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Concoct   /kənkˈɑkt/   Listen
Concoct

verb
(past & past part. concocted; pres. part. concocting)
1.
Make a concoction (of) by mixing.
2.
Prepare or cook by mixing ingredients.  Synonym: cook up.
3.
Invent.  Synonym: trump up.
4.
Devise or invent.  Synonyms: dream up, hatch, think of, think up.  "No-one had ever thought of such a clever piece of software"



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"Concoct" Quotes from Famous Books



... blandly. "It isn't necessary. A straight public-relations set-up. We concoct a story and then let it leak out. We make it so good that even the people who don't believe it can't help spreading it." He nodded at Jamison. "Right now, Jamison, we want a theory that the sending of radiation at twenty times the speed of light means that there ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... using the oars mainly for guidance, and meeting no difficulty worse than a shoal, on which the boats all grounded for a few moments, and the breaking of his oar by Jones who steered our boat. About noon having run three miles, a landing was made on a broad gravelly island, to enable Andy to concoct a dinner. A heavy gale was tearing fiercely across the bleak spot. The sand flew in stinging clouds, but we got a fire started and then it burned like a furnace. Andy made another sample of his biscuits, this time liberally incorporated with ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... knows that the Indians of the village above mentioned are so close to the new Parian of the Chinese that they must pass through it in going and coming, when they are obliged to come to this city; and there they have opportunity to talk with the said Sangleys, to concoct their misdeeds and sins. This witness knows that the said houses and village of the natives, as has been said, are also near the Parian of the Japonese, a pernicious people, who, like the Sangleys, do great harm through practice of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... light and sweet, and tender, the most delicious morsels, with the amber maple syrup, that she had ever tasted. She must confess it to herself, they were better than her mother's; city people could not concoct such amazing cakes as these; then the fragrant golden butter, how she wished poor Philip were there to get some of all these ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... to the initiated as) [Symbol: Luna], i.e., Maya, the object, that in its difference from the subject is mere illusion; and from [Symbol: Mercury] comes [Symbol: Sol], the Brahm or subject, and now the unio mystica can take place. Another use of symbolism is the one by which we are able to concoct gold out of sulphur; from the affects we derive, through purification, love (toward God). The spirit [Symbol: Mercury] exalts [raises] the antithesis [Symbol: Sol] and [Symbol: Luna] (soul and body) in such a way that finally ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... walked up the plateau in the path worn principally by his own feet, and the captain beheld the great stone face against the wall of rock, his mind became quieter. He slackened his pace, and even began to concoct some suitable remarks to make to Shirley ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... tie. Nothing could come now of going to her and reproaching her—only a public scandal and disgrace. No, he must play his part until he could consult with Francis Markrute, learn all the truth, and then concoct some plan. Out of all the awful ruin of his life he could at least save his name. And after some concentrated moments of agony he mastered himself at last sufficiently to go to his room and ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... you are right, but I also feel that I am sincere, and that if I am only to write ad captandum vulgus, I might as well edit a magazine at once, or concoct songs ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... 100 should be levied; they were at the meeting and heard no Common Prayer service.' The opinion was that there must be evidence showing the intent, and that the meeting was held under colour and pretence of any exercise of religion to concoct sedition.[217] Mr. Wingate asked Bunyan why he did not follow his calling and go to church? to which he replied, that all his intention was to instruct and counsel people to forsake their sins, and that he did, without confusion, both follow ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... they strip me?—but it is not coming to that. Look here, now, I'll tell you the truth for once; though you don't believe me capable of it. I DID concoct that telegram—and sent it; just as a practical joke; and many a worse one has been only laughed at by honest men and officers. I could show you a bigger joke still—a joke of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... month they'll concoct some other story. That explains why they cover their window up when they have a rabbit to eat. Don't you see? One would have the right to say to them: 'As you can afford a rabbit you can certainly give five francs to your mother!' Oh! they're just rotten! ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... They then proceeded to business. At first they agreed upon a declaration of rights to which they were entitled, they said, by the laws of nature, the principles of the British constitution, and their several charters. Their next step was to concoct a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation association, which was not to be infringed by any American citizen. This was followed by a series of solemn addresses; one to the king, expressing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... a New England yankee mind could concoct such humours and fascinatingly pert phrases as are found here. They are like the chatterings of the interrupted squirrel in the tree-hole at nut-time. There is so much of high gossip in these poetic turns of hers, and so, throughout her books, one finds a multitude of playful tricks ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... policy was tied