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Inadequate   Listen
adjective
Inadequate  adj.  Not adequate; unequal to the purpose; insufficient; deficient; as, inadequate resources, power, conceptions, representations, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inadequate" Quotes from Famous Books



... York: TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without ...
— The Federalist Papers

... omnipotence by the uses to which a wise and benevolent man would put such superhuman power, if we can imagine a man of this kind endowed with it, De Maistre's theory of the extent to which a supreme being interferes in human things, is after all only a degree less ridiculous and illogical, less inadequate and abundantly assailable, than that Protestantism which he so heartily despised. Would it be difficult, after borrowing the account, which we have just read, of the tremendous efforts made by a benign creator to shed moral and spiritual light ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... failure is poor selection of land. The second chief cause of failure is insufficient length of time in which to pay for the land. While this is of very great importance, it stands far behind the first as a cause of failure. The third cause of failure is closely connected with the second. It is inadequate ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... in the plot; and second, that the evidence brought against him was not nearly strong enough to sustain a conviction. It was the case of Bolingbroke and Harley over again. We know now that the men had done the things charged against them, but the evidence then relied upon was utterly inadequate ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... invasion, but her active participation in the military operations upon the continent was limited in measure and distressing in outcome. The expeditions which she landed in the Netherlands were shockingly inadequate in numbers, and led by high-born generals without knowledge, talent, or experience. It is little wonder that they accomplished nothing except to feed the French contempt ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... the provision for the school population of the country is, in places, fearfully inadequate. In our large cities, if the truant and labor laws were properly enforced, the lack of school provision would be still more apparent. In New York City alone more than 100,000 children are attending ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselves into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive or so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole and asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparison such men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old sailor, and so it seemed were Miss Mavis's, for when I mounted to the deck ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... at Fontainebleau was selected as the most appropriate spot for the construction of the temporary chapel, the great hall of the palace being totally inadequate to contain the thousands who had collected from every part of the country to witness ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... remember that seamen in the royal navy in those old days had a good deal to complain of. The pay was inadequate, the food was often unfit for human consumption, leave was seldom given in port, and discipline was often maintained by the cat-o'-nine-tails, the services of which might in nine cases out of ten have ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... ceased to "face south towards its former protector." Thus, though the Emperor faces south towards the sun, and his subjects in turn face north in his honour, those subjects face their other protector in whatever direction he may lie, supposing the Emperor's protection to be inadequate. It is evidently the same principle as "bowing towards the east," and "turning towards Mecca," both of which formalities must be modified according to place. In 315 B.C., when Yen (the Peking plain) had become one of the six independent ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... charming minute traits of living presence. His scenery is only fit to be glanced at from dioramic distance; his Indians are academic figures only. He would have made the best of pictures, if he could have used his own eyes for studies and sketches; as it is, his success is wonderful, but inadequate. ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... very real affair, although what sowed the seeds was not apparent, and although the soil in which they took root and thrived—the daily interviews at the area door and these fortnightly strolls—seemed, on the face of it, inadequate. Perhaps he owed his queer gift of constancy to the mysterious past that gave him his baptismal name. ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... Susan felt that her replies were hopelessly inadequate, but she was too genuinely taken aback by the news to think of anything ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... proposed monument should be ornamented with a carved border of marine plants interwined with twisted sea-shells, such as were probably waving over her lover's skeleton or strewn around it in the far depths of the Pacific. But, Mr. Wigglesworth's chisel being inadequate to the task, she was forced to content herself with a rose hanging its head from a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... unfair ones. At present the Government which negotiates a treaty can hardly be said to be accountable to any one. It is sure to be subjected to vague censure. Benjamin Franklin said, "I have never known a peace made, even the most advantageous, that was not censured as inadequate, and the makers condemned as injudicious or corrupt. 'Blessed are the peace-makers' is, I suppose, to be understood in the other world, for in this they are frequently cursed." And this is very often ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... his place and whatever work may come to his hand, he must always be aware of the larger movement of life which incloses his special task; and he must have the consciousness of direct relation with that central power of which all activities are inadequate manifestations. To a man of this temper the whole range of human interests must remain open, and such a man can never escape the conviction that life is a unity under all its complexities; that all activities stand vitally related to each other; that truth, beauty, knowledge, and character ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... co-operating indiscriminately in work. It was beyond his ken that the sex element would under these conditions invade whole departments of life which are now free from it. As he saw things, there was in point of fact a risk of the human race dying out by reason of