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Adapt   /ədˈæpt/   Listen
Adapt

verb
(past & past part. adapted; pres. part. adapting)
1.
Make fit for, or change to suit a new purpose.  Synonym: accommodate.
2.
Adapt or conform oneself to new or different conditions.  Synonyms: adjust, conform.



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"Adapt" Quotes from Famous Books



... free intercourse, of real practise which obliges each one to adapt his own limits to the limits of others, that social "habits" may be established. Dissertations on what ought to be done will never bring about the construction of the will; to make a child acquire graceful movements, it will ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... any mode of education with which it was possible for him to be acquainted have made me much better than what I was or led me to a happier fortune than the present. He could neither change the nature that God gave me nor adapt his own inflexible mind to my peculiar character. Perhaps it was my chief misfortune that I had neither father nor mother alive; for parents have an instinctive sagacity in regard to the welfare of their children, and the ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... subject from their minds. This may seem to be a refined thing to do; but, as we know with a new definiteness since the psychologists have explored the matter, it is really a disastrous thing to do. For to adapt ourselves to sex is one of the problems that cannot be escaped. In this world we cannot live the disembodied life. What we may do is to live a clean and happy bodily life, but only if we build our house of life ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray

... enjoyed. But as all the princes of Europe were perpetually augmenting their military force, and consequently their expense, it became requisite that England, from motives both of honor and security, should bear some proportion to them, and adapt its revenue to the new system of politics which prevailed. According to the chancellor's computation, a charge of eight hundred thousand pounds a year was at present requisite for the fleet and other articles, which formerly cost the crown but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... with which you adapt yourself to circumstances," scornfully. "You knew that I was but playing. I am fully capable of repaying any insolence offered to me, whether from D'Herouville, the vicomte . ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... and prodigality. Not that Peregrine relished those scenes, which were a succession of absurd extravagance, devoid of all true spirit, taste, or enjoyment. But his vanity prompted him to mingle with those who are entitled the choice spirits of the age; and his disposition was so pliable, as to adapt itself easily to the measures of his company, where he had not influence enough to act in the capacity of a director. Their rendezvous was a certain tavern, which might be properly styled the temple of excess, where they ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... something, which it will be expedient to mitigate by argument, and by pleading the whole cause carefully. And when this is the case, it will be desirable rather to scatter the different portions of the transactions limb by limb as it were over the cause, and, as promptly as may be, to adapt them to each separate argument, in order that there may be a remedy at hand for the wound, and that the defence advanced may at once mitigate the ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... described very amusingly the entrance into the new home, the furnishing, the discovery of all the beauties and advantages which we found as an old possession in Keilhau, and the endeavour, so characteristic of Middendorf, to adapt even the less attractive points ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... nature could not fail to undermine the stoicism of the samurai and the morality of society in general. The practice of the military arts went out of fashion, and it became an object with the bushi not only to have his sword highly ornamented, but also to adapt its dimensions to the fashion of the moment, thus sacrificing utility to elegance. In short, the Genroku era (1688-1703) was essentially a time of luxury and extravagance, its literature abounding in theatrical ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... this double function, it is manifestly exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to find any words competent to express the double functions, and it will be necessary to adapt our nomenclature to expressing the psychic function, leaving the physiological to be expressed otherwise. As the basilar organs act more directly upon the body, their nomenclature will be more suggestive of physiological effects. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various

