "to preserve and to maintain it," and woe betide the one who dared disturb it. Feeling ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... glossary in "The Antarctic Manual," 1901. It was the custom, of course, to follow implicitly the terminology used by those of the party whose experience of ice dated back to Captain Scott's first voyage, so that the terms used may be said to be common to all Antarctic voyages of the present century. The principal changes, therefore, in nomenclature must date from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when there was no one to pass on the traditional ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... the newspapers announced that President Lincoln had selected Charles Francis Adams as his Minister to England. Once more, silently, Henry put Blackstone back on its shelf. As Friar Bacon's head sententiously announced many centuries before: Time had passed! The Civil Law lasted a brief day; the Common Law prolonged its shadowy existence for a week. The law, altogether, as path of education, vanished in April, 1861, leaving a million young men planted in the mud of a lawless world, to begin a new life without education at all. They asked few questions, but if they ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... By common consent they paddled slowly at the outset, wisely refraining from exhausting their strength in the first mile or so, as is so apt to be the case with inexperienced paddlers. The Winnebagos had paddled together so often that it was unnecessary for them to count aloud to ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... but giveth grace to the humble. That is, those who will not give place God casts down; and on the other hand, he exalts those who humble themselves. It is a common expression—would to God he ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... or creed, and Filipinos take advantage of its privileges quite as freely as do Americans. Representatives of every nationality in the islands may be found on its golf course on a pleasant afternoon. It is the common meeting place of Baguio, and hardly a day passes without the giving of some pleasant luncheon or dinner in its little living room or in the outdoor space covered by an overhanging roof at its eastern end. No more ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... After the death of Professor Woodward, who had, from its origin, been an able instructor in this university, he was elected his successor in the Professorship of Mathematics and Philosophy. So high was his reputation, that a successor of common attainments could not have satisfied the raised expectations of the public. To supply the place of such a man was the arduous task assigned to Mr. Hubbard. His success equaled the fond hopes of his friends. Here you rejoiced in his light; here he spent his last ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... energy and control. He is honest and conventional, devoted to the ideals of his group and admires learning, but he is not in any sense a scholar. He is a poor speaker, in the ordinary sense of that term, but curiously effective, nevertheless, because his earnest energy and sturdy common sense win approval as "not a theorist." But mainly he wins because he is tireless in energy and enthusiasm and yet has yoked these qualities to ordinary purposes. The average man he meets understands him thoroughly, sympathizes with him completely and accepts ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... As to that forest there is a good deal of ancient exaggeration and a good deal of modern misconception. The word forest is often misunderstood. In its older meaning, a meaning which it still keeps in some parts, a forest has nothing to do with trees. It is a tract of land put outside the common law and subject to a stricter law of its own, and that commonly, probably always, to secure for the King the freer enjoyment of the pleasure of hunting. Such a forest William made in Hampshire; the impression which it made ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... other times in Mrs. Jane Selden's parlour, porch, or little friendly garden. He did not tell Jacqueline that he loved her; he had not dared so much. The fact that he was the son of Gideon Rand while she was a Churchill mattered little to his common sense and his Republicanism. His blood was clean. He had never heard of a Rand in prison or a beggar. Moreover, he meant to make his name an honoured one. But he was a poor man, though he meant also to become a rich man, and he was a Republican, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... tracklayer is now working along regularly at the rate of a mile a day. The machine is a car 60 feet long and 10 feet wide. It has a small engine on board for handling the ties and rails. The ties are carried on a common freight car behind, and conveyed by an endless chain over the top of the machinery, laid down in their places on the track, and, when enough are laid, a rail is put down on each side in proper position and spiked down. The tracklayer then advances, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... seen often in those parts, and his hair blew from under his bonnet, a toss of white and gold, as it blew below the helms of the old sea-rovers. He was from Ladyfield, hastening as I say with great news though common news enough of its kind—the news that the goodwife of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... short, and to a cane of last season's growth. The Concord and Herbemont, again, will bear best on the laterals of last season's growth, and should be trained accordingly. Therefore it is, because only a few of the common laborers will take the pains to think and observe closely, that we find among them but ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann

... out Alfred, indignantly. "Am I then, so distasteful to you that you would rather wait here and suffer a half hour longer while I go for assistance? It is only common courtesy on my part. I do not want to carry you. I think you would ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... by structural necessity. Where there was no central tower, transeptal chapels provided accommodation for altars, for which the body of the church afforded no convenience. In this and in other cases, medieval builders were impelled by practical common sense and the requirements of the services of the church; and symbolism, if it was a consideration at all, ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... is only a grisette who has lost her looks, the one lover she ever cared for, and her health; while the other characters of importance (Merimee has taken from the stock-cupboard one of the cynical, rough-mannered, but really good-natured doctors common in French and not unknown in English literature) are the lover or gallant himself, Max de Saligny (quite a good fellow and perfectly willing, though he had tired of Arsene, to have succoured her had he known her distress), ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of all hen-pecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... I went out after adjusting my propellers at 8 feet pitch running at 600 (revolutions per minute). I think that I flew at about twenty-eight miles per hour. I had 50 horsepower motor power in the engine. A bunch of trees, a flat common above these trees, and from this flat there is a slope goes down... to another clump of trees. Now, these clumps of trees are a quarter of a mile apart or thereabouts.... I was accused of doing nothing but jumping with my machine, so I got a bit ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... Indiaman, then fitting out for Java, lying at Rotterdam. The name of this vessel was the Stadtdeel—so pronounced; how spelt, I have no idea—and I began to think I would try a voyage in her. As is common with those who have great reason to find fault with themselves, I was angry with the whole world. I began to think myself a sort of outcast, forgetting that I had deserted my natural relatives, run from my master, and thrown off many friends who were disposed to serve me in everything in ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... suffice to prove that equality of character between cause and effect which you have in view. For, being apprehensive that from the demand of equality of character in some point or other only it would follow that, as all things have certain characteristics in common, anything might originate from anything, you have declared that the equality of character necessary for the relation of cause and effect is constituted by the persistence, in the effect, of those characteristic points which differentiate the cause from ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... a bear, as her little ladyship had stated, but the last five years had certainly scraped off whatever social veneer had adhered to his manners. The power of facial self-control, the common tact that would have carried things off with a laugh and a jest, were his no longer, if he had ever possessed them. He got upon his feet and stood before the woman whose six ounces less of brain-matter had been counterbalanced by so large ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... junior—till the early months of 1906, let us glance at the way in which he had passed the intervening space of time between his return from Wales in May, 1902, and the spending of his Long Vacation of 1905 as an Esquire by the Common Law of England called to the Bar, and entitled to wear a becoming grey wig ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... on English common law; judicial review of legislative acts limited to matters of interpretation; has not accepted compulsory ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... breath of feminine rivalry. Siegbert had married Brunehaut, daughter of the Visigoth king of Spain: Chilperic had espoused her sister, Galowinthe, after repudiating his first wife, Adowere. When Galowinthe came to her throne she found herself the rival of Fredegonde, a common servant, with whom Chilperic had been living. He soon tired of his new wife, a gentle and pliant creature, Fredegonde regained her supremacy and one morning Galowinthe was found strangled in bed. The news came to King Siegbert ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... Donna never had really known how ardently she longed to escape from the sordid commonplace lonely little town. With its inhabitants she had nothing in common, although she noted a mental exception to this condition as, from afar, she observed Harley P. Hennage standing in front of the eating-house door, picking his teeth with his gold toothpick. She felt a sudden desire to go to the worst man in San Pasqual and pour out to him the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... profile of a long-jawed head. Then the man turned full in his direction and behold, the hard features vanished, and the man displayed a good-looking countenance of singular charm. The chin was a thought too wide and heavy, a trait it shared in common with the mouth, but otherwise the stranger's full face would have found favour in the eyes of almost ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... words declares the purposes to which these and the whole action of the Government instituted by it should be invariably and sacredly devoted—to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to the people of this Union in their successive generations. Since the adoption of this social compact one of these generations ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... "A common chance, Louis of Hombourg," said the Margrave: "one that chances every day. A false woman, a false friend, a broken heart. THIS has chanced. I have not ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... appearances, Mrs. De Peyster. Every paper has got to have a policy; we're the common people's paper—big