the inadequate imperativeness ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... the aid of Congress and urged the foundation of a national university, a scheme he had much at heart, and to which he constantly returned. The history of these two recommendations is soon told. Provision was made for the army, inadequate enough, as Washington thought, but still without dispute, and such additional provision was afterwards made from time to time as the passing exigency of the moment demanded. For education nothing was done, and the national ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... life, is a blessing to it; that I am habitually devoting money, time, and wits to an object at once beautiful and elevating; that I have found consolation in its visions for many sufferings, which all the amusements offered me by my revilers are utterly inadequate to touch. I declare that I have found a better investment for my money than all the West Virginia coal companies that ever sunk oil-wells, and am making more useful acquaintances than if I danced every German ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... received at the hands of his friends Franz was made to feel in many ways the want of a little pocket-money such as fell to the lot of his more fortunate schoolfellows. He had to contend with numerous discomforts, more especially in the winter months, when the supplies both of firing and food were inadequate, and one dark November day we find him sitting down, chilled and hungry, to pen the following appeal to his ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... restoring his broken fortunes, he had, in some measure at least, described his own case. Though descended from an ancient family, he had never been a very wealthy man, and the lands of Valricour yielded an income quite inadequate to keep up a state befitting the chateau of so noble a house. The baron had made matters still worse by marrying, at an early age, an imperious beauty of like noble birth, but without a dowry, whose extravagance ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... does describe things as they appear to men. It is, however, beginning to be discovered, that these popular appearances are closely connected with philosophical reality. Our purblind astronomy and prattling geology may be as inadequate to expound the mysteries of the Bible philosophy as was the incoherent science of Strabo and Ptolemy. The experience of another planet, now transacting before our eyes, admonishes us not to limit the resources of Omnipotence by our narrow experience, or to ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... Learning (1759), explains the decay of literature (literature is always decaying) by the general enervation which accompanies learning and the want of originality caused by the growth of criticism. That was not an unnatural view at a time when the old forms are beginning to be inadequate for the new thoughts which are seeking for utterance. As yet, however, Goldsmith's own work proves sufficiently that the new motive could be so far adapted to the old form as to produce an artistic masterpiece. Sterne may illustrate a similar ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... to the king (July 25, 1626) about various ecclesiastical matters. He enumerates the salaries of the archbishop and his prebendaries, and asks that these be increased. The cathedral's income is very inadequate, and needs aid. Serrano enumerates the number of secular benefices in his diocese, and the number of convents and priests belonging to the respective orders, with the number of souls under their spiritual charge. The same enumeration ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... on the day of your triumph was so inadequate, I wanted to do better to-day. By the way, I ordered the lunch. I trust you do ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... had been unprepared for the avalanche of people who had descended upon it during the Lower Brule opening. Service and equipment had been inadequate. In the great Bonesteel Opening a few years earlier, gambling and lawlessness had run riot. Therefore Superintendent Witten formulated and revised the drawing system, endeavoring to work out the most suitable plan for disposing of these tracts so that ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... them inquire whether the food they give their children is adapted to the constitutional needs of growing boys and girls? Perhaps the business-interests of these classes will be assigned as accounting for this anomaly. The explanation is inadequate, however; seeing that the same contrast holds among other classes. Of a score of townspeople, few, if any, would prove ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable to work a horse soon after it has eaten; and yet, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... imprudences of the late Reverend Mother, one of the best and holiest of women, but unfortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight. He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden chapel which had preceded the present chapel was inadequate, and that she was justified in building another, but not in expending nearly one thousand pounds in stained glass. The new chapel had cost ten thousand pounds, and the interest of this money had to be ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... round the forge, their bronzed and naked bodies, illuminated by the flame, appear like figures of demons, while the cave, with its flinty sides and uneven roof, blackened by the charcoal vapours which hover about it in festoons, seems to offer no inadequate ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... the issue was for some time doubtful. At length the numerous hordes of the confederated nations of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Bavaria, flushed with their success, pushed on to Paris, to defend which Marshals Marmont and Mortier had but very inadequate means. The assailants, two hundred thousand in number, reached the northern side of Paris on the 29th of March, and on the following day a desperate battle took place. It was not till they had sacrificed fifteen thousand men that the allies could make themselves masters ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... mean in relation to his species, (in regard to which we have already shown him to be a distinct whole,) but in relation to the Idea, to which his predominant characteristic suggests itself but as a partial manifestation, and made partial because counteracted by some inadequate exponent, or else modified ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... needed to ensure its general use, and it was feared that before the patent expired little return might be received. Much interest was aroused by the successful trial. Enquiries began to pour in for