... May, 1766, he was nominated ensign in the provincial regiment of Asti, which met only twice a-year for a few days, thus allowing ample opportunity for doing nothing; the only thing, he says, he had made up his mind to do. But he soon got tired of even this slight restraint. "I could not adapt myself to that chain of graduated dependence which is called subordination, and which although the soul of military discipline, could never be the soul of a future tragic poet." He therefore obtained ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... "We might adapt Kingsley: 'Be good, sweet man, and let who will be clever.'" He could not help laughing. She went on: "I always thought that was the most patronizing and exasperating thing ever addressed to a human girl; and we've ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... great practical value to you to have a knowledge of the average man comprising your audience, his tastes, preferences, prejudices, and proclivities. The more you adapt your speech to such an average man, the more successful are you likely to be in influencing ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... encourage scientific research. Students were therefore selected from the aristocrats or the official classes only. There were no printed books; everything had to be laboriously copied by hand, and thus the difficulties of learning were much enhanced. To be able to adapt the Chinese ideographs skilfully to the purposes of written Japanese was a feat achieved by comparatively few. What the task involved has been roughly described in the opening chapter of this volume, and with what measure of success it was achieved may be estimated from the preface to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... teacher who chances to have read Tosi's book a right to set himself up as an instructor of singing after the old Italian method. The old Italians, like Tosi and Porpora, were men of great practical experience in teaching, and they understood how to adapt method to individual needs. Consciously or unconsciously, their method was physiological—the fundamental principles of the physiology of voice-production were there; but these great teachers knew that individual differences had to be allowed ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... armed, obviously needed collective training and special preparation to adapt both the men and their weapons to their purpose. With these objects, the blocking ships and the storming forces were assembled toward the end of February, and from the fourth of April on in the West Swim Anchorage—where training especially ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... turned out about four-hundred pounds a day. Twelve or fourteen batteries were fitted out at Memphis. Laws were passed to impress and pay for the private arms scattered throughout the State, and the utmost efforts were made to collect and adapt them to military uses. The returns make it evident that, during most of the autumn of 1861, fully one half of General Johnston's troops were imperfectly armed, and whole brigades remained without weapons ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... seizes on the raw material given him by religious-intuition, and constructs from it significant shapes. We misunderstand, then, the whole character of religious symbolism if we either demand rationality from it, or try to adapt its imagery to the lucid and probably mistaken conclusions of ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... be counted as one of the physical sciences. Let them but read other books of the same period, and they will see with how much zeal these questions were then being discussed, particularly in England. Writing in England, and chiefly for English readers, Itried as much as possible to adapt myself to the intellectual atmosphere of that country, and as to the classification of the inductive sciences, Istarted from that which was then most widely known, that of Whewell in his "History of the Inductive Sciences." He classes the Science of Language ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... Maine, speaking of the war of American Independence, said, 'Next to their stubborn valour, the chief secret of the colonists' success was the incapacity of the English generals, trained in the stiff Prussian system soon to perish at Jena, to adapt themselves to new conditions of warfare.' He pointed out that the effect of this uncritical imitation of what was foreign was again experienced by men 'full of admiration of a newer German system.' We may not be able to explain what it is, but, all the same, there does exist something which ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... observe that my neighbors' windows, right and left, have a similar apparatus, that this custom is evidently a local one, and the locality is German. Being an American stranger, I am quite willing to leave the morality of the transaction with the locality, and adapt myself to the custom: indeed, I had thought of offering it, figuratively, as an excuse for any unfairness of observation I might make in these pages. But my German mirrors reflect without prejudice, selection, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... by, leaned against a gnarled tree with the slightly constrained air of a person unused to sylvan abandonments. Her beautiful back could not adapt itself to the irregularities of the tree-trunk, and she moved a little now and then in the effort to find an easier position. But her expression was serene, and Ralph, looking up at her through drowsy lids, thought her face had ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... other decorations, be justly considered as the first modern architectural ornament of the town. Here a room, whose spacious dimensions, (being seventy-five feet by thirty-three,) and elegant decorations, adapt it in a distinguished manner for scenes of numerous and polished society, is appropriated to the use of the public balls. Its coved ceiling is enriched with three circular paintings of Aurora, Urania, and Night, from the pencil of Reinagle, who has also graced ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... symptom of childlike