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Tactics   Listen
noun
Tactics  n.  
1.
The science and art of disposing military and naval forces in order for battle, and performing military and naval evolutions. It is divided into grand tactics, or the tactics of battles, and elementary tactics, or the tactics of instruction.
2.
Hence, any system or method of procedure.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tactics" Quotes from Famous Books



... most of his clothing, squatted on a heap of rubble, keenly following through his glasses naval tactics on the sea below. One favourable point about Anzac was that, if one was bored with everything else, there was always plenty to look at, especially with a good pair of glasses. This morning, coming out on to the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... But the government of England cannot do so. All men connected with the government in England have felt themselves from time to time more or less hampered by the necessity of publicity. Our statesmen have been forced to fight their battles with the plan of their tactics open before their adversaries. But we in England are inclined to believe that the general result is good, and that battles so fought and so won will be fought with the honestest blows and won with the surest results. Reticence in this matter was not ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... attacked in books, pamphlets, and newspapers, but he came out victorious from all contests. In vain did Szechenyi himself, backed by his great authority in the land, assail him, declaring that he did not object to Kossuth's ideas, but that his manner and his tactics were reprehensible, and that the latter were sure to lead to a revolution. The great mass of the people felt instinctively that revolution had become a necessity and was unavoidable if Hungary was to pass from the old mediaeval order to the establishment ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... I instantly changed my tactics, and endeavored to embrace him. He kicked me twice, violently. I begged permission to kiss madame's hand. He replied ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... she up to? Fearing that my face would indicate too clearly that I was not deceived by her change of tactics, I shielded it from the fire by the screen, close to the chair in which I sat, and made effort to wait politely, if not with inward patience, for what I would discover if I only gave her time. Something had happened I ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... casualness, I dropped in upon a physician who is a friend of mine and in whose judgment I have confidence; and then, after a two-day interval, I went to see a second physician of my acquaintance who, I believe, also thoroughly knows his trade. With both men I followed the same tactics—roundabout chatting on the topic of this or that, and finally an honest confession as to the real purpose of my visit. In both instances the results were practically identical. Each man manifested an ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... the two Mohammedan nations into Europe. The appearance of the Cossacks was coincident with the appearance in Europe of brotherhoods and knighthood-orders, and this new race, in spite of its living the life of marauders, in spite of turnings its foes' tactics upon its foes, was not free of the religious spirit of its time; if it warred for its existence it warred not less for its faith, which was Greek. Indeed, as the nation grew stronger and became conscious of its strength, the struggle began to partake something of the nature ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to have prepared a complete system of cavalry tactics, and a system of exercise and instruction of field artillery, for the use of the militia of the United States, to be reported to Congress at the present session, a board of distinguished officers of the Army and of the militia has been convened, whose report will be submitted ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... his idea illuminated, transfigured. It was Glory, a stern wingless Victory, beckoning him across a continent. It no longer pursued him. It had changed its tactics. It was coming to meet him; ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... December 23, and spent another day or two in reviewing the general situation.[146] Mancio's cautious policy was doubtless sound; but to Luis de Leon, who maintained that the matters on which his patrono had to pronounce were as simple as could be, these tactics seemed mistaken, and on January 13, 1575, he begged the Court to press Mancio to give an opinion without delay.[147] On March 6 Luis de Leon once more complained of being unable to confer with his patrono; but now, rather late in the day, he came nearer to putting the blame ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... life and liveliness. Such bowing, such kissing, such fluttering of fans, such gentle criticism of gentle friends! But the fan is the most wonderful part of the whole scene. A Spanish lady with her fan might shame the tactics of a troop of horse. Now she unfurls it with the slow pomp and conscious elegance of a peacock. Now she flutters it with all the languor of a listless beauty, now with all the liveliness of a vivacious one. Now in the midst ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... ships and six hundred and fifty-two men, including militia and Indians, and that with this handful of men he completely baffled his assailants, the case grows more interesting. It was largely an example of tactics against numbers, as will be seen on reading the story of how the Spaniards were put to the right about and forced to flee in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... happens to ask for it; and it is equally clear, it seems to me, that not much is done by lecturing people vaguely about their sins and negligences; one must have a very clear sense of one's own victories over evil, and the tactics one has employed, to do that; and if one is conscious, as I am, of not having made a very successful show of resistance to personal faults and failings, the pastoral attitude is not an easy one to adopt. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... in speechless horror. He was caught in his own trap, and though he was certain that the Lord had said nothing of the kind, there was no road open for him but just sheer retreat. Yet surely it was an error in tactics to ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... elsewhere they would unite as allies. Such a prize would be fought for, murdered for if need be—but one ray of encouragement played among the clouds. Any lover who felt confidence in his own success would not have found such tactics needful—and if she herself were not committed, she was not yet won by any rival. In ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... her tactics in the morning she contrived that I should see everything. Excited by her charms I praised her beauties, I kissed, I touched; she let herself fall on me, and looked radiant when her vagrant hand found palpable proof of her powers ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... women who, without appearing to do so, manages to efface all her tracks as she goes. I have watched her change her tactics two or three times in the course of an evening, according to the people with whom she was talking. She glided up to them, breathed their atmosphere for an instant, and then established ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... was about to relate a "made-up" story, and he at once fixed upon the man a look so piercing that the fellow was overwhelmed with confusion and could not go on with his evidence. Brady promptly changed his tactics, sent for a glass of water for the witness, and soothed him so effectually that the heart of the man was won, and, abandoning his false tale, he made a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... Mr. Stenson observed drily, "they will scuttle the ship themselves. Do you approve of these tactics?" ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the complete though abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The L5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... compelled to make the change, which referred to the manual of arms, Hardee's tactics, in which, system the piece is carried in the right hand at shoulder arms, having been substituted for Scott's, which provides for the shoulder on the left side. There was no actual drill, however, and my clumsy performance—clumsy compared with, that of the other ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... and the effort of the new President to keep Virginia in. Governor Seward representing the Administration in the Senate took the lead; Mr. Adams took the lead in the House; and as far as a private secretary knew, the party united on its tactics. In offering concessions to the border States, they had to run the risk, or incur the certainty, of dividing their own party, and they took this risk with open eyes. As Seward himself, in his gruff way, said at dinner, after Mr. Adams and he had made their speeches: "If there's no ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... a tactical unit, the major's duties are primarily those of an instructor in drill and tactics and of a tactical commander. He is responsible for the theoretical and practical training of the battalion. He supervises the training of the companies of the battalion with a view to insuring the thoroughness ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department

... usual tactics, the Germans had carried out systematic destruction of the houses and had constructed strong underground defenses. The whole city was undermined with tunnels and dugouts, which had been reinforced ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his Peninsular campaign. "When in doubt," the Duke used to say, ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... the scene of the initial struggle, which taught Rome that her victories on land were liable to be nullified by the Carthaginian sea power. She resolved to build a navy, on the plan of adopting boarding tactics which would assimilate a naval engagement to a battle on land. These tactics were successful enough to equalise the fighting value of the respective fleets. The Romans were enabled to land an invading army under Regulus ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... might be a great people in Caspak; but they were pitifully inefficient in even the simpler forms of military tactics. I was surprised that even a man of the Stone Age should be so lacking in military perspicacity. Du-seen dropped far below par in my estimation as I saw the slovenly formation of his troop as it passed through an enemy country and ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... pontiff, and adopting against his enemies the policy of unconditional defence, they will consent to adopt a view which corroborates to a great extent the assertions they have combated, and implicitly condemns their tactics. It is natural to oppose one extreme by another; and those who avoid both easily appear to be capitulating with error. The effects of this spirit of opposition are not confined to those who are engaged in resisting the No-popery party in England, or the revolution in Italy. The ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... had their eyes upon him, and were puzzled to account for his success. They had made up their minds the previous day that they would only have to carry on their present tactics for a short time, and Horace would leave the school in disgust, or else he would be asked to leave by the head master, and thus Torrington's would be saved from going to the dogs through this scholarship boy. But this day's experience of what Horace could do under the terrible ban ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie

... Suddenly Simpson's tactics changed; he got in over Wolff's guard and, in as many seconds, planted six terrible blows on the latter's face. With both eyes closed, his nose streaming blood, and his lips badly tattered, Wolff collapsed a melancholy object-lesson of the truth ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... subside in the domain of dogma, but it will rise in the domain of social problems. No doubt truth in the social order will prevail as it has prevailed in the field of religious dogma. But we have to change our strategy, study new tactics, and in our plan of campaign turn from the defensive to the offensive." Never should the Catholics of Canada present a more united front. To sneer and snap our fingers at the energies and organizing powers of others is often but a poor ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... course as I had anticipated, by denying all knowledge of the matter, but recognizing that she was in a tight corner, she presently changed her tactics, and although every available plan was tried to induce her to change her ground, she afterwards stuck to the extraordinary story which we first extracted from her. Briefly it ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... tell the truth and admit that not a syllable had been mentioned on that score. Then you asked me if anything had been taught about health and strength, since a true general is bound to think of these matters no less than of tactics and strategy. And when I was forced to say no, you asked me if he had taught me any of the arts which give the best aid in war. Once again I had to say no and then you asked whether he had ever taught me how to kindle enthusiasm in my men. For in every undertaking, you said, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile aircraft are to attack them instantly with one or more British machines, and as in this respect the British Flying Corps has established an individual ascendency, Sir John French proudly declares ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick

... harassed us on the other. It was not war as we had been accustomed to. It was a newer and more deadly game, and I had to watch my splendid army eaten away as waves eat a sandhill. Never once did I get a chance of forcing close action. These new tactics that had come from Phorenice's invention, were beyond my art to meet or understand. We were eight to her one, and our close-packed numbers only made us so much the more easy for slaughter. A panic came, and those who could fled. Myself, I had no wish to go back and earn ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... considerable traffic from Achin to the coast of Coromandel, or kling country, and vessels were built expressly for their transport; but it has declined, or perhaps ceased altogether, from the change which the system of warfare has undergone, since the European tactics have been imitated ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... no experience who had never previously owned a vessel. He was so appalled at the disaster that he decided to have her sold piecemeal and broken up. We attended the auction on the beach and bought each piece as it came to the hammer. Getting her off was the trouble. We adopted tactics of our own invention. Mousing together the two mastheads with a bight of rope, we put on it a large whoop traveller, and to that fastened our stoutest and longest line. Then first backing down to her on the very top of high water, we went "full speed ahead." Over she fell on her side ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... and clumsily out from the shelter of a little ledge, his fearful eyes gleaming with deadly intentions against a ground-squirrel frisking upon the end of a mossy log, near where Captain Bob Bennett was seated, poring over a troublesome detail in the "Tactics." The snake saw the man, and his awkward movement changed at once into one of electric alertness. He sounded his terrible rattle, and his dull diamonds and stripes lighted up with the glare that shines through an enraged man's ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... enemy. These had placed themselves upon high ground, and opened a heavy fire. The sailors at once got the gatlings and rockets to work, and so great was their effect that the rush of the Zulus was checked, and they were unable to carry out their favourite tactics of coming to close quarters. Three hundred of them were killed, ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... enthusiast, however generous his impulses, who asks the abolition of slavery on general principles of philanthropy, for the reason that it already has work enough on its hands. It may not change the objects of the war, but it must of necessity at times shift its tactics and its instruments, as the exigency demands. Its solemn and imperative duty is to look every issue, however grave and transcendent, firmly in the face; and having ascertained upon mature and conscientious reflection what is necessary to suppress the Rebellion, it must then proceed with inexorable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... agitating year of 1831 in his luxurious retirement in Italy, contenting himself with opposing the Reform Bill by proxy. But when his correspondent, Mr. Rigby, had informed him, in the early part of the spring of 1832, of the probability of a change in the tactics of the Tory party, and that an opinion was becoming prevalent among their friends, that the great scheme must be defeated in detail rather than again withstood on principle, his Lordship, who was never wanting in energy when his own interests ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... accepted, first a majority therein, and then, three months later, its colonelcy. He found ten companies, in no one instance exceeding twenty files front. He found a field and staff vain, incompetent, and jealous; company officers deficient alike in their knowledge of tactics and in their conception of their responsibilities; sergeants, corporals, and lances chosen without any view to fitness, and ignorant and tyrannical in their positions; and finally, the rank and file lazy, untidy, and frankly contemptuous of the school of the soldier. Some one had ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... beyond armies and tactics, beyond strategy and even military genius, and the real meaning of Verdun is not to be found in lines held or lost, not to be found even in the ashes of the old town that France and not Germany holds. It is to be found in the spirit of ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds

... rocketed along the other side of the field, and the eleven from Old Nassau ran briskly over the turf and wheeled into line for a last rehearsal of their machine- like tactics. Henry Seeley was finding it hard to breathe, just as it had happened in other days when he was waiting for the "kick- off" and facing a straining Princeton line. The minutes were like hours while ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... Directory, like Louis Napoleon, dismissed the ministers, in whom the legislature had confidence, and appointed its own tools in their places, denounced the legislature to the country, and flattered and corrupted the army. The legislature tried the usual tactics of parliamentary opposition, censured the Government, and refused the supplies. The Directory prepared a coup d'etat. The legislature tried to obtain a military force, and failed; they planned an impeachment of the Directory, ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... Prince Alarino, had just then revolted: Caesar then took command of the army which Jean d'Albret was sending out against him, followed by Michelotto, who was as faithful in adversity as ever before. Thanks to Caesar's courage and skilful tactics, Prince Alarino was beaten in a first encounter; but the day after his defeat he rallied his army, and offered battle about three o'clock in ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... no surprise was ever displayed at my eccentricity in the choice of times, but I simply could not contrive to elude notice; and at length it was borne in upon me that if I wished to effect my escape I must adopt tactics of a totally different kind. I therefore very gradually curtailed my excursions, and when I undertook them was careful that there should be nothing in the nature of secrecy connected with ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... brown rat, but it knew something of tactics. With a lightness, such as one could hardly have expected, it swung to one side, and, before his brilliant charge could take effect, had got its back to the wall. He had made the same mistake again—the mistake of brainless breeding all the world over. It mattered not whether he approached from ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... effect retrenchment, and how there isn't, I may safely aver, a single soul in the whole household, who doesn't detest me behind my back. But now that I'm astride on the tiger's back, (I must go on; for if I put my foot on the ground, I shall be devoured). It's true, my tactics have been more or less seen through, but there's no help for it; I can't very well become more open-handed in a moment! In the second place, much goes out at home, and little comes in; and the hundred and one, large and small, things, which turn up, are still managed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... that the Shoshones threw away their bucklers at the instigation of the Prince Seravalle, who also taught them the European cavalry tactics. They had sense enough to perceive the advantage they would gain from them, and they were immediately incorporated, as far as ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... miserable processions brought the wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... "Good tactics," said Culver, as he promptly blew out the single light. Then all went upon the great front portico, where they stood for a few moments waiting. They could neither see nor hear anything hostile. Drifting clouds still hid the moon and stars, and a swish ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... did not read his intention, and uttered a snarl of triumph as he continued his cautious tactics and went on advancing, swinging himself from side to side as if about to spring; and a dull gleam of light flashed from the knife he ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... the origin of the Exegesis. However, they were everywhere believed to share its radical teachings, and known to have spread it among the students of the university, and suspected also of having before this resorted to tactics similar to those employed in the Exegesis. As early as 1561, for example, rhymes had secretly been circulated in Wittenberg, the burden of which was that faith alone effects the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and that the mouth receives nothing but natural bread. One of these ran as ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... Holland; and the little laugh that Mrs. Linton gave was due to her careful observation of the latter's face when he perceived, as he did in spite of the engrossing nature of his conversation with his friend in the end stall, how his designs had been defeated by her tactics. She would not have minded having Herbert Courtland with her for the hour they might remain at the theater, but she had made up her mind that it was not to Phyllis' advantage that Mr. Holland should continue by her side in public after she ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... Administration, to be no proper grounds for such antagonism. When, therefore, Mr. Clay found or devised such grounds, the President and his Cabinet, vexed and harassed by the opposition of so influential a man, not unnaturally attributed his tactics to selfish and, in a political sense, corrupt motives. Thus Mr. Adams stigmatized his opposition to the Florida treaty as prompted by no just objection to its stipulations, but by a malicious wish to bring discredit upon ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... some time, and seemed to decide instantly upon the course of action she should pursue, or, rather, the course which she had previously proposed to herself. She saw clearly, and had long known that in the tactics and stratagems of life, her blunt but honest father was no match at all for the deep hypocrisy and deceitful plausibility of Sir Robert Whitecraft, the consequence was, that she allowed her father to take his own way, without either remonstrance or contradiction. She ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Captains Hills and Ward Jackson had already gone forward with an advance party to Marseilles, it began to look as though we really should go East before the end of the war—a fact which some of us were beginning to doubt. Training still continued each day, special attention being paid to open warfare tactics, which fortunately included more musketry and less bombing, and we also carried out a number of route marches and field days. Scouts, having become obsolete, were resurrected, and Field Service Regulations rescued from the dim recesses of valises. ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... Captain Ryder's company, to extricate which the whole force had to wait till overtaken by darkness. It has been said that war cannot be made without running risks, nor can operations be carried out in the face of an enemy armed with breech-loaders without loss. No tactics can altogether shield men from bullets. Those serene critics who note the errors, and forget the difficulties, who judge in safety of what was done in danger, and from the security of peace, pronounce upon the conduct of war, should remember that the spectacle of a General, wounded, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... announcement of their contributions in order to ascertain their respective amounts, and so to guard themselves against giving less than others have done. Mr. A. is inclined to give L20, but waits to see if Mr. B. gives L25, in which case he will raise his intended L20 to L30. These tactics are adopted, not because either of the candidates desires to be lavish or ostentatious in his gifts, and still less from any vulgar desire for notoriety in itself. They are simply an element, almost vital under existing conditions, ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... me to do so. My only fear is that they may anticipate it and change their tactics. Hassan of Aleppo apparently knows as much of our plans as ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... Jack adopted new tactics. He saw that the old man Berwick was a peculiar character, and he concluded not to show any more interest in the Canfield mystery, and commenced to talk about something else; but Berwick's mind had got started on the Canfield mystery, and it was a subject he often brought up, as Jack ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... Indians or signs of Indians, and did not believe there were any in the vicinity, when in fact the Indians had carefully watched their every movement, and were close to their trail, waiting for the most advantageous moment to strike. It was the same tactics which the Indians had so often adopted with much success in their warfare with the whites. While stacking arms, a new recruit allowed his gun to fall to the ground, and it was discharged accidentally. The Indians who were silently awaiting their opportunity, supposing it was the signal ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... guerre." Feigning assent to the treaty he told Thompson that if he was released not only would he sign himself but he would also bring his people to sign. The agent was completely deceived by Osceola's tactics. "True to his professions," wrote Thompson on June 3, "he this day appeared with seventy-nine of his people, men, women, and children, including some who had joined him since his conversion, and redeemed his promise. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... frantic. After nearly an hour's pawky, uninteresting play, the Eton captain suddenly changed his tactics. His "eye" was in; now or never let him score. A half-volley came down from the pavilion end—a half-volley and off the wicket. The Etonian put all the strength and power he had suppressed so manfully into a tremendous swipe, and hit the ball clean ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... driving down to the docks—my swimming head full of half-matured ideas of bribing some one to delay the steamer. Then came the blessed reflection that, in the absence of Miste, his confederate would certainly not depart alone. I knew enough of their tactics to feel sure that instead of taking passage in the steamer this man (who could only be a subordinate to that master in cunning who had shot me) must ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... philosophy of the Greek and Roman Stoics, the sect founded by Zeno about 300 years before the Christian era, which flourished until the decline of Rome. Arrian himself was born about 90 A.D. at Nicomedia. He wrote in the style of Xenophon the "Anabasis of Alexander," a book on "Tactics," and several histories which have been lost. He is chiefly of note, however, as the Boswell of Epictetus. He ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... marquis for his gallantry to a woman, though his tactics were somewhat savage for the reign of Louis XVI.; and all glory to Maria Gentili of Oletta, stout of heart and strong of limb, fit to be the wife and mother of bandits; still better, to have fought at ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... leave his party? Chiefly because of differences as to ideas and as to tactics. Lerroux wished to organize his party into a party of law and order, so that it might be capable of governing, and also to have it friendly with the Army. I was of the opinion that it ought to be a revolutionary party, not in the sense that I was thinking of erecting barricades, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... upon the constitution of Connecticut during the excitement over the Western Land bills called for new tactics on the part of the dissenters. Thus far, in all their antagonism to the union of Church and State, there had been on their part practically no attack upon the constitution itself. Yet even as early as 1786 the Anti-Federalists had proclaimed that the state ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... English, those brutal, downright fighters, against whom no elan was sufficient, who stood their ground and set up vulgar posts around their lines, instead of trusting to the rush of sudden valour, and the tactics of the tournament! She deliver France! On a much smaller argument and to put down a less ambition, the half serious, half amused adviser has bidden a young fanatic's ears to be boxed on many an unimportant ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... was addressed to the whole staff. At times Penton was absurdly pompous and uncommunicative before the boys; at other times he entered into a mysterious intimacy with them, a relationship distasteful to them. They preferred his professional tactics to those others. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... shall be more precise. Any hypothesis that forces such a review upon one has one great merit, even if in the end it prove invalid: it gets us better acquainted with the total subject. To give the theory plenty of 'rope' and see if it hangs itself eventually is better tactics than to choke it off at the outset by abstract accusations of self-contradiction. I think therefore that a decided effort at sympathetic mental play with humanism is the provisional attitude to be ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... in yardstick tactics or ledger columns? Anything sublime in washing dishes or trimming bonnets? ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... uncomfortable memory of Aunt Saxon's pink damp features and anxious eyes and a possible application of the same principle to his own life, as in the case of Judas. But he wasn't considering himself now. There might come a time when he would have to change his tactics with regard to Aunt Saxon somewhat. She certainly had been a good sport last night. But this wasn't the time to consider that. He had a great deal more important matters to think of now. He had to find out how he could make it perfectly plain to the world that Mark Carter had not shot a ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... emphasized his hatred of the Jesuits would have told it all. It was a Jesuit[140] plot hatched in Rome to expose the secrets of Masonry, and making use of the dissolute and degenerate Mason for that purpose—tactics often enough used in the name of Jesus! Curiously enough, this was further made evident by the fact that the order ceased to exist in 1738, the year in which Clement XII published his Bull against the Masons. Thereupon the "ancient ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... score which is accumulated in going game is generally considerably less than 100, averaging not over 60, and that, therefore, the bonus of 100 is more advantageous. The example is given of a pair who adopted these tactics, and on one occasion gathered eight successive hundreds in this manner, eventually obtaining a rubber of approximately 1150 points instead of ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... stranger just exactly as, two short weeks before, they had laughed up into his own. Then the little gray broncho jumped cornerwise, and Weldon had difficulty in impressing upon her that handsprings were not an approved form of cavalry tactics. Nevertheless, he did it with a word of apology. For the moment, the broncho was not wholly responsible for her return to ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... all were offering their forecasts of the result. But this fact was universally accepted: the School Eleven would play carefully till they had scored a hundred runs and so passed the Masters' total, after which they would adopt forcing tactics and lift the score over 300. Then they would declare, and bowl the Masters out for a price under the spare 200 runs. Thus the innings victory would ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... victim's silence, James suddenly changed his tactics. A long-ranged battle was little enough to his savage taste. He ceased the ineffective fire of his men and brought them together. Then in a moment, with the reckless abandon of his class, he headed them and charged. They came, as before, with a brazen shout, and the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... than done, however; the strangers seemed to have changed their tactics, and instead of pursuing Ingred and Verity now endeavored to avoid them. No "elusive Pimpernels" could have been more difficult to follow. They would come quite close and then suddenly dodge and glide away, only to reappear and repeat the same tantalizing performance. Ingred ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... Conference, where her cause was referred by Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau to Mr. Wilson to deal with. The behavior of her representatives was an illuminating object-lesson in the worth of psychological tactics in practical politics. They hardly ever appeared in the footlights, remained constantly silent and observant, and were almost ignored by the press. But they kept their eyes fixed on the goal. Their program was simple. Amid the flitting shadows of political events they marched together with the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... you plainly that I alter all my tactics. One girl sitting in this room is guilty. For her sake I shall treat you all as guilty, and punish you accordingly. For the remainder of this term, or until the hour when the guilty girl chooses to release her companions, you are ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... Lethbury felt the hovering sword of destiny. But the blow was suspended. Mr. Budd's chivalry was proof against all his bride's caprices, and his devotion throve on her cruelty. Lethbury feared that he was too faithful, too enduring, and longed to urge him to vary his tactics. Jane presently reappeared with the ring on her finger, and consented to try on the wedding-dress; but her