fast to Russia's. And in December of that year—1905—we know now that "military conversations" were begun between France and England. They appear to have been far reaching. If France and England were to concoct military plans together it was clear England must recognize Russia's Balkan agent—Serbia. The situation was the more remarkable, for Edward VII had always been on the best terms with Franz Josef. And it was precisely because Alexander ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... after Tessibel's secret visit to her father in the city jail, twenty fraternities were preparing all the practical jokes which boyish minds could concoct, with which to initiate their new candidates to full membership. Five new men were to join the "Cranium" fraternity. The house of this society stood high upon the eastern hill above the lake and overlooked the forest-mantled town. The first story of the building contained the smoking, dining, billiard ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... want, then, Mr. President," Kerotski put in smoothly, "is for me to help you concoct ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett

... that the Quartermaster was an extraordinary young man, and that if his advice had been followed there would have been a very different result from the expedition. The youth who had the intrepidity to take the initiatory observations, and who had had the military skill to concoct the plan of attack, was evidently a person whose services it might be worth while to turn to account. At no period in the history of England had there been a greater scarcity of capable military leaders, and not often had capable leaders been more urgently needed. This young Wolfe was evidently ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... behalf, he began to feel signally nervous and uncomfortable about it. Of course he did not for one moment think of resigning it; but he was puzzled, and in his be-puzzlement retired within himself to concoct a plan of action. Having definitely failed in this attempt, he resolved to go off at once without preparation, and ask at the hotel for Miss Perzio, and then a round, unvarnished tale deliver. This resolution formed, he started at once and hurried, lest it should break by the way. ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... looking down at the tall head bent before her, with a curious sense of wonder that a look from her could make a strong man flush and pale, as he had done; and she was trying to concoct some friendly speech, when Frank, still fumbling at the knots, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... He was a masculine, strong, planning creature, whose force of will was able to crush that of my sister as easily as her forefinger might crush a troublesome midge. He was not blind or driveling; he could reason, plot, argue, concoct a systematic plan for revenge, and work it out fully and in detail; he was able at once to grasp the broadest bearing and the minute details of a position, and to act upon their intimations with crushing accuracy. He was calm, decided, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... plenty of time now to brood over her wrongs, and to concoct schemes of vengeance. Her father no longer required her care. He had passed from the frenzied ravings of insanity and delirium to ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... has been used repeatedly, and it is time it gave an account of itself. Criticism evidently demands balancing off one desire by another. One tendency gets criticized by running afoul of another tendency, one idea by conflicting with another idea. We concoct a fine joke to play on our friend; but then the thought comes to us that he may not take it kindly; we don't want to break with our friend, and so we regretfully throw our promising invention on the scrap heap. That is self-criticism, the {510} balancing off of one impulse by another. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... ejaculated the conductor. "These people have been fooling you. I'll separate those two drummers so that they won't eat each other—or concoct any more stories with which to worry you, Nick. Come on, young ladies. We'll ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... had been written by George Lewes, no one would ever have read them. Those who have read his book on Robespierre will have no doubt about my meaning. I am no idolater of George Eliot; but a man who could concoct such a crushing opiate about the most exciting occasion in history certainly did not write The Mill on the Floss. This is the first fact about the novel, that it is the introduction of a new and rather curious kind of art; and it has been found to be peculiarly feminine, from the first ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... I would give Ridsdale a chance. I asked him if he would lend me the exact sum I had already stolen from him, five thousand pounds, but he had heard rumours to my discredit and refused point-blank. I hated him for it. I went into my tent under the pretence of lying down, but in reality to concoct and, if possible, carry out my plot. I waited until the quietest hour before dawn, then I slipped out of my tent, waded into the water, approached the open window of the Countess's cabin, thrust in my hand, took out the case, and, going down the river about a quarter of a mile, ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... was an Addicks scheme. Had it been the plot of any other man with the brains, the nerve, and the lack of principle to concoct it and set it in motion, inevitably it would have been carried through to the designed conclusion. As it was, this is what happened: The lieutenant who had charge of the actual commission of the crime thoughtlessly ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... Three swindlers concoct a plot to acquire wealth by robbing the Emperor's daughter. To this end, one of them, Marudas, a former clerk, has forged a document, in which the Emperor of Byzantium asks for the hand of Agnes, daughter of Conrad, Emperor of Germany, who just approaching with his wife Gisela, is ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... Plunkett, a scion of the noble family of Fingal, who had been Archbishop of Armagh, since the death of Dr. O'Reilly, in exile, in 1669. Such had been the prudence and circumspection of Dr. Plunkett, during his perilous administration, that the agents of Lord Shaftesbury, sent over to concoct evidence for the occasion, were afraid to bring him to trial in the vicinage of his arrest, or in his own country. Accordingly, they caused him to be removed from Dublin to London, contrary to the laws and customs of ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... just take any old recipe for a party and mix up a debut for a girl, but it takes more time to concoct one for a widow, especially if it is for yourself. I spent all the rest of the day doing almost nothing and thinking until I felt lightheaded. Finally I had just about given up any idea of a blaze and had decided to leak out in general society as quietly as my clothes would let me, ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... other people. It seems to me quite essential to have some novelty in the collected volume, and, if possible, something that may excite a little discussion and remark. But decide for yourself and me; and if you conclude not to publish it in the magazine, I think I can concoct another article in season for the August number, if you wish. After the publication of the volume, it seems to me the public had better have no ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... halve its effect by drinking the weak wines only. The ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast, like that also of my friend, is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of digestion, which accept and concoct, without ever murmuring, whatever the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth by age. I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... did the Medicine Man concoct his lies so as to work upon the feelings of his people that meanwhile it seemed as though the Englishmen were in for a hot time. Indeed, so great was their wrath that knives were already reflecting the flames, and fingers were ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... speculations upon the visitor. "Some little spendthrift of the provinces, I wager," was his next conclusion. He instructed the senior stable-boy to go in and light three candles, and chalked up the guest for nine. He also began to concoct his bill. The household thenceforth took small liberties with ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... determination of Theodosius, she never ceased to lay traps for her son and to concoct unnatural plots against him, until she made him see that he must leave her and retire to Byzantium; for he could no longer endure the designs against his life. At the same time she made Theodosius ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... himself that he shows most clearly whether or not he has it. Some weeks ago an "Honorary Committee of thirty-four distinguished" (or, if you will, notorious) "Germans and a Board of Editors," eleven strong, gathered together to concoct an epoch-making fib, which, upon completion, was labelled "The Truth about Germany: Facts about the War", and was circulated, secretly but thoroughly, throughout the United States. The Forty-five Liars content themselves ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various

... believed that Karpin was lying, that he had murdered his partner. And I didn't believe that Jafe McCann's body had floated off into space. I was convinced that his body was still somewhere on this asteroid. Karpin had been forced to concoct a story about the body being lost because the appearance of the body would prove somehow that it had been murder and not accident. I was convinced of that, and now all I had to do was ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake

... the fire, I instantly put on some of the lynx meat to concoct some broth, which would, I knew, prove more efficacious than anything else I could give to my suffering companion, while I myself should be very ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston

... ingrateful food: and food alike those pure Intelligential substances require As doth your Rational; and both contain Within them every lower facultie 410 Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste, Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate, And corporeal to incorporeal turn. For know, whatever was created, needs To be sustaind and fed; of Elements The grosser feeds the purer, earth the sea, Earth and the Sea feed Air, the Air those ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... mountain shelf learned the desert as has been given to few whites to learn it. Besides what she learned from the men Rhoda became expert in camp work under Molly's patient teaching. She could kindle the tiny, smokeless fire. She could concoct appetizing messes from the crude food. She could detect good water from bad and could find forage for horses. The crowning pride of her achievements was learning to weave ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... Stapleton had poured into Dulcie's ear, and that Dulcie had innocently repeated to me. What most astonished me, however, was the rapidity with which Connie Stapleton and Jasmine Gastrell seemed able to concoct these ingenious and plausible narratives to account for anything and everything that happened on any occasion. A single discrepancy, for instance, in the story that Dulcie had just repeated to me would have brought the whole fabric of what appeared to be true statements—though ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... what they want, you little simpleton!" replied Mademoiselle Reine; "they probably want to concoct some of ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... "thanked whatever gods there be" that the girl was a good cook. She amazed the engineer by the variety of dishes she managed to concoct from the canned goods, the game that Stern shot, and fresh dandelion greens dug near the spring. These edibles, with the blackest