interest and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the affliction of her protector. One evening, as they thus sat, she made him explain what the desolation of blindness is. She seemed to comprehend him, though he did not seek to adapt ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... prefect of the music had appointed him to sit in the lowest seat in the choir, replied, This is prudently done, for this is the ready way to bring this seat into repute and esteem? It is a frivolous consideration, where or below whom we sit; and it is a wiser part to adapt ourselves to the judgment and humor of our right and left hand man and the rest of the company, that we may approve ourselves worthy of their friendship, when they find we take no pet at our host, but are rather pleased to be placed near such good company. And whosoever ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... for my advice. The question is, how to educate this strange boy. One thing is clear; it is no use trying the humdrum plan any longer; it has been tried, and failed. I should adapt his education to his nature. Education is made as stiff and unyielding as a board; but it need not be. I should abolish that spectacled tutor of yours at once, and get a tutor, young, enterprising, manly, and supple, who would obey orders; and the order should ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... of the people (he was a glove maker and tallow-chandler), and from 1715 on a participant in deistic literature and concerned to adapt the new ideas to the men of his class, preached in The True Gospel of Jesus Christ an honorable working-man's Christianity., Faith means obedience to the law of reason inculcated by Christ, not the acceptance of the facts reported about him. The gospel ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... classic attempts of the architects of the middle Georgian period, who, carried away by the enthusiasm awakened by the perusal of the newly-published "Antiquities" of Stuart and Revett, attempted to adapt Doric porticos, hexastyle, octostyle, etc., to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... references to "a pre-determined plan of deception ... an attempt to conceal a series of disastrous administrative blunders ... an orchestrated litany of lies". The impression almost inevitably created is that, to adapt words used by Williams J. delivering the judgment of this Court in Cock v. Attorney-General (1909) 28 N.Z.L.R. 405, 421, the judgment for costs was in fact, though not in name, a punishment. The reasons given for the ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... with practical commentaries upon the force of that author's meaning, marked out to him those parts where the character was to depend for its interest and impression, on the actor's exertions; heard him over and over again repeat the most difficult speeches, and instructed him how to adapt his action, looks, and utterance to the passion which the author designed to exhibit, so as to excite appropriate feelings in the auditor. Though Shakspeare is above all others the poet of Nature, his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... explored and developed and brought within the circle of civilization. Sometimes this was done by means of brutal and bloody wars, for capitalism is never particular about the methods it adopts. To get profits is its only concern, and though its shekels "sweat blood and dirt," to adapt a celebrated phrase of Karl Marx, nobody cares. Under stress of competition, also, the development of mechanical production went on at a terrific pace; navigation was developed, so that the ocean became as a ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... modern times, properly understood, has thus been the effort of women to adapt themselves to the conditions of an orderly and peaceful civilization. Education, under the changed conditions, can effect what before needed force of arms; responsibility is now demanded where before only tutelage was possible. A civilized society in which ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... be clear enough, as I have tried to suggest, if we could see in the form of the novel an image of the circling sweep of time. But to a broad and single effect, such as that, the chapters of the book refuse to adapt themselves; they will not draw together and announce a reason for their collocation. The story is started with every promise, and it ceases at the end with an air of considerable finality. But between these points its ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... that the Court of First Instance should hear this class of action in accordance with Article 168a of the Treaty establishing the European Community. The Conference therefore invites the institutions to adapt the relevant rules accordingly. Done at Maastricht on the seventh day of February one thousand nine hundred and ninety two [ here follow ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union

... limits and circumscribes them. But no man can be a true critic or connoisseur without universality of mind, without that flexibility which enables him, by renouncing all personal predilections and blind habits, to adapt himself to the peculiarities of other ages and nations—to feel them, as it were, from their proper central point, and, what ennobles human nature, to recognise and duly appreciate whatever is beautiful and grand under the external accessories which were necessary to its embodying, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... insect-pests we have first to study their habits and then adapt to them our remedies, which you will see are more effective when well administered than those which we possess against insect pests of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various