uncertainties, her reactions, were ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... tactics. Rushing in, he threw his arms around Tolto's great torso. He opened his jaws, and his long yellow fangs bit into the flesh of ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... became dangerous to keep the sentinels and picket in a situation where they were liable to be seen by any straggler who might be passing near the wood. Manual remonstrated against any alteration, as being entirely unmilitary, for he was apt to carry his notions of tactics to extremes whenever he came in collision with a sea officer: but in this instance his superior was firm, and the only concession the captain could obtain was the permission to place a solitary sentinel within a few feet of the vault, though under the cover of the crumbling walls of the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... he lived. Chaplitsky then went to his victorious opponent, and they began a fresh game. On the first card he staked fifty thousand roubles, and won sonika; he doubled the stake, and won again; till at last, by pursuing the same tactics, he won back ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... bloodshed, ripened into an intellectual art. Were it merely with a view to more effectual carnage, this art (however simple and gross at first) opened at length into wide scientific arts, into strategies, into tactics, into castrametation, into poliorcetics, and all the processes through which the first rude efforts of martial cunning finally connect themselves with the exquisite resources of science. War, being a game in which each side forces the other into the instant adoption ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... some little delay as both parties prepared for the deadly strife. Mr. Young, a veteran in the tactics of the forest, posted his men with great sagacity. He had forty, as we have mentioned, in all. Twenty-five of them he hid in ambush. With the other fifteen he cautiously advanced, and at length, as if alarmed, halted. The eminences ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... her altered attitude towards him and to take advantage of it, although, with a diplomacy foreign to his usual tactics and perhaps based on Lady Susan's warning counsels, he kept himself well in hand. Vaguely recognising behind the alteration in Ann's manner some impulse of which he could not fathom the source, he merely accepted the fact of the change and set himself to amuse and entertain her—to hold ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... peculiar command of, "Soldiers, you are ordered to go forward and capture a battery; just piroute up that hill; piroute, march. Forward, men; piroute carefully." The boys "pirouted" as best they could. It may have been a new command, and not laid down in Hardee's or Scott's tactics; but Lee was speaking plain English, and we understood his meaning perfectly, and even at this late day I have no doubt that every soldier who heard the command thought it a legal and technical term used by military graduates to go forward and ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... THE MORMONS. The Most Desolate of Deserts made to blossom as the Rose—The Mormon Hegira—Pilgrim's Outfit—Curious Guide-posts—The Hand-cart Expedition—Sufferings and Hardships during the Exodus—An Impending War—General Harney's Expedition—Mormon Tactics—Destroy the Supplies—Privations of the United States army —President backs down—Salt Lake City—Brigham Young's Vision— ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... war, by increasing the confidence which the Americans felt in themselves, and by encouraging opposition, with the hope of being successful. It supported the opinion which the colonists had taken up with some doubt, that courage and patriotism were ample substitutes for the knowledge of tactics; and that their skill in the use of fire arms, gave them a great superiority ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... everything. Valerie wished to be found in an atmosphere of sweetness, to attract the chief and to please him enough to have a right to be cruel; to tantalize him as a child would, with all the tricks of fashionable tactics. She had gauged Hulot. Give a Paris woman at bay four-and-twenty hours, and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... simply a war of regular armies, but that it had now assumed the character of a national war, by the calling out of the Zandwehr and Zandsturm which made the situation far more dangerous than against the tactics of the best disciplined army. To so many other complications was added the fear, soon only too well justified, of seeing Austria from an inoffensive and unbiased ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... tactics. She wished to show her enemy that she dared leave her entrenchments and offer battle ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... mysterious warning and was duly impressed with its significance. She was equally at sea as to the writer. It soon developed, however, that Harriet had been correct in assuming that Susan's wrath at the first game played against Mignon's team had been occasioned by their unfair tactics. She had been slyly tripped by Louise Selden, she asserted, ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... mean time, the main body of the Swedes had been greatly weakened by a tedious encampment before Brunn. Torstensohn, who commanded in person, for four entire months employed in vain all his knowledge of military tactics; the obstinacy of the resistance was equal to that of the assault; while despair roused the courage of Souches, the commandant, a Swedish deserter, who had no hope of pardon. The ravages caused by pestilence, arising from famine, want of cleanliness, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... esteem came to him at once, and in the great constructive party he was a natural leader, and predominated for a time. But at the encounter of defeat, his austere and rigid character turned it into disaster; and as he possessed