of black coffee, soon had ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... person to satisfy himself regarding this story about Tondo. Finding that it was imaginary, he realized how little credence should be given to novelties brought from afar when some one had dared to concoct such things under his very eyes; and he therefore allowed the peace negotiations to proceed by the agencies ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... savory meals we used to concoct around the campfires, out of the rich materials collected during the day's ride! Such stews, such soups, such broils, such wonderful commixtures of things diverse in nature and antagonistic in properties such daring culinary experiments ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... could concoct no reason for remaining at home herself; her throat had been a trifle sore last night, but not even the memory of it could ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... will take our turns at the wheel and doing whatever else is to be done, relieving in the engine room when it is necessary. Of course we are short-handed, but I believe we can pull through. Perhaps, if we are fortunate enough to fall in with one of the enemy, we can borrow a few men. We can concoct some story that will pass muster and thus account for the loss of the ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake

... Revolution. This furnished him with an excuse for every kind of suspicion. He began to discover a revolutionary tendency in everything; to concoct terrible and unjust accusations, which made scores of people unhappy. Of course, such conduct could not fail in time to reach the throne. The kind-hearted Empress was shocked; and, full of the noble spirit which adorns crowned heads, she uttered words still engraven ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... priesthoods are another source of prevailing opinions concerning a life to come. Many nations, early and late, have been quite under the spiritual direction of priests, and have believed almost every thing they said. Numerous motives conspire to make the priest concoct fictions and exert his power to gain credence for them. He must have an alluringly colored elysium to reward his obedient disciples. When his teachings are rejected and his authority mocked, his class isolation and incensed pride find a natural satisfaction in threatening ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... hundred percent American mammoth was inspired by "The Ultra-Democratic, Anti-Federalist Cheese of Cheshire." This was in the summer of 1801 when the patriotic people of Cheshire, Massachusetts, turned out en masse to concoct a mammoth cheese on the village green for presentation to their beloved President Jefferson. The unique demonstration occurred spontaneously in jubilant commemoration of the greatest political triumph of a new ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... clears away. No unnecessary feelings of delicacy restrain the guests from reviling him seriatim as he removes the platters; and he retires to his own den and the enjoyment of a pound of boiled rice with undisturbed equanimity, leaving the others to boil the kettle and concoct egg-flip, which, together with wine, brandy, cigars, and pipes, enables the party to get through the afternoon. Some remain at the table, drinking out of wine-glasses, tumblers, or pannikins (every vessel which ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... each other mornings or afternoons at the Countess's. The evenings we spend at the theatre together, I in the box, he in the fauteuil once sacred to Romano. Every Saturday afternoon we concoct the repertoire for the week following, and he goes at once to secure tickets for the various entertainments I intend to ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... a fabric introduced among the Cherokees by an English trader of the name of Jeffreys, and which met with great favor. Her anklets, garters, and bracelets of silver "bell-buttons" tinkled merrily as she moved, for she had postponed her tears in the effort to concoct some supper from the various scraps left from the day's scanty food. The prefatory scraping of the coals together caused a sudden babbling of pleasure to issue from the wall, where, suspended on a projection of rock, was one of the curious upright cradles ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... time to do anything, has there? And, anyway, we usually concoct something at the last minute. I do love dressing up, ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... convincing a stolid British jury that you were acting in the interests of law and order in concealing your visit to No. 17 on the night of the murder? These fine-drawn speculations, however, are a sheer waste of breath. Suppose we concoct ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... shall come the time when even thou, Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek To break from us. Ah, many a dream even now Can they concoct to rout thy plans of life, And trouble all thy fortunes with base fears. I own with reason: for, if men but knew Some fixed end to ills, they would be strong By some device unconquered to withstand Religions and the menacings of seers. But now nor skill nor instrument ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... through our disguise and given the alarm before we had time or opportunity to overpower you. And I suppose I need not remind you of what your fate will be in that case. Therefore, think well over the matter, and do nothing that you may afterward regret. You should be easily able to concoct a story to account for your present plight that should satisfy those who may find you in the morning, without referring to us. And now we ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... authority and power can seriously be the object of the plots of any unarmed individual. Some talk as above and others say that we hear a great many lies and foolishly pay heed to many of them, believing them true. They assert that those who spy into and overhear doubtful matters concoct