... of Routes which follow the course of the main Railways. To adapt these Routes as far as possible to the requirements of every one the Branch Lines are also pointed out, together with the stations from which the Coaches run, in connection with the trains, to towns distant ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... fact not generally known—was dramatised and produced at Covent Garden, but had a very short run, and was an utter failure, as might have been expected. Mrs. Gore was requested to adapt it for the stage by the chief comic actors of the day, and she writes to Miss Ferrier on ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... the different shares they have contributed to its support: we have with our utmost care and diligence endeavoured to discover the nature, extent, and charge of it, to the end, that by comparing the weight thereof with our own strength, we might adapt the one to the other in such measure, as neither to continue your Majesty's subjects under a heavier burden, than in reason and justice they ought to bear; nor deceive your Majesty, your allies, and ourselves, by undertaking ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... Oliver fell sick of chills and fever. He sort of languished for the hills of bonny Scotland. He could not adapt himself to pioneer life, and in the Fall of Eighteen Hundred Thirty-seven, he died. This was the end of a school education for James—he had to go to work earning money. He became the little father of the family, which James J. Hill says is the luckiest thing that can happen to a boy. He ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... one hour's difference between each time section, covering fifteen degrees. So that when it is twelve o'clock, midday, in New York city, it is eleven in Chicago, ten o'clock in Denver, and nine o'clock in San Francisco. You adapt yourself, however, very readily to these changes of time, in your hours of sleep ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... it would be amusing to go up with the children, stay a little while to be sure that they could adapt themselves, and then leave; for if there is anything dampening to the ardour of children at play it is a group of elders with minds divided between admiration and correction, punctuating unwise remarks upon beauty and cleverness with "Maud, you are overheated." "Tommy, don't! Use your handkerchief!" ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... educational history is more striking than the steady pressure of democracy upon its universities to adapt them to the requirements of all the people. From the State Universities of the Middle West, shaped under pioneer ideals, have come the fuller recognition of scientific studies, and especially those of applied science ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... boldness, that but for the fear of a repulse, he would have embraced him. Swinburne, vol. i., page 349.] But," continued he, more courteously, "I did not come here to speak of my country. We must be resigned to the fate apportioned to us by Providence, and you see how readily my countrymen adapt themselves to the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... intended to adapt the story of Eugene Aram to the Stage. That design was abandoned when more than half completed; but I wished to impart to this Romance something of the nature of Tragedy,—something of the more transferable of ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that tongue a monarch called the language of the gods. The paradigms of the verbs have been prepared evidently with the greatest care, and a new form given to what grammarians call the conditional and subjunctive moods, so as to adapt the Castilian to the English language. Tables of dialogues are also added, which are pure and classical ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... acknowledged as a peer of the realm, in this new world of thought. Men,—her superiors in years, fame and social position,—treated her more with the frankness due from equal to equal, than the half-condescending deference with which scholars are wont to adapt themselves to women. They did not talk down to her standard, nor translate their dialect into popular phrase, but trusted to her power of interpretation. It was evident that they prized her verdict, respected her criticism, feared her rebuke, and looked to her as an umpire. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... to the other. This simple, half-mechanical act is, as he declares, a type of his whole life; it contains the word of the enigma. His constant principle has been: not to strive at creating anything new; not to risk marring what already existed; but to adapt what he found half made and to continue it. In other words, he has been a sustainer or "saviour," not a reformer ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... desert that London had become than it had been to obtain recognition as a new growth in a rather overcrowded field. The observant eyes and agile brain quickly noted this circumstance, and her ladyship set to work to adapt herself to the altered conditions that governed her world. Lord Shalem was one of the few Peers who kissed the hand of the new Sovereign, his wife was one of the few hostesses who attempted to throw ...