but one line of defence, the failure of his tactics was the ruin of his cause. Although he despaired prematurely, and was vociferously repentant of his part in the great days of June, parading his sackcloth before Europe, he never faltered in the conviction that the interests of no ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... told that the rebels attacked in columns, and not in lines. The rebels learn and learned, and are not conceited. The terrain here in Virginia is specially fit for attacks in columns, according to continental European tactics. We will not learn, we know all, we have ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... a great Parliamentarian, a brilliant debater and a famous Irish Secretary in difficult times, but his political energies lay in tactics. He took a Puck-like pleasure in watching the game of party politics, not in the interests of any particular political party, nor from esprit de corps, but from taste. This was very conspicuous in the years 1903 to 1906, during the fiscal ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... to be drawn into a promised alliance with that titled roue? Involuntarily the soldier's face grew hard and stern; the count's tactics were so apparent—flattering attention to the elderly gentlewoman and a devoted, but reserved, bearing toward the young girl in which he would rely upon patience and perseverance for the consummation of his wishes. But ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... think not, sir. The ships were armed only with weapons listed as general knowledge items. The crews were not only trained in prisoner-of-war tactics, but also well supplied with small luxuries. The Polluxian fleet in that system is known to have been in space for several months, so a friendly ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe

... conducted at the west, by way of Donchery, was also in process of execution at the east, by way of Francheval, and the two jaws of the vise would come together up there at the north, near the Calvary of Illy, unless the two-fold flanking movement could be promptly checked. He knew nothing of tactics or strategy, had nothing but his common sense to guide him; but he looked with fear and trembling on that great triangle that had the Meuse for one of its sides, and for the other two the 7th and 1st corps on the north and east respectively, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... adopted a system of tactics, which embarrasses us not a little. Do we prove our doctrine? They admit the truth of it in the most respectful manner. Do we attack their principles? They abandon them with the best possible grace. They only ask that our doctrine, which they acknowledge to be true, should ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... unfortunate. Mrs. Boyer stiffened. She ceased offensive tactics, and retired grimly into the dignity of her high calling of virtuous wife and mother. She washed her hands of Harmony and Peter. She tied on her veil with shaking hands, and prepared to leave Harmony to ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... outward in an oblique slant, and wedged in its position by several other massive stones, but with its end protruding below the rest. So, without wasting any time, I leaped up and caught hold of it with both hands, and then, adopting the tactics of a gymnast, I began slowly working my way through the hole feet foremost, like an acrobat going over a horizontal bar. This feat, which required great muscular strength, flexibility, and tenaciousness, was the very hardest physical performance ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... Home, and admired Abroad; when Religion formed, Erudition nurtured, Philosophy strengthened, History preserved, Rhetorick adorned, Musick softened, and Poesy refined, the National Wisdom and Accomplishments; to all which was added, a thorough Knowledge of Tactics, and great Skill and Agility in all the ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... Loman. He was better as a bowler than a batsman; but he followed Callonby's tactics and played a steady block, leaving the boy he had struck yesterday ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... this address the convention system was earnestly defended. Against this rapid adoption of the abominated system many of the Whigs protested, and Lincoln found himself supporting before his constituents the tactics he had once warmly opposed. In a letter to his friend John Bennett of Petersburg, written in March, 1843, and now for the first time ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... of his skilled tactics, Dora had ceased to shrink away from him—because she no longer feared that he would make love to her. She laughed at her father's insinuations, because it was easier to laugh than to go away and cry. She put a brave ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... creatures are, apparently so wise on some occasions and so absurd on others! This vesper sparrow in bringing food to her young, going through the same tactics over and over, learns no more than a machine would. But, of course, the bird does not think; hence the folly of her behavior to a being that does. The wisdom of nature, which is so unerring under certain conditions, becomes to us sheer folly under ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... new tactics with Jane now. Magnanimity, patient forgiveness of injuries, disinterested and persistent affection, will in time soften the most obdurate. After Clarice goes off, there will be so few of us left that ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... few curt instructions as to securing the adequate cooperation of the local police, who should take measures to render any repetition of such daring tactics absolutely impossible. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy



Words linked to "Tactics" :   plan of action, tactical, tactician, military science, manoeuvre, military machine, maneuver, tactic, war machine



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