many falsehoods, some being influenced by enmity, others by wrath, some because they can get money from their foes, others because they can get no money from the same persons, and further, that they report not only the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... settled comfortably into ample arm-chairs round the fire; a huge silver bowl made its appearance on the table, and in a few minutes the white flame of the burning rum announced our host's agreeable intention 'to concoct a punch.' Piotr Fedoritch was a man of some taste; he was aware, for instance, that nothing has so fatal an influence on the fancy as the cold, steady, pedantic light of a lamp, and so he gave orders that only ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... striding, and to my dismay found there were just two acres, which discovery somewhat nonplussed me for a time; for to dig over two acres with a spade was no light task, and I took time to reflect and see if I could not concoct some easier means of turning the soil than ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... understand what this meant. And in spite of everything my heart grew light. Why should Israel Barnicoat concoct a story about my being married in Plymouth, and tell it at Pennington? Why should the story be used as a reason ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... headlong boy, I would have left your employ quietly in a few days, and had nothing more to do with you or yours. To save my daughter annoyance from his silly sentimentality I was compelled to come into this hated place wherein you concoct your schemes to suck dry our Southern blood. He asked for permission to pay his addresses to my daughter, and I forbade it. I told him that he could only do ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... disgust the plain-clothes man took the seat opposite them in the brougham, remarking as he did so that he had sense enough to get in out of the rain. They had no opportunity to concoct a plan for escape, and it was necessary for them to go on to the restaurant in Longacre Square. It occurred to Hugh that it would be timely to explain why they were not dressed for dinner. They were ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... isolated lodges, and in all tribes are forbidden to prepare food for anyone save themselves. It was believed that, were a menstruating woman to step astride a rifle, a bow, or a lance, the weapon would have no utility. Medicine men are in the habit of making a "protective" clause whenever they concoct a "medicine," which is to the effect that the "medicine" will be effective provided that no woman in this condition is allowed to approach the tent of the official ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... the remaining half of the omelette, making five-sixths in all. He glanced at her surreptitiously, in her fine dress, on which was not a single splash or stain. He might have known that so extraordinary and exotic a female person would not concoct anything so trite as a ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... extraordinary occasions, such as birthdays, namedays, and elections, the cooks of the old-fashioned landowners set to work to prepare some long-beaked birds, and, falling into the state of frenzy peculiar to Russians when they don't quite know what to do, they concoct such marvellous sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them. Yermolai was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where and how he pleased. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... I am making you circle because I cannot bring myself to let you enter it—here it is, in all its crudity; I am afraid of being, without my knowledge, the agent, the tool of those associations of false coiners who are known in criminal records to concoct schemes as complicated and mysterious as the one I am now involved in, in order to put into circulation the money they coin. In all such cases you will find great coming and going of accomplices; cheques drawn from a distance on the bankers in great ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... "herb-doctors" concoct an oil of manungal that in reality contains none of the ingredients of the seeds; it is simply cocoanut oil in which chips of the wood have been soaked. They use it in doses of 30-60 grams as a purgative, ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... play fast and loose. garble, gloss over, disguise, give a color to; give a gloss, put a gloss, put false coloring upon; color, varnish, cook, dress up, embroider; varnish right and puzzle wrong; exaggerate &c 549; blague^. invent, fabricate; trump up, get up; force, fake, hatch, concoct; romance &c (imagine) 515; cry 'wolf!'. dissemble, dissimulate; feign, assume, put on, pretend, make believe; play possum; play false, play a double game; coquet; act a part, play a part; affect &c 855; simulate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... dead! dead! Since then, what has been life to me I became suddenly old, I devoted myself to the sorceries of my race; still by an irresistible impulse I curse myself with an awful penance; still I seek the most noxious herbs; still I concoct the poisons; still I imagine that I am to give them to my hated rival; still I pour them into the phial; still I fancy that they shall blast her beauty to the dust; still I wake and see the quivering body, the foaming ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... teeth—would forever prevent concert in any scheme that looked to instigating servile revolt. If there be, in all our ranks, one, who—personal danger out of the question—would excite the slaves to insurrection and massacre, or who would not be swift to repeat the earliest attempt to concoct such an iniquity—I say, on my obligations as a man, he is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... is," said Cardenio; "and so uncommon and unexampled, that were one to attempt to invent and concoct it in fiction, I doubt if there be any wit keen enough to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... talks to me as if I were some old fogy with an estate of my own. I must concoct a letter and explain my views; and the more I can make him understand how things really are the better. I don't suppose he wants to see ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... purple, and of the native plum, so delicious when fully ripe in its three colors of black, white, and red. With these were plentiful flagons of ale, for already the housewives had laid down the first brewing of the native brand, and had moreover learned of the Indians to concoct a beverage akin to what is now called root beer, well flavored with sassafras, of which the Pilgrims had been glad to find good store since it brought a great price ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... alone so as not to attract attention. Our job was merely to locate the illicit stills and then militia would be sent to raid and destroy them, and the vile stuff they concoct. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... I have to see Mr. Duncan about the tin box, and concoct some schemes looking to the discovery of the person or persons concerned in its theft. Have there been any suspicious persons in the village during the last ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger

... frame, fashion, mold, shape, form, forge, fabricate, invent, construct, manufacture, concoct. Manifest, plain, obvious, clear, apparent, patent, evident, perceptible, noticeable, open, overt, palpable, tangible, indubitable, unmistakable. Many, various, numerous, divers, manifold, multitudinous, myriad, countless, innumerable. Meaning, significance, signification, import, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... It is extremely difficult for an impostor to concoct a narrative without making blunders that can easily be detected by a critical scholar. For example, the Book of Mormon, in the passage cited (see above, p. 3), in supremely blissful ignorance introduces oxen, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... in a big apron and went down to concoct her soup. Marilla had dressed herself and the twins, and looked more excited than she had ever been known to look before. At half past twelve the Allans and Miss Stacy came. Everything was going well but Anne was beginning to feel nervous. It was surely time for Priscilla ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... terrible scavenger of European bureaucracy.[5] Lowe, in very truth, discerned the stern reality of the Emperor's piercing words, and he felt the need of greater caution bearing down on him. He pondered over these grave developments as he journeyed back to Plantation House, there to concoct and dispatch with all speed a tale that would chill his confederates at St. Stephen's with horror, and give them a further opportunity of showing how wise they were in their plan of banishment and ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... looked at one another's faces when they met, each wondering whether the other was to be the victim of the fifth nameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain for their scrapbooks for materials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning paper was unfolded in many a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew when or where ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... —I concoct no intrigue. And when that does occur; when my feelings of respect, of esteem, of friendship for a young person endowed with virtues and graces, change into a sweeter feeling: at all events, if my position compels me to conceal my inclinations from the world, I shall have no ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... perfumers concoct a great variety of these substances, which being put into silk bags, or ornamental envelopes, find a ready sale, being both good to smell and economical as a means of imparting an agreeable odor to linen and clothes as they lie in drawers. The following formula shows their composition. ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... and who are permitted—not to put on too fine a point—to do the dirty work of cleansing the modern mind of its gross Augean Sadduceeism. The only theory promotive of self-complacency that I could ever concoct, as to why I was put through such an ordeal, is, that I was suffered for my own and the general benefit to see the dangers of necromancy, and especially the awful psychodynamical methods used by spirits to obsess and gradually craze human brains. I, at least, received a scare ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... to the Association in Weimar, and endeavored to obtain the Grand Duke's active intervention...But at this distance I cannot, for the time being, accomplish anything. My gracious Master has no leisure for lectures on artistic subjects that I might concoct in the Eternal City; and if I tried to enlighten him in any such way his first and only word in reply would be "Why does not Liszt come back, in place of writing such allotria?" [Observations beside the mark.]- -A short time ago I received from him a very kind, monitory ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... that which Nature has separated. She has addressed herself, in one part, wholly to the mind; there is nothing for us to eat but bilberries, nothing to rest upon but rock, and we have no business to concoct picnics, and bring cheese, and ale, and sandwiches, in baskets, to gratify our beastly natures, where Nature never intended us to eat (if she had, we needn't have brought the baskets). In the other ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... said once more, slowly, "I don't think there's any hope in all these wild plans of playing off superstition against superstition. To my mind there are only two chances left for us now. One is to concoct with the Frenchman some means of getting away by canoe from the island—I'd rather trust the sea than the tender mercy of these dreadful people; the other is to keep a closer lookout than ever for the merest chance ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... is ten o'clock, and besides I have a great plan to unfold to you, a plot we are going to concoct. You