— When William Came • Saki

... the last people in the world to notice what is going on in it, are making no attempt whatever to re-adapt this hugely growing floating population of delocalised people to the public service. As Mr. Marriott puts it in his novel, "Now," they "drop out" from politics as we understand politics at present. Local administration falls almost entirely—and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... made to run through cities so great and towns so many. If the cent were to be introduced to-morrow, straightway the buns and cakes, the soda-water bottles, the short omnibus fares, the bunches of radishes, etc. etc. etc., would adapt themselves to the coin. "If the proposed system were The confusion of ideas here adopted, they would all be exhibited is most instructive. compelled to live in decimals The speaker is under the for ever; ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... are many accomplished performers on every instrument except the piano; for, somehow, the dark digits of these gentlemen do not adapt themselves to ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... undue risk. And no rough routine treatment will suffice. A surgeon is required who can deal with desperate emergencies and pull impossible cases out of the fire—a young man who does not believe in the impossible, and who can adapt himself to conditions of work that would make an older man shudder, and a man who will never believe what he is told until he has seen it for himself. For the conditions of work at the front are utterly different ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... Therefore it was not the object (the happiness of others) that determined the pure will, but it was the form of law only, by which I restricted my maxim, founded on inclination, so as to give it the universality of a law, and thus to adapt it to the practical reason; and it is this restriction alone, and not the addition of an external spring, that can give rise to the notion of the obligation to extend the maxim of my self-love to the ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... enough," he goes on. "For instance, I don't claim to invent new methods. I just adapt, pick out lines of proved success, and develop. Now, your business here—why, I could take hold of it, and in six months' time I'd have you occupying this entire building, with classes on every floor, ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... entirely himself, and as I can thus get advice and sympathy from a fellow maniac (though he is a public vaccinator!) my love of orchids is again aroused to fever-heat, and I have made some alterations in the greenhouse which will better adapt it for orchid growing, and have bought a few handsome kinds very cheap, and these give me a lot ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... he said confidently. "Do you forget my father was inventor of the surgiscope? He knew I'd have to grow up on Jupiter, and he operated on the genes before I was born. He altered my inherited characteristics to adapt me to the climate of Jupiter ... even to being able to breathe a chlorine atmosphere as well as ...
— The Jupiter Weapon • Charles Louis Fontenay

... often so forcibly presented to a child, has necessarily had some influence on her character. Then, her mother and I were not young when we married, and Pet has always had a sort of grown-up life with us, though we have tried to adapt ourselves to her. We have been advised more than once when she has been a little ailing, to change climate and air for her as often as we could—especially at about this time of her life—and to keep her amused. So, as I have no need ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... world with an abundance of nerve energy, and by conserving that energy we can adapt and adjust our nerve equipment to keep pace with the progress ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... be it said, made their fortune, hit upon the grand idea of operas for the people, and carried it out in a boulevard theatre in 1834. A tolerable conductor, who could adapt or even compose a little music upon occasion, was a necessity for ballets and pantomimes; but the last management had so long been bankrupt, that they could not afford to keep a transposer and copyist. Pons therefore introduced Schmucke to the company as copier of music, a humble calling which ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... for which there is no parallel elsewhere. At the same time, inflexibly as they have dominated Hinduism, these higher castes have themselves preserved a flexibility of mind and temper which has enabled them to adapt themselves with singular success to the vicissitudes of changing times without any substantial sacrifice of their inherited traditions and aspirations. Thus it is amongst high-caste Hindus that for the last three-quarters of a century ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... in Santa Barbara, Doctor Hamilton was about to remodel, or rather reconstruct, his animal cages and laboratory. This gave us opportunity to adapt both to the special needs of my experiments. The laboratory was finally located and built in a grove of live oaks. From the front it is well shown by figure 10 of plate III, and from the rear, by figure 11. Its location was in every ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... the text short," T'an Ch'un smilingly rejoined, "in order to adapt the sense to what I want to say. Would I recite the following sentence, and heap abuse upon my own self; is it likely ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... educate the democracy; to warm its faith, if that be possible; to purify its morals; to direct its