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Characterize   /kˈɛrəktərˌaɪz/   Listen
Characterize

verb
(past & past part. characterized; pres. part. characterizing)
1.
Describe or portray the character or the qualities or peculiarities of.  Synonyms: characterise, qualify.  "This poem can be characterized as a lament for a dead lover"
2.
Be characteristic of.  Synonym: characterise.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Characterize" Quotes from Famous Books



... tyrannical. The youth was also unlike his father in personal appearance, his hair being of a rich brown, his eyes of a soft blue, and the general expression of his countenance indicating the fairest and most endearing qualities which can possibly characterize human nature. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... have known for so many years: but never let this occur again. Dancing is at all times, to my mind, a very questionable amusement; but when it is accompanied, as I perceived it was on this occasion, with gestures which I cannot characterize by any other term than disgusting; and when further you take the liberty of using my name in what I presume you intended for a comic song, I must confess that I can hardly repress my feelings of indignation. I hope ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... are not permanent, I claim that in the sense in which the word is ordinarily used in connection with photography they may properly be called so. In this sense the lasting qualities which characterize the materials used by the old masters are not looked for, but where photographs have been thus colored, finished in the form of French crystals, and properly sealed from the atmosphere, they are practically permanent. I have some in my possession that were made years ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt

... gun, and almost beyond the carry of the rifle, came the long-expected vanguard of the migrating hosts of heaven. Flock upon flock, each in the wedge-shaped phalanx of two converging lines, which ever characterize the flight of these birds, each headed by a wary, powerful leader, whose clarion call came shrill and clear down through the still ether, came in one common line of flight, hundreds and thousands of geese. All that afternoon their passage was incessant, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... felt, though I could not have translated them into English, until the boy, wide awake, laughed with his father and us all and was ready to be again rolled up beside his sleeping brothers. I have said also that the Seminole are frank. Formal or hypocritical courtesy does not characterize them. One of my party wished to accompany Ka-tca-la-ni ("Yellow Tiger") on a hunt. He wished to see how the Indian would find, approach, and capture his game. "Me go hunt with you, Tom, to-day?" asked our man. "No," answered Tom, and ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley

... isolated inhabitants seemed likely rather to decay from neglect and desertion than to increase, and ultimately to be swept away by fire, to make room for the extravagant and gigantic buildings that to-day characterize American civilization and commercial prosperity. Nearly 1,000 miles from the Atlantic, a greater distance from the Gulf of Mexico, and 2,000 miles from the Pacific, no wilder dream could have been imagined fifty years ago than that Chicago ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... easy to characterize Sitting Bull, of all Sioux chiefs most generally known to the American people. There are few to whom his name is not familiar, and still fewer who have learned to connect it with anything more than the conventional ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... among the laboring classes Mr. Gibson has collected all of his stories in verse which he wishes to retain in his collected works. He has already become an influence on the work of many of his contemporaries, and the qualities of incisive observation, warm humanity, and subtle art which characterize his best work are adequately disclosed in his poems. I am sure that the reader of short stories will find them as fascinating as any volume of prose published this year, and the sum of all these poems ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... and moored alongside, at the distance of only a few fathoms. Besides the captain, there were several well-dressed personages on board, who appeared to take an interest in the cargo, and lived in the cabin. But harmony did not characterize their intercourse with each other. At times violent altercations occurred, which, being carried on in the Spanish language, were to us ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... now little better than traditional), which glow in the Beggar's Opera. And of this music there never was heard a singer equal to Incledon, and perhaps never will. The pathos, the richness, the roundness, the satisfying fulness to the ear, which characterize these composers, can never be mastered by the merely scientific singer; they composed for the voice, and without that organ in its most perfect state, complete justice can never be done to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various

... method enables us to characterize the intelligence of a child in a far more definite way than had hitherto been possible. Current descriptive terms like "bright," "moderately bright," "dull," "very dull," "feeble-minded," etc., have had no universally accepted ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... extent had been actually made in the abdomen, when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and the customary effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in any respect, except, upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary degree of life-likeness in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... had left in his contemporaries little else than cold propriety of form and color, studied negations of spontaneity and imaginative abandon; yet such was the force of his imagination, that these qualities, almost more than any other, characterize his conceptions: but the perpetual contact and presence of elements so uncongenial to his good genius produced their effects in a morbid sadness, in his feeling for subject, and in a gloomy tone of coloring, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... to this case; and the first is the witness of the infidel doctor who sent her to Lourdes, since it seemed to him that "religious suggestion," was the only hope left. He, by the way, had diagnosed her case as one of hysteria. "It had a result," he writes, "which I, though an unbeliever, can characterize only as marvellous. Marie Cools returned completely, absolutely cured. No trace of paralysis or anaesthesia. She is actually on her feet; and, two hospital servants having been stricken by typhoid, she is taking the place of one of them." Another interesting fact is that ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson

... a characteristic of the French nation; a trait in some individuals elevated to a sublime self-devotion, and in others degraded to mere excitability. The vivacity, gesticulation, and grimace, which characterize most of them, are the external signs of this nature; the calm heroism of the seventeenth century, and the insane devotion of the nineteenth, were alike its fruits. The voyageur possessed it, in common with all his countrymen. ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... soon after arose in the reign of Louis XIV. We cannot in reason look for a grace, refinement, and flexibility which the French language had not at that time generally attained. But it is easy to see under the rude, antique, and now obsolete forms which characterize Champlain's narratives, the elements of a style which, under, early discipline, nicer culture, and a richer vocabulary, might have made it a model for all times. There are, here and there, some involved, unfinished, and obscure passages, which seem, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... bands of fugitive Hurons who had taken refuge there. When the warriors were warned by Ragueneau's messenger of a probable attack from the Iroquois, they were far from being daunted, but, confiding in their numbers, awaited the enemy in one of those fits of valor which characterize the unstable courage of the savage. At St. Jean all was paint, feathers, and uproar,—singing, dancing, howling, and stamping. Quivers were filled, knives whetted, and tomahawks sharpened; but when, after two days of eager expectancy, the enemy did not appear, the warriors lost patience. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... woman with crinkly, gray hair. This was Mrs. R. B. M. Smith, who, when the opening exercises were finished, signified her willingness to relate to the children a model story, calling the teacher's attention in advance to the almost incredible certainty that would characterize the children's anticipation of the ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... presented for solution should be approached in a spirit higher than partisanship and considered in the light of that regard for patriotic duty which should characterize the action of those intrusted with the weal of a confiding people. But the obligation to declared party policy and principle is not wanting to urge prompt and effective action. Both of the great political parties now represented in the Government have by repeated and authoritative ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... acquired habits and the acquired inhibitions will count in bringing about the reaction. This is the psychological freedom of man. The unity of an interconnected composite and the freedom of causal determination through normal cooeperation of all its parts characterize the only personality which ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... of every young gentleman beginning life, and which, even in our own days (and perhaps still), were frequently bound along with spelling and reading books, the 'Pilgrim's Progress', which it is not necessary to characterize, Young's 'Night Thoughts,' the 'Spectator and 'Guardian,' Rapin's 'English History,' 'Cook's Voyages,' Rousseau's 'Eloise,' 'Telemaque,' 'Histoire Chinoise,' 'Esprit des Croissades,' 'Lettres de Fernand Cortes,' 'Histoire ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... how radically the public speaker's use of narrative differs from that of the story-writer in the more limited scope, absence of extended dialogue and character drawing, and freedom from elaboration of detail, which characterize platform narrative. On the other hand, there are several similarities of method: the frequent combination of narration with exposition, description, argumentation, and pleading; the care exercised in the arrangement ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... the ruthlessness which characterize much of the author's work were plainly foreshadowed in this outspoken introduction; and he has grown more rather than less uncompromising during the quarter-century that has elapsed since they were ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... to them from Noah, through the patriarchs, the Tyrian Freemasons organized that combined system of Operative and Speculative Masonry which continued for many centuries, until the beginning of the eighteenth, to characterize ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... individuals with whom I chiefly mix, from being admired at first for their talents or amiability, are now sincerely loved for their kindness and goodness. Could I write more frequently, or with more security that I write not to the winds and the waves, I would characterize the whole set to you, and try to make us yet shake hands in the same Party. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... his lips, ceased to give forth its blue smoke wreath. At a little distance from him sat a young girl, who, even by the uncertain light, I could perceive was possessed of all that delicacy of form and gracefulness of carriage which characterize her nation. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... type, proving how climate and mode of life may alter the original; for it is curious to contrast the round, rosy faces of the fresh English girls outward bound with the sharp, sallow faces and flashing, restless eyes which characterize those who are returning. The babel of tongues at these tables-d'hote, where conversations are being carried on in every European language, is most perplexing at first, though French and English predominate. Altogether, for the student of character there is no better field ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... fine eyes, the warm, cordial pressure of his white hand, the friendly tones of his pleasant voice; for, though he had failed to bid her good-by, fate could not cheat her out of the interview that must follow his arrival. Fancy had painted so vividly all the incidents that would characterize this longed-for greeting, that she had lived it over a thousand times; and, now that the meeting seemed actually at hand, she asked herself whether it were possible that disappointment could pour one poisonous drop into the brimming draught of joy that rose foaming in amber bubbles ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... to encourage their free and natural development in the young, or their application to any richer world of experience than the circle of pious images with which "religious education" generally deals. The result of this is seen in the rawness, shallowness and ignorance which characterize the attitude of many young adults to religion. Their beliefs and their scepticism alike are often the acceptance or rejection of the obsolete. If they be agnostics, the dogmas which they reject are frequently theological caricatures. If they be believers, both their religious conceptions and their ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... of the interesting Asiatic genus Drongo in Australia, it was thought best to characterize it simply as the Drongo ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... Old Man, as depicted in the stories told of him by the Blackfeet, is a curious mixture of opposite attributes. In the serious tales, such as those of the creation, he is spoken of respectfully, and there is no hint of the impish qualities which characterize him in other stories, in which he is powerful, but also at times impotent; full of all wisdom, yet at times so helpless that he has to ask aid from the animals. Sometimes he sympathizes with the people, and at others, out of pure spitefulness, ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... are little men and women. At an early age they are familiar with all the rules of behaviour which characterize their after life and conduct. Their clothes are cut on the same pattern, out of cloth as those of their parents and grandparents. There are no kilts and knee-breeches, pinafores and short skirts, to make them feel ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... her: "Madame: How could the Parisians, who are so capable of distinguishing what is good, delicate, and noble, let slip this opportunity of paying their homage to the profound tenderness, the touching grace, the true dignity that characterize Your Majesty? The happy influence of these rare qualities already makes itself felt in all classes of society, and while your august spouse elevates France in glory, you inspire it to resume the first rank ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... and later, when they became sedentary, their flocks and their stores of grain. In many different localities we find the remains of camps and fortifications, which, to avoid using a more ambitious term, we may characterize generally as enclosures.[209] ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... pinchings, and gatherings, and crumplings, and clippings, and what not. But there is nothing so constantly noble as the pure leaf of the laurel, bay, orange, and olive; numerable, sequent, perfect in setting, divinely simple and serene. I shall call these noble leaves 'Apolline' leaves. They characterize many orders of plants, great and small,—from the magnolia to the myrtle, and exquisite 'myrtille' {52} of the hills, (bilberry); but wherever you find them, strong, lustrous, dark green, simply formed, richly scented or stored,—you ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... of the head are modifications of these. These nine attitudes characterize states, that is, sentiments, but sentiments which are fugitive. Either of these attitudes may be affected until it becomes habitual. But there are movements which cannot be habitually affected, which can only modify types and attitudes of the inflections of the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... the foes that he fancies are threatening him on every side—one word recalls him in a moment. Dispersed by the magic influence of his master's voice, every object of terror disappears, and he crawls towards him with the same peculiar expression of attachment that used to characterize him. ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... lines; and the unsatisfactory manner in which properties for that purpose have been selected by Euclid and others has always been deemed the opprobrium of elementary geometry. Even as a verbal definition, equidistance is a fitter property to characterize parallels by, since it is the attribute really involved in the signification of the name. If to be in the same plane and never to meet were all that is meant by being parallel, we should feel no incongruity in speaking ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... global growth. Between 2003 and 2006, growth moderated to about 4-5%. A downturn in consumer spending was offset by rapid export growth. Moderate inflation, low unemployment, an export surplus, and fairly equal distribution of income characterize ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... and may now be exhaustively dissected; romantic poetry is still in process of becoming—in fact this is its chief characteristic, that it forever can merely become, but never be completed. It can never be exhausted by any theory, and only an intuitive criticism could dare to attempt to characterize its ideals. It alone is endless, as it alone is free, and asserts as its first law that the whim of the poet tolerates no law above itself. Romantic poetry is the only sort which is more than a class, and, as it were, the art of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... detail)[475] is the Stupa of Rawak. It is set in a quadrangle bounded by a wall which was ornamented on both its inner and outer face by a series of gigantic statues in coloured stucco. The dome is set upon a rectangular base disposed in three stories and this arrangement is said to characterize all the stupas of Turkestan as well as those of the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... requires this minute attention to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style of Poetry from that of History. (Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterize History; but the very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narrative, and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination.)[36] To desire to see the excellences of each style united—to mingle the Dutch with ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... Obviously such fancies are purely of mythologic parentage. Now the luminiferous ether, upon which our authors make such extensive demands, may be physically "ethereal" enough, in spite of the enormous elasticity which leads Professor Jevons to characterize it as "adamantine"; but most assuredly we have not the slightest reason for speaking of it as "immaterial" or "spiritual." Though we are unable to weigh it in the balance, we at least know it as a transmitter of undulatory movements, the size and shape of ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... with a purpose, that purpose being to portray the dangerous haste with which sentiment degenerates into sentimentality; and because of its purpose, the story discloses a less excellent art than its fellows. 'Pride and Prejudice' finds its motive in the crass pride of birth and place that characterize the really generous and high-minded hero, Darcy, and the fierce resentment of his claims to love and respect on the part of the clever, high-tempered, and chivalrous heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. 'Northanger Abbey' is a laughing skit at the school of Mrs. Radcliffe; 'Persuasion,' a simple story of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... whose casual glance had rescued me from the sea. His height was probably five feet ten inches, or ten and a half; but my first impression, or feel of the man, was not of this, but of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize his strength as massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. Not that in appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What I am striving ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... the special history of even the leading Netherland provinces, during the five centuries which we have thus rapidly sought to characterize, is foreign to our purpose. By holding the clue of Holland's history, the general maze of dynastic transformations throughout the country may, however, be swiftly threaded. From the time of the first Dirk to the close of the thirteenth century ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of this stanza also characterize the King Arthur of the 'Idylls of the King'. *1* In the next stanza we have ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... Polehampton's opinion of you is justifiable. You will excuse my mentioning to you, as it is all for your own good, Miss Colwyn, that Miss Polehampton found in you some little weakness of temper, some want of the submissiveness and good sense which ought to characterize an under-teacher's demeanor. I have great confidence in Miss ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... contrasts real and apparent he means something more than this. Experiences are not relegated to this class or to that merely at random, but the final decision is the outcome of a long experience of the differences which characterize different individual experiences and is an expression of the relations which are observed to hold between them. Certain experiences are accepted as signs, and certain others come to take the more dignified position of thing signified; the mind rests in them and ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... parchment, while some of the houses have an attic storey with windows above the third floor. It is evident that the houses of the Minoan burghers were not the closely-packed mud hovels, separated from one another only by narrow alleys, which characterize the plan of the Egyptian town discovered by Petrie at Illahun, but were substantial structures, giving accommodation which, even to modern ideas, would seem respectable. Of course, one must suppose that the poorer quarters of the town would scarcely ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... investigation and carefulness of observation much credit is due. He was much interested in the archeology of the country passed over and his descriptions are remarkable for their freedom from the exaggerations and erroneous observations which characterize many of the publications of that period. His journal was published by Congress the next year[1] and was ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... by a charming walk through a beech wood, and are distant about a mile from the Laurel House. A longer and still somewhat rough path was opened thither last summer from the Mountain House. But we should never end were we to characterize all the beautiful spots, the entrancing walks and drives to be found amid these cool and healthful slopes and plateaus. A difference of at least ten degrees is felt between the mountain resorts and the villages ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... this condition and free from spherical aberration is called "aplanatic'' (Greek a-, privative, plann, a wandering). This word was first used by Robert Blair (d. 1828), professor of practical astronomy at Edinburgh University, to characterize a superior achromatism, and, subsequently, by many writers to denote freedom from spherical aberration. Both the aberration of axis points, and the deviation from the sine condition, rapidly increase in most (uncorrected) ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... done. It was not a dressing favorable to an aseptic condition of the wound, perhaps, nor was there anything in the quid of tobacco calculated to withdraw the poison or neutralize its effects, so the doctors may characterize this as a very foolish proceeding; but country people skilled in simples and herb remedies might tell some of these ultra scientific surgeons that the application of a quid of tobacco or of a leaf of tobacco to the sting of a wasp or the bite of a spider, or even the ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... the most satisfactory answer in any question. The crudeness of their intellect, which may go together with ample knowledge in other fields, predestines them to be deceived and puts a premium on the imposture. I may try to characterize some varieties of crooked thinking from chance tests of the correspondence with which the underworld has besieged me. I have only the letters of most ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... is a method of induction, merely; the last a mixed method of induction and ratiocination. The first may be called the method a posteriori; the latter, the method a priori. We are aware that this last expression is sometimes used to characterize a supposed mode of philosophizing, which does not profess to be founded upon experience at all. But we are not acquainted with any mode of philosophizing, on political subjects at least, to which such a description is fairly applicable. By ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Superior, with small areas also in northern Wisconsin and New York. Throughout this U-shaped area, which incloses Hudson Bay within its arms, the country rocks have the complicated and contorted structures which characterize mountain ranges. But the surface of the area is by no means mountainous. The sky line when viewed from the divides is unbroken by mountain peaks or rugged hills. The surface of the arm west of Hudson Bay is gently undulating and that of the eastern arm has been roughened to low-rolling hills ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... acquired Occidental sense of his sister's disgrace in her marriage, and falls into a fever and dies out of the story, which closes with the lasting happiness of the young wife and husband. There is enough incident, but of the kind that is characterized and does not characterize. The charm, the delight, the supreme interest is in the personality of Yuki. Her father was an Englishman who had married her mother in the same sort of marriage she makes herself; but he is true to his wife till he dies, and possibly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... until it curves inward under the abacus (Fig. 51); in the post-classical period it is low and sometimes quite conical (Fig. 60). In general, the degeneracy of post-classical Greek architecture is in nothing more marked than in the loss of those subtle curves which characterize the best Greek work. Other differences must be learned ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... all industries if necessary, can act as a unit." While this convention was united in denouncing the trade unions, it was not so unanimous in other matters, for the leaders were all veterans in those factional quarrels which characterize Socialists the world over. Eugene V. Debs, for example, was the hero of the Knights of Labor and had achieved wide notoriety during the Pullman strike by being imprisoned for contempt of court. William D. Haywood, popularly known as "Big Bill," received a rigorous training in the Western ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... developed among the Jews. But during this period few, if any, decisive instances can be found in which the image of penal fire is connected with the future state. On the contrary, "darkness," "gloom," "blackness," "profound and perpetual night," are the terms employed to characterize the abode and fate ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Morality ceased to exist as a definite type, though its symbolization of life and its concern with conduct were handed along to the later drama. The plays of Robert Wilson, about 1580, show an interesting use of allegory for the purposes of social satire, and realism and satire long continued to characterize Elizabethan comedy, though for a time confined mostly to incidental scenes. Common and incidental also was farce, which is found in most plays of the century whether tragic, comic, or moral in their main purpose. Further, it was soon discovered that the Plautian scheme of comedy was well suited ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... characterize the work of Mary Wilkins Freeman? What is the secret of her success in so employing a little realistic incident as to hold the reader's attention? Compare the two short stories, The Madonna of the Future (James) and A New ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... interest taken by women in the conventual life increased, and one of the most powerful influences in the religious life of the time was Catherine of Siena, a creature of light in the midst of the dark turmoil and strife which characterize this portion of Italian history. Catherine was the beautiful and high-minded daughter of a rich merchant of Siena, and at a very early age showed a decided inclination for the religious life. At the age of twelve she began to have visions and declared herself the ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... mope. In want of comfort she was; in sad want of social diversion and cheer, and of variety in her course of thought and occupation; she suffered from the want; but Esther did not sink into idleness and stagnation. She worked like a beaver; that is, so far as diligence and purpose characterize those singular animals' working. She studied resolutely and eagerly the things she had studied with Pitt, and which he had charged her to go on with. His influence was a spur to her constantly; for he had wished it, and he would be coming home ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... voice of God. And since he lives and works thus close to Nature's throbbing heart and in close communion with forces that link the finite to the Infinite, who dares to spurn the dignity of his toil or characterize his ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst

... the Anglo-Saxon segn.] A large flag or banner, hoisted on a long pole erected over the stern, and called the ensign-staff. It is used to distinguish the ships of different nations from each other, as also to characterize the different squadrons of the navy; it was formerly written ancient. Ensign is in the army the title of the junior rank of subaltern officers of infantry; from amongst them are detailed the officers ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... describing him, to characterize his life first by its quantity. He belonged to the true race of the giants of learning; he took in knowledge at every pore, and his desires were insatiable. Not, perhaps, precocious in boyhood,—for it is not precocity to begin Latin at ten and Greek at eleven, to enter the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... anemic global growth. Between 2003 and 2007, growth moderated to about 4-5% annually. A downturn in consumer spending was offset by rapid export growth. Moderate inflation, low unemployment, and an export surplus in 2007 characterize this solid economy, but inflation and unemployment are increasing in the face of ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... different men. Some will be inclined to regard the Secessionists as narrow in spirit and severe in their simplicity, and as often failing to exhibit a due regard for the beauty of holiness that should characterize Divine worship. It will surely, however, indicate on the part of those who read their history a want of appreciation if they fail to recognize the sturdy spiritual life which, forming, as it ever does, the truest foundation for right views of religion, marked these men of ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... the time nor the place to characterize or eulogize the maker of "this strange eventful history," but perhaps it is worth while to recognize that the history really was eventful. And strange. Nothing stranger ever came out of the Arabian Nights than the story of this poor Scotch boy who came to America ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... citizen must expand with joy when he reflects how near our Government has approached to perfection; that in respect to it we have no essential improvement to make; that the great object is to preserve it in the essential principles and features which characterize it, and that is to be done by preserving the virtue and enlightening the minds of the people; and as a security against foreign dangers to adopt such arrangements as are indispensable to the support of our independence, our rights and liberties. If we persevere in the career in which we have ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... childhood out of the desert of silence and mystery that surrounds every human soul spoke to him again as a voice of inspiration. Every man's faith is the faith of his fathers, the faith learned on his mother's knee. He, who, increasing knowledge, discerns the different degrees of darkness that characterize our religious theories, and chooses for himself one from among them, increases his soul's sorrow, for our light is darkness, and God is not to be found for searching. "It is not by our feet or change of place that men leave Thee nor return unto Thee." The ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... so it goes on forever, through all the unceasing changes of thought, heart, mind, soul, taste, which characterize the great, acting, struggling, thinking, conservative, progressive, believing, doubting, Young ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... side scenes and the background of a story that has yet to be written. That story will have the interest not only of the collision of private passions and efforts, but of the great ideas and principles which characterize and animate a nation. It will discriminate between what is accidental and what is permanent, between what is realistic and what is real, between what is sentimental and what is sentiment. It will show us not only ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... the newspapers nor in the botanies. With all her seeming lavishness, she rarely wastes a word. Though she may sometimes heap upon a frail hepatica some greater accumulation of fine-spun fancies than its slender head will bear, she yet can so characterize a flower with a touch that any one of its lovers would know it without the name. If she hints at "those slipshod little anemones that cannot stop to count their petals, but take one from their neighbor or leave another behind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... it is less interesting, and partly because it seems to me so much simpler in itself. The absence of color, the relief of form, the unity of idea, the limitation of each subject to a single figure, or at most two or three, perhaps too the repose and simplicity which characterize antique art, make the path less arduous. I never, even in the infinite vistas of the Vatican, felt the fatigue and perplexity which have beset me in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... Oriental nature has been mirrored in the literature and art of the East. Its products lack the measure, the grace and symmetry, and the human interest, which characterize the creations of the European mind. In the mechanical arts, invention and discovery push on progress to a certain point, then languish and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... much impaired, first by the tribunes of the people, and afterwards upon the establishment of the empire, yet they were still employed in consulting the senate, administering justice, managing public games and the like, and had the honor to characterize the year by their ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... moon, where she was transformed into a toad, still to be traced in its face. It is a special object of worship in autumn, and moon cakes dedicated to it are sold at this season." [94] We have little doubt that what the Chinese look for they see. We in the West characterize and colour objects which we behold, as we see them through the painted windows of our predisposition or prejudice. As a great novelist writes: "From the same object different conclusions are drawn; the most ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... with attempts to translate some specimens of Italian lyric poetry, and to compose very short biographical sketches of the authors. In these specimens, which as yet exist only in manuscript, he has shown the same critical knowledge of the Italian language, and admirable command of the English, that characterize his translations of Tasso. He had not advanced far in these exercises, when the obscure and contradictory accounts of many incidents in the life of Dante caused him much embarrassment, and sorely piqued his curiosity. About the same time ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... them by all classes of readers. Whether the vein be a serious one, or the theme turn upon the humorous or the burlesque, it is not too much, we think, to say that the writer takes always with him the heart or the fancy of the reader. Without however pausing to characterize productions which bid fair to become very widely and favorably known, we shall venture, under favor of the reader, to present a few more extracts, 'which it is hoped may please.' The following illustration of a night-scene at the Kaatskill Mountain-House, on the evening ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... far as the observations may be considered valuable for elucidating the connexion of atmospheric waves with rotatory storms (other motives being balanced), it might be desirable to keep the ship near the margin—provided she is not carried beyond the influence of the winds which characterize the latter half of the storm—until the barometer has nearly attained its usual elevation. By this means some notion might be formed of the general direction of the line of barometric pressure preceding or succeeding ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt

... the North, envious of its prosperity, despising with all the rancor of a lawless 'chivalry' our regard for the rights of persons, prone to dissipation, and densely ignorant of the great tendencies to progress which characterize the civilization of the nineteenth century, the Southerner has ever felt the same tendency to break away, and be off, which a raw, fiery, conceited youth feels to sunder wholesome domestic ties. The stimulus was within, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... gentleness and softness to the material furnished by our cast-iron "man of facts" and our acrid poet, that was very agreeable. In speaking of Arnold, I was ineffably amused at hearing Mrs. Grote characterize him as a "very weak man," which struck me as very funny. The Esprit Forte, however, I take it, merely referred to his belief in the immortality of the soul, the existence of a God, and a few other ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... classes, the things contained in which differ from other things only in certain particulars which may be numbered, while others differ in more than can be numbered, more even than we need ever expect to know. Some classes have little or nothing in common to characterize them by, except precisely what is connoted by the name: white things, for example, are not distinguished by any common properties except whiteness; or if they are, it is only by such as are in some way dependent on, or connected with, whiteness. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... Independence and frankness characterize all classes of society. Norway has no hereditary aristocracy. In 1821 it was provided that those holding titles might be allowed to retain them during their lives, but they could not transmit them to their children. The Norse ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... only by mediaeval monks and modern Romanists, I would reckon it unworthy of notice; but it is received and uttered again as genuine at this day by grave and learned Protestant theologians of Germany, and notwithstanding the solidity and good sense which characterize his "Notes" generally, is formally reproduced in its boldest ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... which I have attempted to characterize as tinctured by Protestant opinions but disinclined for severance from Rome, manifested itself about the same time in several groups. One of them was at Rome, where a society named the Oratory of Divine Love, including from fifty to sixty members, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the honorable burgher-class feeling has no root here, and seldom goes down to a second generation. What is here called a city is a mere shadow of ours, and its citizens have hardly any of those qualities which with us characterize commercial men—the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... fins to keep themselves from going down with the current, while their bodies yield indolently to all its soothing curves. He chooses his language for its rich canorousness rather than for intensity of meaning. To characterize his style in a single word, I should call it costly. None but the daintiest and nicest phrases will serve him, and he allures us from one to the other with such cunning baits of alliteration, and such sweet lapses of verse, that ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... compare with Koerner's Battle-Song of the Confederation, Kleist's poem To Germany, as I believe it is called. I am glad that I am not able to characterize the separate strophes of this poem; they are, what the divisions of a poem should be, nothing, when they are detached from the whole. "Germans," exclaims the poet—"Your forests have long been cleared, serpents and foxes ye have destroyed, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... Pentecostal anointing. John the Baptist, minister of the gospel and preacher of genuine regeneration, said of Jesus that "he should baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire," thus using a most powerful symbol to characterize the nature of the work of the Holy Ghost. Everyone is familiar with the action of fire; it burns everything combustible with ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees

... presumption induced your advance upon Texas, with your boasted veteran army, mustering a force nearly equal to the whole population of this country at that time. You besieged and took the Alamo: but under what circumstances? Not those, surely, which should characterize a general of the nineteenth century. You assailed one hundred and fifty men, destitute of every supply requisite for the defence of that place. Its brave defenders, worn by vigilance and duty beyond the power of human nature to sustain, were ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... Allemagne, dans le Tyrol et en Italie. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1818.—This work is translated from the German of Mad. de la Recke, by Madame de Montelieu, and possesses much of that pleasing narrative and description which characterize female writers ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom. Following are some of the more notable epigrams of the learned and ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... example of the very fine texture and the even clipping that characterize the Sinna rugs. Thickly studding the dark blue field are minute designs in blue and rose hues, with which pale green, yellow, and a sapphire blue blend most harmoniously. All these small designs rest in the usual diaper design, which may be traced throughout the rug. The border is charming, ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... Englishmen call us Huns; you may, for all I care, characterize the warriors of our splendid Landwehr as sons of Attila; it is enough for us if this Landwehr can shatter into a thousand pieces the ring of our merciless enemies. Far better that you should call us sons of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... openness of temper betray us in early life into improper connexions; and the very constancy, and nobleness of nature, which characterize the best hearts, continue ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... successful husbandry that so much abound farther north. A somber, or it might be better to say a sober, aspect gave dignity to the landscape, which, if not actually grand, had, at least, most of the elements that characterize the noble in nature. ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper

... stands, "Whose book is that?" The prompt and invariable answer has been, "E. P. Roe's." I have seen book notices in which the volume was ascribed to me in anything but flattering terms. A distinguished judge, in a carefully written opinion, is so uncharitable as to characterize the coincidence in cover as a "fraud," and to say, "No one can look at the covers of the two publications and fail to see evidence of a design to deceive the public and to infringe upon the rights of the publisher and author"—that ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... that felicitous simplicity and elegance of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's efforts for the ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank

... the basins and depressions which bear no relation to the existing valleys. Among the Tertiary volcanic rocks those of acid types (granites, granulites) were the first to appear and are developed latitudinally; rocks of intermediate type (dacites, andesites) characterize the Miocene and early Pliocene periods; while the basic rocks (ophites, elaeolite syenites and basalts) attained their maximum in later Pliocene and Quaternary times. Their development, feeble as compared with the acid rocks, is meridional. The Quaternary period includes an older ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in time, to have certain tricks of style, such as are apt to characterize a body of anonymous folk-poetry. Such is their use of conventional epithets; "the red, red gold," "the good, green wood," "the gray goose wing." Such are certain recurring ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... Changeable sxangxebla. Channel kanalo. Chant kantado. Chaos hxaoso. Chaotic hxaosa. Chapel kapelo. Chaplain ekleziulo. Chapter cxapitro. Char bruleti. Character karaktero. Character (theatre) rolo. Characterize karakterizi. Charge (attack) atakegi. Charge (price) kosto. Chariot cxaro. Charitable bonfarada. Charity bonfarado. Charity (alms) almozo. Charlatan cxarlatano. Charm cxarmi. Charm cxarmo. Charm ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... it to be the Same, this is much larger and has a loud squaling note something like the newing of a Cat. the beak of this bird is 11/2 inches long, is proportionably large, black and of the form which characterize this genus. the upper exeeds the under Chap a little. the head and neck are also propotionably large, the eyes full and reather prominant, the iris dark brown and purple black. it is about the Size and Some what the form of the jay bird, tho reather rounder and more full in ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... the last week of April, a coach called the "Fly" stopped to change horses at a small village in a certain part of Ireland, which, for the present, shall be nameless. The sun had just sunk behind the western hills; but those mild gleams which characterize his setting at the close of April, had communicated to the clouds that peculiarly soft and golden tint, on which the eye loves to rest, but from which its light was now gradually fading. When fresh horses had been put to, a stranger, who had previously seen two large trunks ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... more accuracy and more discrimination characterize the work of the senses than in Early Childhood. The impressions are richer in detail and meaning, because of the increased knowledge possessed by the child. It is a commonplace that we receive from ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... prominent beauties. As a whole, it is very superior to the "Election," highly as we were disposed to rate the merits of that performance. The style is masterly throughout, and every shade of the colouring has all the depth and richness which characterize works of real genius. There is a spirit in every touch which differs as much from the softened and soulless compositions of certain modern artists, as does the florid architecture of the ancients from the starved proportions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... contrast to all this, his eyes were of a deep, dark, burning brown, full of fire, passion, and fascination. There was no doubt about it—he was beautiful! I know that is a strange term to apply to a man, but it is the only true and comprehensive one to characterize the personal appearance of Herman Brudenell. He was attired in a neat black dress suit, without ornaments of any kind; without even a breastpin or ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... which emphatically asserted the real presence, as well as the omnipresence of Christ also according to His human nature, Melanchthon remarked contemptuously in a letter to Jacob Runge, dated February 1, 1560 and in a letter to G. Cracow, dated February 3, 1560, that he could not characterize "the decree of the Wuerttemberg Fathers (Abbates Wirtebergenses) more aptly than as Hechinger Latin (Hechingense Latinum, Hechinger Latein)," i.e., as absurd and insipid teaching. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... and depth of feeling without gloominess, characterize this volume of stories of the Eastern poet. This new volume of his work which introduces him to English readers as a short-story writer is as significant of his power as are the verses that have ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... he goes on to characterize the several parties combined in the war.—"Is it possible," says the Abbe, "that a strict union should long subsist amongst confederates of characters so opposite as the hasty, light, disdainful Frenchman, the jealous, haughty, sly, slow, ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine

... same experiences of His are also the great experiences that will characterize the "Follow Me" life, for every one who will follow fully. It will always remain true that these experiences were distinctive of Him. They meant more to Him than they will or can mean to any other. But it is also true that they will come to us ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... the universal prayer of American citizens that justice and humanity and civilization shall characterize the final settlement of peace as they have distinguished ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... was also hanging here and there on walls and tree trunks, in queer little jointed, pipe-stem branches. The royal palm, that king of tropical vegetation, is not very abundant here, but yet sufficiently so to characterize the place. Its roots resemble those of asparagus, and are innumerable. Another peculiarity of the palm is that it starts a full-sized trunk; therefore, not the diameter, but the height, determines its age, which is recorded by annual concentric ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... accompanied by a certain degree of cutaneous anaesthesia of the penis, but especially where the seminal secretion is scanty, the board should be positive (ascending current); where however nocturnal spermatorrhoea, premature discharges (before coition is possible) or other irritable phenomena characterize a case, the surface board should be negative (descending current). The head of the patient should rest on a sponge thoroughly saturated with water, and communicating with the water of the bath, so as to include ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... subtle a way different nationalities express themselves in landscape gardening, while employing the same materials. I have seen no grounds on the continent that express the particular shade of ideas which characterize the English. There is an air of grave majesty about the wide sweep of their outlines—a quality suggestive of ideas of strength and endurance which is appropriate to ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... was gratified, however, to perceive that they all had good feeling or good taste enough to preserve, throughout their drive and the services which followed it, a quiet and reverent demeanor. It may seem strange to some, that I should characterize this as a possible effect of "good taste;" but in my opinion, he who does not pay the tribute at least of outward respect to this holy day, is incapable not only of that high, spiritual communion which brings man near to his ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... cognomination^; eponym; compellation^, description, antonym; empty title, empty name; handle to one's name; namesake. term, expression, noun; byword; convertible terms &c 522; technical term; cant &c 563. V. name, call, term, denominate designate, style, entitle, clepe^, dub, christen, baptize, characterize, specify, define, distinguish by the name of; label &c (mark) 550. be called &c v.; take the name of, bean the name of, go by the name of, be known by the name of, go under the name of, pass under the name of, rejoice in the name of. Adj. named ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... almost justify Mather's words, when he stigmatizes the necromancy of his day as 'a terrible Plague of Evil Angels,' or, in still plainer speech, as 'a prodigious descent of devils upon divers places near the centre of this Province.' And how better can we characterize this confused and distracting babblement which gives no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... Leitrim, and born on the banks of the Shannon, in the sweet little town of Drumsna. It was by the beautiful waters of this noble river that they first felt that impassioned glow that colors all the after life of man or woman, and which is as different from the feelings that characterize early boy or girlhood, as the noon-day solar blaze is from the cold and placid beams of the pale new moon. There is one point at which the true passion of love, in all great hearts, leaps into fierce and instantaneous ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... right in practice; I mean the intrinsic beauty of the truths themselves, a quality which it is not here the place to investigate, but which must just be noticed, as invariably adding value to truths of species rather than to those of individuality. The qualities and properties which characterize man or any other animal as a species, are the perfection of his or its form of mind, almost all individual differences arising from imperfections; hence a truth of species is the more valuable to art, because it must always be a beauty, while ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... Markgrafen even unto the Agadir incident it has been characteristic of Prussia to extend her boundaries and interests under the plea of military necessity. Aggression is the only word to characterize Frederick's seizure of Silesia and part of Poland. South and East Prussia were added by the same forcible means (1793-1795). In the Napoleonic wars Swedish Pomerania fell as the booty of military necessity. Schleswig-Holstein was ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... introduction is needed to place the reader at the best view point from which to consider what is said in the following pages regarding the agricultural practices and customs of China, Korea and Japan. It should be borne in mind that the great factors which today characterize, dominate and determine the agricultural and other industrial operations of western nations were physical impossibilities to them one hundred years ago, and until then had been ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... careful in their selection, but little discrimination is used by country manufacturers on a small scale, who use such doubtful species as Agaricus lacrymabundus, with Agaricus spadiceus, and a host of allied species, which they characterize as nonpareils and champignons. In the eastern counties Agaricus arvensis has the ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... anglicize apologize apostrophize apprize (to value) authorize baptize brutalize canonize catechize catholicize cauterize centralize characterize christianize civilize colonize criticize crystallize demoralize dogmatize economize emphasize epitomize equalize eulogize evangelize extemporize familiarize fertilize fossilize fraternize galvanize generalize gormandize harmonize immortalize italicize jeopardize legalize liberalize ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton

... The square towers of the royal anderoon—which the Shah professes to believe is the tallest dwelling-house in the world—loom conspicuously skyward above the mass of indefinable mud buildings and walls that characterize the habitations of humbler folk, but perhaps happier on the whole than the fair occupants of that seven-storied ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... be chosen to characterize American life during the generation that followed the age of Douglas and Lincoln, it must be "business enterprise"—the tremendous, irresistible energy of a virile people, mounting in numbers toward a hundred million ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... events of the close of our Lord's life; of an exposition of the Ten Commandments, followed by a kind of treatise on the Seven Cardinal Sins: the fifth part describes the different joys of the Virgin; the sixth, in praise of the Virgin, is perhaps the most poetic; the last is less easy to characterize. The poem is written in the ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... liturgy of Geneva, composed with rapidity under the pressure of the times, but with the skill and fine literary finish that are wont to characterize even the most hurried of Calvin's productions, has maintained its position undisputed to the present time, being the oldest of existing forms of worship in the reformed churches. The gradual change ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... seem to do; that they should look above and beyond the ranks of partisans for the light they need; that they should listen to those who will discuss their problem with the coolness, the disinterestedness, the unhesitating honesty which characterize the leading scientists of the day in other fields of inquiry. Such are the speakers and writers they should invite to their assistance. Instead of wasting their breath in expressions of self-admiration, in threadbare platitudes about the nobility and rights of labor, in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... three miles from the town. On the slopes of hills on either side were gathered some two or three hundred officers, English, Dutch, and German, the bottom of the valley, which was some forty yards across, being left clear. There was, however, none of the life and animation which generally characterize a military gathering. The British officers looked sombre and stern at what they deemed nothing short of the approaching murder of their gallant young countryman; and the Germans were grave and downcast, for they felt ashamed of the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... appointed he went to the banquet, and it passed off as such affairs usually do. Many very gracious and pleasant things were said of the guest of the evening in the eulogistic strains which generally characterize speeches made on such occasions. How much of what was said was sincere, and how much mere complimentary phraseology of the dental kind, I will allow those who are in the habit of attending such ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... in the society and under the direction of a father who has been exercised in military arts, and who has acquired the bearing, the clean and orderly habits, and the taste for respectable attire, which characterize the soldier. The children of these countries spend the first six years of their lives in homes which are well regulated. They are during this time accustomed to orderly habits, to neat and clean clothes, and ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... did not mean to say, that he was chargeable with such in some instances, or even in many, for then the censure would have been equally applicable to himself; but he designed by that expression to characterize all his writings. The censure therefore was just; Lucilius wrote at a time when the Roman verse had not yet received its polish, and instead of introducing artfully his rugged lines, and to serve a particular ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... characterize those habits as bad which relate only to our convenience or our enjoyment. They are often not blamable in themselves, but there lies in them a hidden danger that they may allure us into luxury or effeminacy. But it is a false and mechanical way ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... look at you with a wretched mixture of self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both, which are betrayed by the cowardly behaviour of the eye and the tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate beings. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... zM, to which the vertical normal PL is a common asymptote. These two branches will not be similar, nor is the curve itself symmetrical with respect to PL or to any transverse line; all of which peculiarities characterize it as something quite different from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... school teachers, in the main, do not know the fundamental scientific facts, and therefore can not account for actions, points of view, signs of waywardness, lack of appreciation, poor lessons, etc., etc., that sometimes characterize the youth while a student in the high school. They often lay to an unclean mind what springs from a perfectly normal development of the sex function; they are sure that moral perversity is the basis of actions that are more correctly explained by reference ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... in which the President has disposed of his third topic,—the Kansas difficulty,—we can scarcely characterize their disingenuousness and meanings. We have already spoken of the object of this part of the document as atrocious,—and we repeat the word, as the most befitting that could be used. That object is nothing less than an attempt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... little addicted to those exhilarations and contrarieties of frame which characterize imaginative minds. His temperament was warm, but not fiery. His intellect never appears inflamed, but was a glowing, serene radiance. His immense labors were accomplished, not by the impulses of restless enthusiasm, but by the cool calculations ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... Even boxing with the cestus was less esteemed than the other athletic exercises, and was excluded from the games exhibited by Alexander in his Asiatic invasions [113]. Neither did any of those haughty assumptions of lineage or knightly blood, which characterize the feudal tournament, distinguish between Greek and Greek. The equestrian contests were indeed, from their expense, limited to the opulent, but the others were impartially free to the poor as to the rich, the peasant as the noble,—the Greeks forbade monopoly in glory. But although ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... previous July the King made a journey to Fontainebleau, where he remained until the 14th of September. I should suppress the bagatelle which happened on the occasion of this journey, if it did not serve more and more to characterize ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... constructive and manual development, Miss Rankin's experiment offers social features of unusual suggestiveness, for the village provides a civic experience fairly comprehensive and free from the artificiality that is apt to characterize attempts to introduce civic content into ...
— A Catalogue of Play Equipment • Jean Lee Hunt