pumping engines for mines. The Newcomen had proved inadequate to work the mines as they became deeper, and many were being abandoned in consequence. The necessity for a new power had set many ingenious men to work besides Watt, and some of these were trying to adopt Watt's principles ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... councils, General Scott urged delay, and the gathering of the volunteers into camps of instruction, their deliberate transformation into a genuine army. So inadequate were the resources of the government; so loose and uncertain were the militia organizations which were attempting to combine into an army; such discrepancies appeared between the nominal and actual strength of commands, between the places where men were supposed to be and the places where they ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... certain bold seafaring pagans (full of all the virtues we ascribe to ourselves today) first devastated, then occupied, and at last, of their sole genius, developed a land which Roman civilization had proved inadequate ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... fireplaces, capable of roasting a hundred joints at once,—and cavernous cellars, where rows of piled-up hogsheads seethe and fume with that mighty malt-liquor which is the true milk of Alma Mater: make all these things vivid in your dream, and you will never know nor believe how inadequate is the result to represent even the merest outside ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... his already pale features turned waxy in the yellow glare cast by the odd lantern over our heads, and the hand he had raised in mechanical greeting fell heavily, and he could barely stammer out some words of welcome. These would have seemed quite inadequate to the occasion if his eyes which were fixed on her face, had not betrayed the fact that he was not without feeling, though she little realized the nature of that feeling or how her very life (for happiness is life) ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... and the loss of many lives. In heavy weather it was intended that her hatches and all her openings should be closed and battened down. In that case all the men would be below, and would have to depend upon artificial ventilation. Our machinery for that purpose proved wholly inadequate. ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... roads, the British, debarred from the water line, were unable to advance. Sir Guy Carleton, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in Canada, strengthened the works at St. John's, and built a schooner; but his force was inadequate to meet ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... from Chopin's rubato. Rubato literally means "robbed," and it is generally supposed that the peculiarity of Chopin's style consisted simply in this, that he prolonged certain notes in a bar at the expense of the others—robbing from one what he gave to his neighbor. But this is a very inadequate conception of the term. Chopin's rubato means much more than this. It includes, to a large extent, the frequent unexpected changes of time and rhythm, together with the ritardandos and accelerandos. It includes, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... hardworking, painstaking wife, with a good general idea of justice. In the division of puddings and pies and other material comforts of the household she would deal evenly between her own children and her step-daughter. She had not desired to send Mary away to an inadequate home, or with a worthless husband. But when the proper home and the proper man were there she was prepared to use any amount of hardship to secure these good things to the family generally. This ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... it be possible to have such a Church? Is it possible for any one member to grow up and remain a child of God? If possible for one, why not for a whole congregation? Are the means of Grace inadequate? No, no! The whole trouble lies in the neglect or abuse of the means. With their proper use, the whole aspect of religious life might be different from what it is. It is not a fatal necessity that one, or more, or all the members of a church must periodically ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... and 229 with Aetolia against Demetrius. A greater danger arose (227-223) from the attacks of Cleomenes III. (q.v.). Owing to Aratus's irresolute generalship, the indolence of the rich burghers and the inadequate provision for levying troops and paying mercenaries, the league lost several battles and much of its territory; but rather than compromise with the Spartan Gracchus the assembly negotiated with Antigonus Doson, who recovered the lost districts but retained Corinth ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... part have realized his proud program. But there is no getting two Friedrichs. Finck, a General of approved quality, he is the nearest approach we can make to a second Friedrich;—and he, ill-luck too super-adding itself, proves tragically inadequate. And sets all the world, and Opposition Retzow, exclaiming, "See: Pride ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... preparation of the present text every available reference has been searched. Sir Walter Scott's reprint of Swift's "Notes" was sadly inadequate. Not only did he misquote the references to Burnet's work, but he could not have consulted the Lansdowne copy, since fully a third of the "notes" were altogether ignored by him. It is believed that the text here given contains every note accurately placed to its proper account ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... a large number of transfers from the merchant marine to the Royal Navy are being sanctioned. To this must be added the call of the Great Dominions for men and officers to man their local fleets. As the vital resources of England become more and more inadequate to meet the menace of German naval and moral strength, she turns her eyes to Ireland, and we learn from the London Daily Telegraph that Mr. Churchill's scheme of recruiting at Queenstown may furnish "matter for congratulation, as Irish boys make excellent bluejackets happy ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement

... making all rhetorical precepts needless. He who daily hears and reads well-framed sentences, will naturally more or less tend to use similar ones. And where there exists any mental idiosyncrasy—where there is a deficient verbal memory, or an inadequate sense of logical dependence, or but little perception of order, or a lack of constructive ingenuity; no amount of instruction will remedy the defect. Nevertheless, some practical result may be expected ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer

... and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose higher and higher. She tried several ballads, but found them inadequate; till, recollecting the psalter that her eyes had so often wandered over of a Sunday morning before she had eaten of the tree of knowledge, she chanted: "O ye Sun and Moon ... O ye Stars ... ye Green Things upon ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... crusader from attack, and at the same time he wrote to the Pope to help his faithful vassal. The Pope's letters rebuking the barons for conspiracy against the King were unheeded, and the mercenaries were inadequate when John was confronted by the whole baronage ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... haughty, shrinking, and Sclavic susceptibilities in rendering so public a tribute to your artistic skill, forgive me! The high moral worth and manly rectitude which distinguish you, and which alone render even the most sublime genius truly illustrious in the eyes of woman, almost force these inadequate and imperfect words from ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... arise difficulties which can only be comprehended or surmounted by the strongest native power of intellect, strengthened by the most assiduous exercise, and enriched with the most extended knowledge—and even these are sometimes found inadequate to the exigency. The first want of society is—leaders. Who shall estimate the value to Athens, of Solon, Aristides, Themistocles, Cymon, or Pericles? If society have not leaders qualified, as I have said, they will have those who ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... nature is interesting, there are parts of nature more interesting than other parts, and since the skill of man is inadequate to produce its more humble effects, if I may so express it, the painter should be on the lookout for her dramatic air, in order that when she is reproduced she may add that touch to her many qualities, thus meeting the ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... the implication of events which were happening from week to week. The memories of those days are already becoming somewhat dim, and as a matter of history and a guide to the future, it is perhaps well that some account should be given, however inadequate, of the dangers which confronted the country and of the means which were adopted to avert the worst consequences of the enemy's campaign without ceasing to exert the increasing pressure of our sea power upon his fighting efficiency, and without ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... number of volumes the locale now at the disposal of the library would be capable of accommodating. He said that there would be room for about seven hundred thousand volumes, evidently a quite inadequate provision for the future. Many years will not elapse before the measure which is now demanded at the British Museum—viz., the removal of all the various collections housed there to other localities, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... Mrs. Martha R. Almy, vice-president-at-large, with a force of clerks, worked day and night from December, 1893, to July, 1894, sending out thousands of letters, petition blanks, leaflets, suffrage papers, etc.[90] The letter boxes were wholly inadequate, and the post-office daily sent mail-sacks to the house, which were filled and set out on the front porch to be collected. Hither came every day the State president, Mrs. Greenleaf, who toiled without ceasing from daylight till dark; and into this busy hive Miss Anthony ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... Egypt, Euergetes was solicited by Cleomenes, the King of Sparta, to grant the assistance of his arms in the struggle which that republic was then supporting with Antigonus, the ruler of Macedon, and with the members of the Achaian league. But the battle of Sellasia proved that the aid offered was inadequate. Cleomenes fled to the banks of the Nile, where he found his august ally reposing under the successful banners of a numerous army, which he had just led home from the savage mountains of Ethiopia, whither his love of romantic conquest had conducted them. He appears to have penetrated into ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... took her into the library, expressing regret that her father was not there. The family had gone out on various errands. This she offered in her gentle way, even with a humorous ruefulness, Madame Beattie would find her so inadequate. To Anne, Madame Beattie was exotic as some strange eastern flower, not less impressive because it was a little wilted and showed the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... preparing a photograph of a print on such a lift, it will be necessary to print the negative from the reverse side in order for the print to appear in its correct position for comparison. Preparation of such photographs should not be attempted by persons of inadequate ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... music," she said with grim humour. She almost hustled the hastening juggler out of the way. She was in a whirlwind of excitement. So he was there—well, so much the better. He had saved her from lying. He had given her an easy way of confessing. Words were so inadequate, he should see the reality: the stage to-night would be her confessional. She would extenuate nothing. She would throw herself furiously into the fun and racket; go to her broadest limits, else the confession would be inadequate. Then ... if he survived the shock ... ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... rapid succession, that the time I have spent abroad, though not more than a year and a half, appears something like a life. The sight of the proud Alps, which boldly look eternity in the face, imparts a sensation of length of time wholly inadequate to the few hours that are employed in passing them. The labour up is a kind of age; and the swift descent is like falling from the clouds, once more to ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... labors, the prizes in his way of life. "And it isn't so stupid," he ended with a laugh, "to play the game that way when once you have begun it." He added carelessly, as if to himself, "the body will give you only a few sensations, such a very few, and so humiliatingly inadequate." ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick

... true of all artists, it is in a peculiar sense true of Michelangelo. Great as he was as sculptor, painter, architect, he was only perfect and impeccable as draughtsman. Inadequate realisation, unequal execution, fatigue, satiety, caprice of mood, may sometimes be detected in his frescoes and his statues; but in design we never find him faulty, hasty, less than absolute master ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... inadequate statement of the Socialist project and he made an unsuccessful attempt to ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... lawyer's character. He was, and always had been, totally unlike the 'horse hot at hand,' who tires before noon through his own over eager exertions in the beginning of the day. On the contrary, his first efforts seemed frequently inadequate to accomplishing his purpose, whatever that for the time might be; and it was only as the difficulties of the task increased, that his mind seemed to acquire the energy necessary to combat and subdue them. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... extent of my ignorance!" he reflected in stoically humorous self-contempt. His eyes dwelt, somewhat wistfully, on the glittering stream of traffic, once again those two unbidden guests, Loneliness and Freedom—for whose entertainment he had made inadequate provision—sitting, as it seemed, very close on either side of him. Then that happened which altered all the values. Dominic Iglesias suddenly saw a person whom ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... and you all, more than I can ever repay," he said, quietly; "that is understood. I have never tried to thank her, or you either—words are so inadequate in these cases. Believe me ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... here by the scouts," he said, "that a strong force will, ere long, come down from Crown Point to Ticonderoga, and that we shall be attacked. Now that the lake is frozen, regular troops could march without difficulty, and my force here is very inadequate, considering the strength with which the French will attack. None of my officers or men have any experience of the Indian methods of attack, and your experience will be very valuable. It is a pity that they do not give ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... raged pretty equally in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, and while the force seemed everywhere sufficient for destroying considerable tracts of country, and accumulating a great deal of spoil, it was wholly inadequate to the main purpose of bringing matters to a conclusion. Thus numbers of brave men lost their lives without any equivalent result, and veteran battalions were worn down by fruitless exertions of valour, and by a series of most brilliant ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... with these arrangements, persuaded Antiochus III., king of Syria, to enter into a league against the Romans. He passed over into Greece with a wholly inadequate force, and was defeated by the Romans at Thermopylae (B.C. 191). The AEtolians were now compelled to make head against the Romans by themselves. After some ineffectual attempts at resistance they were reduced to sue for peace, which they at length obtained, but on the ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... But while this is only the occasional pastime of the ordinary individual, it is the conscious and habitual aim of the philosopher. In daily life people are wont to make assumptions which they do not verify, and employ figures of speech which of necessity are partial and inadequate. It is the business of philosophy to investigate the pre-suppositions of common life and to translate into realities the pictures of ordinary language. It was the method of Socrates to challenge the current modes of speaking and to ask his fellow-men ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... apart. On him the general attention had been concentrated at my entrance and to him it now returned. He was an unpretentious person of kindly aspect. To any one accustomed to Washington residents, he bore the unmistakable signs of being one of the many departmental employees whose pay is inadequate to the necessities of his family. Of his personal peculiarities I noted two. He blinked when he talked, and stuttered painfully when excited. Notwithstanding these defects he made a good impression, and commanded confidence. This I soon saw was of importance, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... facts. This was especially necessary, because it was not always obvious that Ratzel had based his inductions on sufficiently broad data; and his published work had been open to the just criticism of inadequate citation of authorities. It was imperative, moreover, that any investigation of geographic environment for the English-speaking world should meet its public well supported both by facts and authorities, because that public had not previously known ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... desire to preserve health and strength useful to our QUEEN and Country. Therefore we, as ARPACHSHAD says, potter about the Garden, get in each other's way, and in his; that is to say, we are out working pretty well all day, with inadequate intervals for meals. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various

... prematurely beyond the conditions of the Middle Ages, before the institutions of mediaevalism had been destroyed or its prejudices had been overcome, we everywhere discern the want of a co-ordinating principle. The old religion has died; but there is no new faith. The Communes have been proved inadequate; but there is no nationality. Practical positivism has obliterated the virtues of a chivalrous and feudal past; but science has not yet been born. Scholarship floods the world with the learning of antiquity; but this knowledge is still undigested. Art triumphs; ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... even in these so-called color tests discrimination is partly by brightness difference, and that the imperfection of the habit and its short duration are due to the fact that the basis of discrimination is inadequate. This is the only explanation which I have to offer for the difference which has been demonstrated to exist between the duration of brightness discrimination ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... clashed violently together. There was to be no compromise, no half-measures. Either she or Bennett must in the end be beaten. One of them was to be broken and humbled beyond all retrieving. There in that commonplace little room, with its trivial accessories, its inadequate background, a battle royal swiftly prepared itself. With the abruptness of an explosion the ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... Winnifred, as Mr. Bonehead proceeded to fold up his papers, "I am but a poor inadequate girl, a mere child in business, but tell me, I pray, what is left to me of the money ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... skins having been found inadequate to the gratification of their desire for comfort, the ancient Egyptians gradually developed the art of making mats from papyrus, a plant as important to them as any of our trees, fibrous grasses, or hemp are to us. While at work on the manufacture of these mats, the weavers used to ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... relationship. The modest