circulation, you know; and we so denounce the rich on our editorial page. But as a matter of fact we give our readers more live, entertaining, and respectful matter about society people than any other paper in New York. It's just what the common ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... he knew her. They both abound with good Sense, consummate Virtue, and a mutual Esteem; and are a perpetual Entertainment to one another. Their Family is under so regular an Oeconomy, in its Hours of Devotion and Repast, Employment and Diversion, that it looks like a little Common-Wealth within it self. They often go into Company, that they may return with the greater Delight to one another; and sometimes live in Town not to enjoy it so properly as to grow weary of it, that they may ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... time, during which we were all, in a ragged group, being borne swiftly towards the mountains, all at a common level from the ground, I managed to turn my head so that I could see, against the star-lit sky, something of the nature of the things that ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... hotel?" asked Auntie Lu; while Miss Greatorex's face assumed a more agreeable expression than it had worn since they left the station. She had felt hitherto as if an alien nation had flaunted its colors in her own patriotic face; but her common sense now assured her that these people had a right to honor their rulers after their own fashion even if it could by no possibility be so good a fashion as ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... the girl, but he did not marry her then for fear of my claiming the first-fruits. He was a fool of a peculiar kind, though fools of all sorts are common enough. He married her a year later after robbing me, but I shall speak of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Then he could not bear to think of leaving his wife alone there, though it's only the shell after all, and, if we believe the Good Book, we shall see the real part over there that was so much to us. But he could not explain the parting to the child, though death is such a common thing out there. Yet it is hard to believe our own can die. We are never ready for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... I visited Dr. Seversen. When he saw me, he stuck both arms up and said, "Here comes the man with the iron nerve." I answered him, "No, here comes the man with a little good common sense and faith in God Almighty." "Yes," he said, "common sense, but I thought it could not be done, when it was in such a mess and had been broken so long." I answered him, "Yes, but a good arm is better than an ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag

... the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one accordingly brought them extra bottles of champagne in which they found consolation for all ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... leisure to spin from it a continuous thread of thought. We suspect that this is not more true of us than of other nations,—than it is of all people who read newspapers. Great events are perhaps not more common than they used to be, but a vastly greater number of trivial incidents are now recorded, and this dust of time gets in our eyes. The telegraph strips history of everything down to the bare fact, but it does not observe ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... patient beasts knelt so obediently to be loaded with the silt deposits taken from the bed of the canal, and collecting items of interest in regard to this artery of commerce which might have made even its founder open his eyes. The girls profited by his researches, and it was, indeed, a common thing for any passenger, when asking questions about "De Lessep's Ditch," to hear, "Oh, ask ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... (Felis Domestica; var. Journalistica). This is a variation of the common domestic cat, of which but one family is known to science. The habitat of the species is in Newspaper Row; its lair is in the Sun building, its habits are nocturnal, and it feeds on discarded copy and anything else of a pseudo-literary nature upon which it can ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... don't know how much. There was a chest half-full, and I emptied it into a cloth. What will you give me for them? I am riding home to Volksrust. I want three loaves and a couple of bottles of dop [Footnote: The common country spirit.], and the rest in money." The bargaining lasted for some minutes, the storekeeper saying that the wine was of no use to him, for no Boer ever spent money on wine; the tea of course was worth money, but he had now a large ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... in general was the fear, common to bachelors past their first youth, of losing freedom, and an unconscious awe before ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... see how he could have done better. The noun and verb, as being the most important parts of speech, are first explained, and afterwards those which are considered in a secondary and subordinate character. By following this order, he has avoided the absurdity so common among authors, of defining the minor parts before their principals, of which they were designed to be the appendages, and has rationally prepared the way for conducting the learner by easy advances to a ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... No common bird was he. Has it not long been known, the whole world wide, A wild swan is a prince of faerie, Who comes in such disguise to choose his bride From those of humble lot and tame careers, Of whom I now require some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various