... sovereign would characterize his reign, and open to us some of the interior operations of the cabinet. The despotic will, yet vacillating conduct of Henry the Eighth, towards the close of his reign, may be traced in a proclamation to abolish the translations of the scriptures, and even the reading of Bibles by the people; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... of it is anything but complimentary to the lady it mentions," I remarked. "He must have had, or imagined he had, some desperate grievance, to provoke him to the use of such plain language in regard to one he can still characterize as ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... fore-closing the mortgage, and ejecting Mr. Nelson's family. He was actuated not alone by mercenary motives, but also to gratify an ancient grudge. In early life Mrs. Nelson, Tom's mother, had rejected the suit of the wealthy squire, and this insult, as he chose to characterize it, he had ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... days, Ferris was an uncompromising enemy of the theatricalization of Italy, or indeed of anything; but the fancy of the black-robed young priest at work in this place appealed to him all the more potently because of the sort of tragic innocence which seemed to characterize Don Ippolito's expression. He longed intensely to sketch the picture then and there, but he had strength to rebuke the fancy as something that could not make itself intelligible without the help of such accessories as he despised, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... action, rather conveys the appearance of strength than of beauty, there are several to be seen who are really handsome. Their features are very various, insomuch, that it is scarcely possible to fix on any general likeness by which to characterize them, unless it be a fullness at the point of the nose, which is very common. But, on the other hand, we met with hundreds of truly European faces, and many genuine Roman noses amongst them. Their eyes and teeth are good; but the last neither so remarkably ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... extended grounds, combining the richly, blending beauties of nature and art. Groves and streams, rustic bridges and flowing fountains, shrubby labyrinths and flowery dells, were grouped in happiest harmony. Received by the General with the genial hospitality which should characterize the presiding spirit of such an Eden, dispensing itself in so many pleasant ways, we were led from house to garden, and from vineyard to wine press, where all were temptingly lured to taste the freshly pressed ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... our wonderful industry and our ever-increasing commerce. The sacrifice of life, the destruction of property, the desolation of extensive regions of beautiful and fertile country, the vast expenditure of public means, all concur to characterize this as the grandest and most terrible phenomenon of the kind that has ever occurred in the history of man. To us, who are in the midst of it, and destined to be involved in its results, whatever they may be, it is a subject of deep and awful interest; and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Problems characterize every age, sum up the complex life of nations and give them their distinctive features. They form that moral atmosphere which makes one period of history responsible and tributary to another. And indeed, in every human problem there is an ethical element. This imponderable factor, which ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... only, he ventures to offer, with reference to the general character and tendency of "TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR." He has occasionally observed it spoken of as "an amusing and laughable" story; but he cannot help thinking that no one will so characterize it, who may take the trouble of reading it throughout, and be capable of comprehending its scope and object. Whatever may be its defects of execution, it has been written in a grave and earnest spirit; with no attempt ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... are forgotten. A sweet temper has a soothing influence over the minds of a whole family. Where it is found in the wife and mother, you observe a kindness and love predominating over the natural feelings of a bad heart. Smiles, kind words and looks, characterize the children, and peace and love have their dwelling there. Study, then, to acquire ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... hostess see to it that all their guests are introduced to each other, if this is possible, so that the best of cordiality and the least restraint may characterize their mingling. ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... were American citizens. Not to discuss spitting, which is for spittoons, not literature, our fellow-travellers on the deck of the "floating palace" were passably endurable people, in looks, style, and language. I dodge discrimination, and characterize them en masse by negations. The passengers of the Isaac Newton, on a certain evening of July, 18—, were not so intrusively green and so gasping as Britons, not so ill-dressed and pretentious as Gauls, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... the history of Europe was the history of France, and the history of France was the biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. So completely did this masterful personality dominate the course of events that his name has justly been used to characterize this era. The Era of Napoleon stands out as one of the most significant periods in modern times. Apart from its importance as marking a revolution in the art of war, it bore memorable results in two directions: ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes



Words linked to "Characterize" :   stamp, distinguish, differentiate, think of, individuate, characterization, character, mark, remember, define



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