man, said Stevenson, finds his friendships ready-made; by which he meant that if one is generous, tolerant, and ungrudging, then, instead of thinking the circle in which one lives inadequate, confined, and unsympathetic, one gets the best out of it, and sees the lovable side of ordinary human beings. Such friendships as these can evoke perhaps the best and simplest kind of loyalty. It is said that in countries where oxen are used for ploughing in double ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... more audacious to maintain their traditional freedom. The reservation system allows this issue to be fought out between our troops and the more daring of the savages, without involving in the contest tribes with which our army in its present numbers is wholly inadequate ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... laces. He kicked his shoes off. He could use that drink. He began wondering all over again if his scheme for winning this Vacuum Tube Transport versus Continental Hovercraft fracas would come off. The more he saw of Baron Haer's inadequate forces, the more he wondered. He hadn't expected Vacuum Tube to be in this bad a shape. Baron Haer had been riding high for so long that one would have thought his reputation for victory would have lured many a veteran to his colors. ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... know, in the scientific sense, the physical and chemical phenomena of life; its essence, its origin, we can only know as philosophy and idealism know them. We have to turn philosophers when we ask any ultimate question. The feeling we have that the scientific conception of life is inadequate springs from the philosophical habit of mind. Yet this habit is quite as legitimate as the scientific habit, and is bound to supplement the latter ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... Liebig went astray, first in denying the importance of supplying nitrogen as a manure; and secondly, in overestimating the amount of ammonia washed down in rain, which has subsequently been shown to be entirely inadequate to supply plants with the ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... and Indian, were considerably over a thousand. Now, if the ship was to be at all adequately guarded and manned, Captain Drake could not spare more than a score of men as a land force. Obviously, this was totally inadequate if the foe stood his ground; so weak a band might be shot down one by one in the forest. Yet no man would leave the coast without making some real effort to aid his captured comrades. The brave fellows could readily put themselves ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... especial warmth, and possessed especial value, during the hotly criticised peace negotiations with the First Consul Bonaparte in 1801 and 1802. Although Pitt had been obliged when in office to refuse several inadequate offers of peace, he had always been prepared to end the war under honourable conditions. The distinction of ending the war did not fall to his share; but his services were not forgotten. On May 7, 1802, the House of Commons carried ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... pounds, and stamped previous to the 5th of February, 1826, be allowed to circulate until February 5th, 1829, and no longer." Mr. Baring took the lead in opposition to the measure, objecting to it as being inadequate to meet the evils complained of, and ill-suited to the present state of the country. He could not agree, he said, in attributing the existing embarrassments either to speculation or over-trading: much of it had been owing to the conduct ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... particularly in one typical specimen. He is—if one might hazard a guess—an uncle bereft of great expectations. He finds an echo in thousands of other distressed uncles and parents. They use the most divergent and inadequate forms of expression for this vague sense that the result has not come out good enough; they put it contradictorily and often wrongly, but the sense is widespread and real and justifiable and we owe a great debt to "Kappa" for an accurate diagnosis ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... do not like to use the ordinary forms of ending a letter, for they are very inadequate to express my sense of your long and most unvarying kindness; but be assured no one living could say with more sincerity that ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... to carve?" asked Sally May surveying with a certain dismay a plump brown bird and a seemingly inadequate pocketknife. ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... whole of the thoughts and intents of the more famous book, but with a slightly different application. 'The Prince traces the progress of an ambitious man, the Discorsi the progress of an ambitious people,' is an apt if inadequate criticism. Machiavelli was not the first Italian who thought and wrote upon the problems of his time. But he was the first who discussed grave questions in modern language. He was the first modern political writer who wrote of men and not of man, for ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... was, however, not a man to quarrel with circumstances. He bravely accepted them and began to work in his own private laboratory and with appliances which, in any other country, would be deemed inadequate. He applied himself closely to the investigation of the invisible etheric waves and, with the simple means at his command, accomplished things, which few were able to perform in spite of their great wealth ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... here concerned with sexual appetite provoked by inadequate objects. Krafft-Ebing having made a profound study of this question we shall follow his subdivisions ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... and seals' flesh, principally the former, were deposited under heaps of stones all about the beach, and, as we afterward found, in various other parts of the island, which showed that they had made some provision for the winter, though, with their enormous consumption of food, it proved a very inadequate one. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... government was working with very inadequate and unsuitable instruments. Instead of a body of efficient and responsible officials, directly and immediately dependent upon their superiors, receiving wages and hoping for promotion, such as successful centralized governments ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... entertainment, but of influence above all. The orator should be taught self-mastery. The orator who is not moved by high moral sense is a trickster or a hypocrite; the former juggles with human susceptibility for unworthy or inadequate ends, and the latter poses for motives he has not. So complex is human nature that this can be done by a good actor so as to deceive the judgment and feelings; but the influence will ultimately reveal the truth, if the auditor will use intuition and not be taken off guard by the ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick

... Hydra is superior to that of any one of its constituent cells, so the well-being of a hive of bees may be safeguarded only by the actual sacrifice of some of its members. Should food supplies be inadequate, the superfluous drones are stung to death,—the victims of legalized murder. But more marvelous still is the provision that is said to be made by certain individuals for their own destruction should this become desirable. As every one knows, a reigning ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... clear that if we wish to reduce the number of mentally defective and socially inadequate individuals we must not only consider measures for preventing as far as possible the transmission of hereditary defect, but must also provide for the youth of the country an environment and training calculated to encourage the development ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... American paper a series of twenty articles on some of the prominent inns mentioned in the works of Dickens, and before the series was completed he received many overtures to publish them in volume form. To do so would have resulted in producing an entirely inadequate and incomplete book, whose sins of omission would have far outrun its virtues, whatever they might ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... and the colour rose to her cheeks. But she restrained herself and left unsaid the bitter words that had come to her tongue. She made a pitiful gesture of despair. He felt how poor were his words of consolation, and how inadequate to her great grief, and ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... and Mr. Stubbs helped at this necessary work, and when the professor and the Melbourne merchant heard of it they, too, volunteered. But Marmaduke Timmins, the valetudinarian, and Montgomery Clinton felt quite inadequate to the task. ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger

... although he would avoid a collision if possible with the Major and his party, yet he would not be dissuaded from carrying out his orders because it might be unpleasant. Would, he asked, the Major oppose him with force; his means were inadequate to do so with any hope of success. Major Marchand replied, "No," he was not in a position to justify any attempt to contend with arms against the strong flotilla and land army that could be brought against him by the Sirdar. Still, he would neither yield ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... another country? Either they come to grief at once, or prosper, and then their prosperity creates Anti-Semitism. We have already discussed these attempts to divert poor Jews to fresh districts. This diversion is clearly inadequate and futile, if it does not actually defeat its own ends; for it merely protracts and postpones a solution, ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... suspicions well enough, but they were on the wrong track; in fact, I could not have done you justice—my imagination is not equal to it. The best I could do for you was to mistake you for a spy—an inadequate estimate, after what I have seen and heard ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... it gives them the interest which has been noticed in other cases. Indeed in one respect—as a writer—Kingsley is perhaps better in his letters than in his Essays, where he too often affects a Macaulayesque positiveness on rather inadequate grounds. The following specimen should show him in pleasantly varied character—as a thoroughly human person, a good sportsman, and what Matthew Arnold (by no means himself very liberal of praise to ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... not know how to do it. They were rich, they had a fine house, but nothing ever happened there and it was evident that Chrystie wanted things to happen. It was a situation which Lorry had not foreseen and before which she quailed, feeling herself inadequate. That was why, at twenty-three, a little line had formed between her eyebrows and her glance dwelt anxiously on Chrystie as an obligation—her great obligation—that she was not ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... people all told. It is difficult to see whence the necessary impetus for a national renascence is to come.... The universities are poor and spiritless, with no ambition to lead the country. I met a Boy Scout recently. He was hopeful in his way, but a little inadequate, I thought, as a basis for confidence in ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... lecturing; I have been sick; I have been beaten about in all ways. Nay, at bottom, it was only three days ago that I got the Bibliopoliana back from Fraser; to whom, as you recommended, I, totally inadequate like yourself to understand such things, had straightway handed them for examination. I always put off writing till Fraser should have spoken. I did not urge him, or he would have spoken any ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one hand on the knob. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... death would automatically make you insolvent. You are one of those brave, jolly fellows who live up to their income. It is true that, in deference to fashion, you are now insured, but for a trifling and inadequate sum which would not yield the hundredth part of your present income. It is true that there is your business. But your business would be naught without you. You are your business. Remove yourself from it, and the residue is ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett

... through it easily. Hook had declared that if Powell could descend the river he could too, and he headed a party to follow.