energies; to substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an acquaintance with its true interests for its blind propensities; to adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in compliance with the occurrences and the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... that he was fit to survive in a savage environment. We shall now see him adapt himself to ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... text, according to the just accent and concent. At the time, I was moved by His Grace to put the question how or where he had got this composition, or this instruction; whereupon the dear man laughed at my simplicity, and said: I learned this of the poet Virgil, who has the power so artfully to adapt his verses and his words to the story he is telling; in like manner must Music govern all its notes ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... something of the patient's history,—not from sheer curiosity, but because she always took a deep interest in the invalids placed under her charge, and by becoming acquainted with their peculiarities she could better adapt herself to their necessities. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... "usufruct" is to be imported into the relations of sovereign States, and, more especially, what are to be the relations of the usufructuary to States other than the State under which he holds. It is, of course, quite possible to adapt the terms of Roman private law to international use. "Dominium," "Possessio," "Occupatio," have long been so adapted, but it has yet to be proved that "Usufructus" is equally malleable. I can recall no other use of the term in international discussions than the somewhat rhetorical ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... to use this course will necessarily have to adapt it to her own community, and it is hoped that she may be able to do this with but little alteration. While conditions of living and choice of foods differ in various parts of the Province, the general principles of nutrition, the rules of sanitation, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... of the wicked is natural or supernatural: these and such like questions have no bearing on faith, except in so far as they are used as means to give us license to sin more, or to obey God less. (65) I will go further, and maintain that every man is bound to adapt these dogmas to his own way of thinking, and to interpret them according as he feels that he can give them his fullest and most unhesitating assent, so that he may the more easily obey God with ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza

... imitated the Gothic letters, so called, in which also all ancient Bohemian books are printed. In modern times the genuine Roman letters have nearly supplanted them; to which several different signs are added to adapt them to the Slavic sounds. The Bohemian alphabet can only be said to have forty-two letters, in so far as the same letter with or without a sign can be considered as two different letters. The English alphabet would ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... immobilization of the phalanges in fracture, materials which might adapt themselves to the irregular contour of the member and at the same time contribute sufficient rigidity to the parts without doing injury to the soft structures, would constitute ideal means of treatment; but no such materials have yet ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... ready, even eager to adapt himself to Tom's mood, "all I've got to do is to track an animal for a ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... her energy, and as the whole universe is in ceaseless change, it follows that the composition of ruling classes is never constant, but shifts to correspond with the shifting environment. When this movement is so rapid that men cannot adapt themselves to it, we call the phenomenon a revolution, and it is with revolutions that I now ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... until this change in their fortunes. Once or twice Pratt had seen Mrs. Mallathorpe in her carriage in the Barford streets—somebody had pointed her out to him, and had observed sneeringly that folk can soon adapt themselves to circumstances, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe now gave herself all the airs of a duchess, though she had been no more than a hospital nurse before she married Richard Mallathorpe. And Pratt had also seen young Harper Mallathorpe ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... the conditions of life at sea, our mastery of the forces of Nature, and so on, seem to show that we have perfect freedom of will, and adapt everything to our desires. I believe just the contrary. The forces of Nature compel us to approach them in their own way, otherwise we are shipwrecked. It is in the conditions of Nature that this ship should reach port in ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... appeared unusual in England, but it was much less so in a country where the specialization of professions is still almost unknown, and the man who can adapt himself attains ascendency, and on the morrow Winston arrived at a big wooden building beside a pine-shrouded river. It appeared falling to pieces, and the engineer looked disdainfully at some of the machinery, but, somewhat against his wishes, he sat up with ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... living; and I am glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket, which would sometimes pop and discharge its contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. Neither did I put any sal-soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread. It