... the Norman Conquest took place, and William the Conqueror became King of England. Large numbers of the Norman French came with him, and French became the language of the court and of the nobility. By degrees our English language grew out of the blending of the Anglo-Saxon of the common people and the Norman French of their new rulers, the former furnishing most of the grammar, the latter supplying many of the words. Now the French was of Latin origin, and the English thus got an important Latin or "Classical" element, which has since been increased by ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... entirely in the sense that he must seem dishonorable, and sink in the opinion of the Garths: he had not occupied himself with the inconvenience and possible injury that his breach might occasion them, for this exercise of the imagination on other people's needs is not common with hopeful young gentlemen. Indeed we are most of us brought up in the notion that the highest motive for not doing a wrong is something irrespective of the beings who would suffer the wrong. But at this moment he suddenly ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... complimented with the name of hamlet." The well-known story of Mary, the Beauty of Buttermere, with the beautiful poem describing her woes, entitled, "Mary, the Maid of the Inn," has given to the village a more than common interest. As the melancholy tale is told, Mary possessed great personal beauty, and, being the daughter of the innkeeper, she fulfilled the duty of attendant upon visitors to the house. Among these was a dashing young man ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... folded in a turban over the black hair falling down each side of her face in the heaviest waves of rippling jet, and the massive earrings that gleamed beneath, were in themselves calculated to awake remembrances of an early youth spent in the South, where this picturesque costume was common among the slaves; but the woman's face fascinated his gaze more than her general appearance. Some recollection too vague for embodiment, arose on his brain so powerfully, that he was unconscious of the time thus spent ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... legislative assembly of this territory, and those passed by the Congress of the United States, WHEN APPLICABLE; and no report, decision, or doings of any court shall be read, argued, cited, or adopted as precedent in any other trial." This obliterated at a stroke the whole body of the English common law. Another act provided that, by consent of the court and the parties, any person could be selected to act as judge in a particular case. As the district court judges were federal appointees, a judge of probate ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... whose singular forms and brilliant colours lend such extraordinary grandeur to the scenery of the Upper Tarn. There was also a change in the vegetation. A large species of broom, four or five feet high, covered with golden blossom the size of pea-flowers, although the common broom had long passed its blooming, now showed itself as well as roseroot sedum, neither of which had I seen while coming over the schist. The cicadas returned and screamed from every tree. I captured one and ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... It is at foundation but a courteous recognition between two individuals of their common fellowship in the same honorable profession, the profession of arms. Regulations require that it be rendered by both the senior and the junior, as bare courtesy requires between gentlemen in civil life. It is the military equivalent of the laymen's expressions "Good Morning," or "How do you ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... remained alone to brood over his plans of vengeance. It was horrible—horrible to behold that aged and venerable man, trembling as he was on the verge of eternity, now meditating schemes of dark and dire revenge. But his wrongs were great—wrongs which, though common enough in that voluptuous Italian clime, and especially in that age and city of licentiousness and debauchery, were not the less sure to be followed by a fearful retribution, where retribution was within the reach of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... the tragic despair of finding that she had jotted down herself for two sections in English and none in Latin! When she managed to gasp out the awful situation in Bea's ear, that young person looked worried for full half a minute. It was a very serious thing to be a freshman. Then her cheery common sense came ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... away far behind Him scarcely know what His will is, and never can catch the low whisper which will come to us by providences, by movements in our own spirits, through the exercise of our own faculties of judgment and common-sense, if only we will keep near to Him. 'Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouths must be held in with bit and with bridle, else they will not come near to thee,' but walk close behind Him, and then the promise will be fulfilled: ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... before, the hardy Lycians fled, And left their monarch with the common dead: Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall. (So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain The prize contested, and despoil the slain. The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne; Patroclus' ships the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... of surprise is common to both wit and humor, and it is often a sufficient cause for laughter in itself, irrespective of any essentially amusing quality in the cause of the surprise. The unfamiliar, for this reason, often has a ludicrous appeal to primitive peoples. An African tribe, on being ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... feel about her in that way that I ask you—in the name of common charity—to let me give you the facts as they are, and not as you've probably ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... of this, I do not mean the decline the Gentleman's objection, which is founded upon a mistake of a way of speaking, common to the Jews and other people; who, when they name any number of days and years, include the first and last of the days or years to make up the sum. Christ, alluding to his own resurrection, says, In three days I will raise it up. The angels report his prediction thus, The Son of Man shall be ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock

... in bulk. The new influence spread to agriculture, iron appliances replaced wooden, breeding of stock became systematic, paper-making and printing increased and cheapened. Roofs of slate and tile appeared amidst and presently prevailed over the original Bromstead thatch, the huge space of Common to the south was extensively enclosed, and what had been an ill-defined horse-track to Dover, only passable by adventurous coaches in dry weather, became the Dover Road, and was presently the route first of one and then of several daily coaches. The High Street was discovered to be too tortuous ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... becomes much more interesting and varied from the mangroves disappearing. Few of the rivers of Borneo are more than eighty miles in extent. The two rivers of Bruni and Coran are supposed to meet in the centre of the island, although for many miles near their source they are not much wider than a common ditch. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... question or negation, the compound or auxiliary form of the verb is, in general, preferable to the simple: as, "No man lives to purpose, who does not live for posterity."—Dr. Wayland. It is indeed so much more common, as to seem the only proper mode of expression: as, "Do I say these things as a man?"—"Do you think that we excuse ourselves?"—"Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?"—"Dost thou revile?" &c. But in the solemn or the poetic style, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... public entry. But the people, as well as the seignory, confounded by this unfortunate contretemps, to which was also added the fact that the Doge, in the hurry and confusion, had been led between the two columns where common malefactors were generally executed, grew silent in the midst of their triumph, and thus the day that had begun in festive fashion ended in gloom ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... something that threatened the general peace, it should immediately discuss with the other whether both Governments should act together to prevent aggression and to preserve peace, and, if so, what measures they would be prepared to take in common. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... well enough that the folks who are most particular about those sort of things don't mind swindling and setting their houses on fire and all manner of abominations? I wouldn't be a Christian for the world, but I should like to see a little more common-sense introduced into our religion; it ought to be more up to date. If ever I marry, I should like my wife to be a girl who wouldn't want to keep anything but the higher parts of Judaism. Not out of laziness, mind you, but out ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... in his mouth, a bullet struck him and he fell. His companions also fell in cold blood, and the bodies of all three were thrown down the height [374]—a piteous denouement—and one that has features in common with the tragic death scene of another heroic character of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... answer for this. It was true. He had been brought up in a land of Indian wars and he had accepted without question the common view that the Sioux, the Crows, and the Cheyennes, with all their blood brothers, were menaces to civilization. The case for the natives he had never studied. How great a part broken pledges and callous ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... sure of; not even if the best surveyor in the world should come and get it from these bearings," replied the youth. "Probably the bearings themselves are not exact. The government surveyors do their work in a hurry. The common compass they use doesn't make as fine angles as the theodolite or transit instrument does; and then the chain varies a trifle in length with every variation of temperature; the metal contracts and expands, you ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... poisonous of all. Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it may contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly nor asserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or love something with your whole heart.... A common book will often give you much amusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you dear friends. Remember, also, that it is of less importance to you, in your earlier years, that the books you read should be clever, than that they should be right; I do not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... of human affairs were we to expect that the general point of view, which swayed the State as a whole, could have induced every one who took part in its administration to move on to their common aim in one way. Of the great nobles of the court many rather supported the Puritans, as indeed the father of the Puritan Cartwright owed his position at Warwick to Leicester's protection; others inclined to favour the Catholics. The severity which the bishops thought themselves ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... subject to south winds, though the adjoining seas have the winds variable and uncertain. On the 20th the whole air was darkened by an Arenal which is a cloud of dust, and so thick that one cannot see a stone's throw. These are raised by the wind from the adjoining shore, and are very common in these parts. The 25th they were within view of the famous city of Lima in Peru. At this time they learnt the value of the treasure of which the Spaniards had deprived them, in the ships they took on the coast of Chili. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... and so on throughout the piece; but Mariyeh is evidently the person alluded to, according to the common practice of Muslim poets of a certain class, who consider it indecent openly to mention a woman as an ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... will be noted between this version and the original edition of the printed 1911 thesaurus: (1) the space-saving abbreviations in the original, using hyphens to represent common words, prefixes or suffixes, have been expanded into the full words or phrases. (2) the side-by-side format for words and their opposites has been abandoned. Words are listed in order of their entry number. (3) each main entry (1035 entries) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... streets. They liked the Canadians and they cheered them when their own regiments went by unhailed. It appealed to their rampant patriotism that these men had come from across the sea to join hands with them against common foe. But in the clubs, where his letters admitted the boy, there was a different atmosphere. Young British officers were either cool or, much worse, patronising. They were inclined to suspect that his quiet confidence was swanking. One day at luncheon ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... instance, that what she objected to in this portrait of the cedar on their lawn was really not the price he had given for it, but the unpleasant way in which the transaction emphasized this breach between their common interests—the only one they ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood

... though Desmond frequently spoke of trying to get a ship, the admiral always replied that there would be time enough by and by, and that a spell on shore would do him no harm. They were one day walking across Southsea Common, intending to go to some shops in the High Street, when Desmond caught sight of three officers, whom he saw by their uniforms were commanders, walking along at a rapid rate towards them. A fourth, in a midshipman's uniform, at that moment came up ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the house) in a corner of a dining room or kitchen. A room or part of one well lighted, by north window or sky-light preferably, makes the best location for the work table. This table may be of the common unpainted kitchen variety for all small work. It is well to make the top double by hinging on two leaves, which when extended will make it twice its usual width. When so extended and supported by swinging brackets it is specially adapted to sewing on rugs and robes. Such tables usually ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... almost professional exercise of some of the highest and most delicate faculties of the human mind. He speaks, in not the least remarkable passage of the preceding Memoir, as if constitutional indolence had been his portion in common with all the members of his father's family. When Gifford, in a dispute with Jacob Bryant, quoted Doctor Johnson's own confession that he knew little Greek, Bryant answered, "Yes, young man; but how shall we know what Johnson would have called much Greek?" and Gifford has recorded ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... once said to us about Mr. Hunt. The builders were not, in those days, very fond of our venerated President. He had altogether too many new ideas to suit their conservatism, which looked with horror on anything out of the common way. "The fact is," said the contractor, in a burst of confidence, "Mr. Hunt never could get a living at all if he hadn't a rich wife." By averaging these two pieces of misinformation, after the manner of the commissioners of statistics, one may, ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... very susceptible. The disease is less common at great altitudes. Dark, poorly ventilated rooms, such as tenements and factories and the crowding of cities favors infection, as do in-door life and occupations in which dust must be inhaled. Certain infections ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Amoerang, half-buried in sago-palms, on the green rim of the secluded haven, shows slight resemblance to the campongs generally encountered on the western coast. Wooden cottages, though built on piles of wood or stone, and thatched with atap (plaited palm leaves) possess many features in common with the screened and balconied dwellings of Japan. The people, in aspect and feature, also convey suggestions of the Japanese origin ascribed to them, for ancient traditions assert that the Minahasa was colonised by an Asiatic tribe, driven out of Formosa by native savages, in one ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... on Boston Common, I fancy the young Puritans had, as a rule, few games, and were allowed few amusements. They apparently brought over some English pastimes with them, for in 1657 it was found necessary to pass this law ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... such House, whose habitations were on the west side of the water, on a gentle slope of land, so that no flood higher than common might reach them. It was straight down to the river mostly that the land fell off, and on its downward-reaching slopes was the tillage, "the Acres," as the men of that time always called tilled land; and beyond that was the ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... contrivances of Brandon. He would acknowledge that he was an Italian, and had been in all parts of Italy, but carefully refrained from telling where he was born. He asserted that this was the first time that he had been in the Eastern seas. He remarked once, casually, that Cigole was a very common name among Italians. He said that he had no acquaintances at all in England, and was only going there now because he heard that there was a good market for wool. At another time he spoke as though much of his life ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille



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