[6] The motive I believe was prospecting. I do not know how far they expected to go but this was as far as they got. Their abandoned boats, flat-bottomed and inadequate, still lay half buried in sand on the left-hand bank, and not far off on a sandy knoll was the grave of the unfortunate leader marked by a pine board set up, with his name painted on it. Old sacks, ropes, oars, etc., emphasised ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... means," Adrian hastened to agree. "I have a sort of humphy feeling myself—a sort of unsatisfied yearning, that is scarcely akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain. I think it may be imputed to inadequate nourishment. I think I will try some of that mortadella, if you 'll be so good as to pass it. Thank you. And another cup of coffee, with plenty of whipped cream on top, please. How cruel dairymaids must be, to whip such nice stuff as cream. But they 're cruel only to be kind, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... said Sir William, pertinaciously; "the figure I alluded to was not inadequate. A soap-bubble ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... provinces, and especially of the capital and its neighborhood, to the verge of starvation. The king, queen, and princesses gave large sums from their privy purses for their relief; but as such supplies were manifestly inadequate, Louis ordered the minister to draw three millions of francs from the treasury, and to apply them for the alleviation of the universal distress. Calonne cheerfully received and executed the beneficent command. He was perhaps not sorry, at his first entrance ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... large system by Third World standards but inadequate for present requirements and undergoing extensive upgrading domestic: principal centers at Alexandria, Cairo, Al Mansurah, Ismailia, Suez, and Tanta are connected by coaxial cable and microwave radio relay international: satellite earth stations-2 ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the persistence of the peasant traditions, we have next to notice how inadequate they are to present needs. Our subject swings round here. Inasmuch as the peasant outlook lingers on in the valley, it explains many of those peculiarities I have described in earlier chapters; but, inasmuch ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... consideration or fine, on account of the renewal for a long term of civil authority and military command, and the collection of the revenues to an immense amount, the same being at least eight hundred thousand pounds sterling yearly, was so totally inadequate to the interest granted, that it may justly be presumed it was not on that, or on any public ground or condition, that the said Hastings did delegate, out of all reach of resumption or correction, a lease of boundless ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of thirty-three years, when the poem was completed, the grand vizier, after counting its sixty-thousand couplets, concluded not to pay for it in gold, and sent instead sixty thousand small pieces of silver. On receiving so inadequate a reward, Firdusi became so angry that, after distributing the money among the bearers and writing an insulting poem to the king, he fled first to Mazinderan and then to Bagdad, where he lingered until shortly before his death, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... it is proper to refer to our financial condition. The same causes which have produced pecuniary distress throughout the country have so reduced the amount of imports from foreign countries that the revenue has proved inadequate to meet the necessary expenses of the Government. To supply the deficiency, Congress, by the act of December 23, 1857, authorized the issue of $20,000,000 of Treasury notes; and this proving inadequate, they authorized, by the act of June 14, 1858, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... "taillur."(362) The news had already reached the city, however, before the queen's own messenger arrived, and he signified his disappointment at being forestalled by declining to accept a sum of L10 and a silver cup of 32 ozs., which the city offered him by way of gratuity, as being inadequate to his deserts. As nothing further is recorded of the matter, it is probable that the offended tailor had reason to repent of his folly. For more than a week the city was given up to merry-making, in honour ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... re-invested with his eternal power, re-clothed with the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, and re-endowed with the infinite treasures of grace which he had purchased by his death on the cross. It is as though—to use a very inadequate illustration—a beloved father were to say to his family: "My children, I have provided well for your needs; but your condition is one of poverty compared with what it may become. By the death of a kinsman in my native country I have become heir to an immense estate. If you will only submit ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... expand with the growing wants of the people. The old curriculum laid down by Confucius, "Begin with poetry; make etiquette your strong point; and finish off with music," was not bad for his day, but is utterly inadequate for ours, unless it be for a young ladies seminary. The Sage's chapter on experiment as the source of knowledge—a chapter which might have anticipated the Novum Organum—having been lost, the statesmen of the T'ang ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... have estimated that some of these English visitors have been able to receive impressions at the rate of four to the second; in fact, they seem to get them every time they see twenty cents. But without jealousy or complaint, I do feel that somehow these impressions are inadequate and fail to depict us as we ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... Affairs.) M. Delessart is a "perfidious man," for having stated in a dispatch that "the Constitution, with the great majority of the nation, has become a sort of religion which is embraced with the greatest enthusiasm." Brissot denounces these two expressions as inadequate and anti-patriotic.-Ibid., XII. 438 (session of May 20). Speech by Guadet: "Lariviere, the juge-de-paix, has convicted himself of the basest and most atrocious of passions, in having desired to usurp the power which the Constitution has placed in the hands of the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... were beginning to cluster in grimy, ill-organized townships. Population and wealth advanced by leaps and bounds; but with them came the nineteenth-century problems of widening class distinctions and uncertainty of employment. The food-supply was often inadequate, and in 1801 the price of wheat in the London market ranged from L6 to L8 the quarter; the quartern loaf selling at times for as much ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... ankle and the knee seldom succeeds, is explained by the fact that the vascular obstruction is usually in the upper part of the posterior tibial artery, and the operation is therefore performed through tissues with an inadequate blood supply. It is not uncommon, indeed, on amputating above the knee, to find even the popliteal artery plugged by a clot. This should be removed at the amputation by squeezing the vessel from above downward by a "milking" movement, or by "catheterising the artery" with the aid of a cannula ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles



Words linked to "Inadequate" :   unsatisfactory, deficient, lacking, short, incapable, incompetent, adequacy, unequal to, undermanned, adequateness, wanting, insufficient, poor, unequal, understaffed, inadequateness



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