would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... of one story, or of a story and a half at most, they clung to the hillside facing the water, and looking out upon its noble expanse from tiny balconies as delicate and dainty as toys. Their garden-plots were set on end; they must needs adapt themselves to the angle of demarkation; they loomed above their front-yards while their back-yards lorded it over their roofs. Indeed they were usually approached by ascending or descending stairways, or perchance by airy bridges that spanned little gullies where ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... exhibit just such a demeanor as suited a confidential secretary at the inquest of his murdered employer, that I involuntarily thought what a fine undertaker he would have made. For, in my experience, no class of men so perfectly adapt themselves ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... outer world, which in this way gives us back what we have lent it. A priori, it seems fairly probable that this is what goes on. For supposing that the forms of which we are speaking, to which we adapt matter, come entirely from the mind, it seems difficult to apply them constantly to objects without soon producing the colouring of the objects in the forms; therefore in using these forms for the knowledge of our own personality, ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy

... ask your excellency whether you know of any one thing recommended by me for the benefit of the naval service being complied with? Have the laws been revised to adapt them to the better government of the service? Has a corps of marine artillery been formed and taught their duty? Have young gentlemen intended for officers been sent on board to learn their profession? Have young men been enlisted and sent on board to be bred up ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... disingenuous. Some of the numbers were by Shakespeare: but the authorship of some remains doubtful to this day, and others the enterprising Jaggard had boldly conveyed from Marlowe, Richard Barnefield, and Bartholomew Griffin. In short, to adapt a famous line upon a famous lexicon, "the best part was Shakespeare, the rest was not." For this, Jaggard has been execrated from time to time with sufficient heartiness. Mr. Swinburne, in his latest volume of Essays, calls him an "infamous pirate, liar, and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... mind as having for its aim knowledge, foresight, the combination of means, and self-adaptation, we shall be much nearer the truth in representing to ourselves a being who wills to know, wills to foresee, and wills to adapt himself, for, after all, he ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... cannibal, but a ghoul. He preys on nameless horrors. In this case, "having yielded to the power of kindness, he has made up his mind to partake of the food and hospitality of his hosts,"" to change his life; but to adapt his system to the new regimen, he must thoroughly clear it of the old."—Rand manuscript. This is a very naive and curious Indian conception of moral reformation. It appears to be a very ancient Eskimo tale, recast in modern time by some zealous ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... utterance makes an excellent basis for the statement that it is better to adapt the law to facts as we find them, than to proceed on the principle that as there is no redress called for save where there is a wrong, if we do not allow the redress, there will, of course, be no wrong. There is no escape from the conclusion that divorce or irregular connections will prevail in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... was done by two men, a third being added occasionally, and the aggregate of this item in the expenses was $1,626.75. With regard to the carpentry, more work of this kind than would usually be necessary was required by the fact that a number of changes had to be made in order to adapt the hall to its use as a museum of art, its destination not having been determined when the building itself was completed. Consequently, some of the $4,690 paid for material and labor in this department would form a part of the building ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... a dry chuckle. "Right—if I can do it." After that job, Tom added, he hoped to adapt his own antidetection methods to make hydrolung wearers safe from underwater detection. "And if the Jupiter prober hasn't been found by that time, Bud, I'm going to request the Navy to let us take ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... not more majorum, by rules with which they are familiar, but like half-civilized people who have got hold of a code which they do not understand, and the phrases of which they use without being able to adapt their conduct to it. ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... 1815 Scott went to London, and met two persons of distinction, the Regent and Lord Byron. There seems to be a little doubt whether George did or did not adapt the joke of the hanging judge, about 'checkmating this time,' to the authorship of the Waverley novels; but there is no doubt that he was very civil. With Byron Scott was at once on very good terms, for Scott was not the man to bear any grudge for the early fling in English Bards and Scotch ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of to delude mankind to their ruin; how he had a secret access to our passions and to our affections, and to adapt his snares to our inclinations, so as to cause us even to be our own tempters, and run upon our destruction by our ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... simple, but like many other simple plans, is not without difficulty. It is for the writer