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Self-acting   Listen
adjective
Self-acting  adj.  Acting of or by one's self or by itself; said especially of a machine or mechanism which is made to perform of or for itself what is usually done by human agency; automatic; as, a self-acting feed apparatus; a self-acting mule; a self-acting press.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Self-acting" Quotes from Famous Books



... daily importing some new improvement therein from the American shores? Look again at their perfect and beautiful invention for the manufacture of seamless bags, by Mr. Cyrus Baldwin, and which he has at work at the Stark Mills. There are 126 looms in operation, all self-acting and each one making 47 bags daily; the bags are a little more than three and a half feet long, and chiefly used, I believe, for flour and grain. When they are finished, sewing-machines are at hand, which can hem at the rate of 650 bags each daily. This same gentleman has also adapted his looms to ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... theory of the ultimate elements of the universe, the entire universe is composed of individual centres, or monads. To these monads he ascribed numberless qualities by which every phase of nature may be accounted. They were supposed by him to be percipient, self-acting beings, not under arbitrary control of the deity, and yet God himself was the original monad from which all the rest are generated. With this conception as a basis, Leibnitz deduced his doctrine of pre-established harmony, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... concluded to make a self-acting device which would close the draft and leave the furnace safe, without any further attention on my part, after putting in the coal and opening it up to burn. As some other boys may like to build the same regulator I will tell just how to make one ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... a London police station is a compromise between the comparative luxury of a waiting-room and the harshness of a cell. Like a waiting-room it is furnished with chairs and tables, and like a cell its door is provided with a strong, self-acting lock. The Princess Petrovska gritted her teeth viciously as she was left alone, and paid no heed to the magazines and papers left on the table—a consideration for visitors that had not been ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... undoubtedly used previously at Cromford; and filleted cards on the second cylinder, which also must have been used by Arkwright in 1778, although a manufacturer named Wood claimed to have first used them in 1774. Indeed, the whole of the complicated self-acting machinery, which without the intervention of hand labor performed the different processes necessary to change raw cotton into thread suitable for warp, was substantially the invention of Arkwright; and while each separate machine was in itself a remarkable triumph of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... itself cannot, however, have acted independently; it can only have served as an instrument to the evil spirit. The position which the serpent would occupy, in the event of our considering it as the self-acting, independent seducer, would be in direct contradiction to the position assigned to the animal creation throughout Holy Scripture—especially in the history of the creation—and would break down the limits which, according to it, separate man and beast. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying, by all sorts of ingenious contrivances, that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race. Inferior in power, inferior in that moral quality of self-control, we shall look up to them as the ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... has a broom specially placed at his service, namely, the tongue; and an unrivalled broom it is—for it is self-acting, never wears out, and makes no dust—qualities we cannot succeed in obtaining in any brooms of ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... leaf. It would be an insult to Lord Long-legs to look down on him. Next followed two lantern-bearers, holding glow-worms for lanterns in their fore-paws. These were wrapped in cases made of leaves, which they took off at night. Behind were six fire-flies, well supplied with self-acting lamps, which they kept hidden somewhere under their wings. Next marched four abreast the band of little weevils, carrying the umbrellas of state, which were morning-glories—some open, some shut. Behind them strutted ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... properties—sensible properties, as they are commonly called—whereby matter affects the senses. Equally, whether matter be, in all and each of its various species, inanimate, inert, passive substance, or a combination of self-acting forces—equally whether it be the author or merely the subject of whatever activity it manifests, that activity is equally manifested in certain sequences which are as unvarying as if they were prescribed ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... projectile was slightly altered. It was made of a cylindro-conical form. This species of aerial car was lined with strong springs and partitions to deaden the shock of departure. It was provided with food for a year, water for some months, and gas for some days. A self-acting apparatus supplied the three travelers with air to breathe. At the same time, on one of the highest points of the Rocky Mountains, the Gun Club had a gigantic telescope erected, in order that they might be able to follow the course of the projectile ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... widely from civil life. The social and domestic machinery of home spontaneously brings within the reach of families the things that are needful for their sustenance, comfortable for their enjoyment, and favorable to their health. But this self-acting machinery follows not the soldier through his campaigns. Everything he needs or enjoys is to be a matter of special thought, and obtained with a special effort and often with difficulty. Much that was very comfortable and salutary in civil life must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... results which he had not calculated upon. He had expected that it would save him from a great deal of social intercourse of a frivolous kind—that it would offend the fools, but not the sensible people; and so would serve as a self-acting test by which those worth knowing would be separated from those not worth knowing. But the fools prove to be so greatly in the majority that, by offending them, he closes against himself nearly all the avenues through which the sensible people are to be reached. Thus he finds that his nonconformity ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... threatened harm, A large alarum placed above the roof, Soon to the neighbours gives convincing proof; We won't try that just now as its sound, would Undoubtedly alarm the neighbourhood. But see, in this recess with curtained way Is a self-acting shower-bath that you may Try in the morning if you're so inclined. There's just one more contrivance yet I find That I must show you; by your bed side stands A nest of speaking tubes; this one commands ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby



Words linked to "Self-acting" :   self-moving, self-regulating, self-activating



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