to obey the great cardinal principle of Sincerity, and be brave enough to express himself in his own way, following the mood of his own mind, rather than endeavouring to catch the accents of another, or to adapt himself to some standard of taste. No man really thinks and feels monotonously. If he is monotonous in his manner of setting forth his thoughts and feelings, that is either because he has not learned the art of writing, or because he is more or less consciously ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... the necessary intelligence and training at first to adapt themselves to their environment. For the greater part, the American Indians were unable to take advantage of the wonderful resources of the continent in which they lived. The Boers occupied about the richest part of Africa, but made no ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... cannot find their superiors in native ability in any country. Though often lacking in culture and morality, they still hold a wide influence over the rest, so that something besides goodness is required in those who wish to come among them as helpers. There must be ability to adapt oneself to these widely diverse conditions. One needs wisdom and tact to get along with the shrewdest, and such a love for souls that he can come with a helping hand to the most degraded, nor be discouraged if, with a heart brimful of sympathy, he reaches the hand a long time only to see it rejected ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various

... view of the fact that from the day Magna Carta was signed to the present moment, amendments to the structure of the law have been made with increasing frequency, it is impossible to suppose that they will not continue, and the law be forced to adapt itself to new conditions of society, and particularly to the new relations between employers and employees, as they ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the mysteries of those fortunate and happy inhabitants: that is to say, by changing his name and dress, to gain admittance to their feasts and entertainments; and, as occasion offered, to those of their loving spouses; as he was able to adapt himself to all capacities and humours, he soon deeply insinuated himself into the esteem of the substantial wealthy aldermen, and into he affections of their more delicate, magnificent, and tender ladies: he made one ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Individual Intelligence, endowed with self-consciousness; with Rational Volition, the power to choose and to act or refuse to act; how shall it master its environment; adapt itself to any conditions; secure adjustment ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... made to adapt the legends for story-telling, most of them may be used for that purpose. Many of the selections are also well ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... sooner set his eyes fairly on her than he said to himself that she was charming, and that he wished she were one of his scholars at the Institute. So he began talking with her in an easy way; for he knew something of young girls by this time, and, of course, could adapt himself to a young lady who looked as if she might be not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and therefore could hardly be a match in intellectual resources for the seventeen and eighteen year-old first-class scholars of the Apollinean Institute. But city-wall-fruit ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the growth of your beard and hair; another changes the tone of your voice. Add to that two months of dieting in cell 24; exercises repeated a thousand times to enable me to hold my features in a certain grimace, to carry my head at a certain inclination, and adapt my back and shoulders to a stooping posture. Then five drops of atropine in the eyes to make them haggard and wild, and ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... were a sermon instead of an essay, I should explain my theory of how this comes to be. I see in all this something beyond the mere natural instinct of acquiescence in what is inevitable; something beyond the benevolent law in the human mind, that it shall adapt itself to whatever circumstances it may be placed in; something beyond the doing of the gentle comforter Time. Yes, it is wonderful what people can go through, wonderful what people can get reconciled to. I dare say my friend Smith, when his hair began to fall off, made frantic efforts to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... until the whole face was honeycombed with holes. At the top they slanted up, at the bottom down, to keep the bore broken clean; but along the sides and in the middle they followed no system, more than to adapt themselves to the formation. When his round of holes was drilled he cut his fuse and loaded each hole with its charge; after which with firm hands he ignited each split end and hurried out of the tunnel. There he sat down on a rock and listened to the shots; first the short holes in the center, ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... state of the feudal regime be reduced to a system. Constitutional liberty could not have survived under these conditions. The monarchy was not only a permanent form of government, but it was possessed of great flexibility, and could adapt itself to almost any conditions of the social life. While it may, primarily, have rested on force and the predominance of power of certain individuals, in a secondary sense it represented not only the unity of the race from which it had gained great strength, but also the moral power ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar



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