know that we breakfast ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... yet, Rege I must pay a visit to Mrs. O'Flannigan, then there is the hospital, and the dispensary, and I promised to concoct a bed for a poor fellow in the last stages of heart trouble. But I will ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... of the Levant began falling into the glasses like ink crowned with a circle of rubies. The old man poured it forth with a prodigal hand. "Drink away, boys; in your land you don't have anything like this...." At other times he would concoct his famous "refrescoes," smiling with the satisfaction of an artist at seeing the sensuous grin that began flashing across ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... to do what might be in her power for the victim whom she saw in her former husband's grip. An opportunity soon occurred when she met the old physician stooping in quest of roots to concoct ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... come down to us in our blood and in our institutions. The vices thus transmitted cloud our intelligence. We fail in practical affairs when we ignore the conditions of action and we fail in works of imagination when we concoct what is fantastic and without roots ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... vacant—I intend to become a candidate; what I want immediately is a spirited address to the electors. I have been endeavouring to frame one all the morning, but in vain; I have, therefore, recourse to you as a person of infinite genius; pray, my dear friend, concoct me one by the morning!" "What you require of me," I replied, "is impossible; I have not the gift of words; did I possess it I would stand for the county myself, but I can't speak. Only the other day I attempted to make ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Europe is quite indifferent to Italy's behavior. The Chancelleries, which will go to enormous trouble and take enormous risks and concoct alliances and counter-alliances when there is territory to be seized, remain cold when crimes of this sort are committed. And they remain cold because they believe that Turkey alone is concerned. They do not see that Italy has attacked ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... upon the book, and wondered how it was to be presented. My heart failed me; but I determined not to be such a fool as to come away without having made the attempt. It was useless waiting for an opportunity, and useless trying to concoct a speech for the occasion. The more plainly and naturally the thing was done, the better, I thought; so I just looked out of the window to screw up my courage, and then pulled out the book, turned round, and put it into her ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... have to make a raid on our mothers' attics and also on the stores in town that have their goods come in big boxes, and I imagine we shall be able to concoct things that will 'do,' though they may ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... rifled at Como. As to Mrs. Greene's assertion that all the boxes had been put into the small boat, I thought nothing of it. The people at Bellaggio could not have known which box to steal, nor had there been time to concoct the plan in carrying the boxes up to the hotel. I came at last to this conclusion, that the missing trunk had either been purloined and carried on to Como,—in which case it would be necessary to lose no time in going after it; or that it had been put out of sight in some ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope

... too wary to make any reply. He glanced round rapidly, endeavouring to concoct some plan for gaining an entrance. Stooping down, he discovered that the key was turned so that it remained exactly in the centre of the keyhole, anything pushed against it would send it out on the other side. "I believe that bathroom key fits this door," he muttered, and tiptoed a little ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... scaffold, erected in the Palace Court, Westminster, as he was on the day following at the Cross on Cheapside, and at both these places he read a confession of his imposture. Notwithstanding this additional disgrace, no sooner was he again under lock and key, than his restless spirit induced him to concoct another plot for liberty and the crown. Insinuating himself into the intimacy of four servants of Sir John Digby, lieutenant of the Tower, by their means he succeeded in opening a correspondence with the Earl of Warwick, who was confined ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... be coagulated there as well as in the bladder, if all the liquor were conveyed through the weasand then into the belly. But it is probable at the weasand robs the windpipe of a sufficient quantity of liquor as it is going down, and useth it to soften and concoct the meat. And therefore its excrement is never purely liquid; and the lungs, disposing of the moisture, as of the breath, to all of the parts that want it, deposit the superfluous portion in the bladder. And I am sure that this is a much more probable ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... about the Poems. They have poetic subjects, ideas, similes: they are full of poetic yearning, crowded with poetic imagery; they have everything poetry needs, except poetry. They have not the poet's hall-mark. They are imitation poems, like the forged "ancient masters" they concoct at Florence, or the Tanagra statuettes they make in Germany. With all her consummate literary gifts and tastes, George Eliot never managed to write a poem, and never could be brought to see that the verses she wrote were not poems. It was an exaggeration of the defect that mars ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... Mr. Burtis of the Cattle Club,—such charming dancers these,—should sometimes, indeed frequently, suggest just a little bite, just a hot bird and a cold bottle at Cresswell's? Such delicious salads as he could concoct out of even canned shrimp or lobster, such capital oysters as came to him, fresh, three times a week from Baltimore, such delicious champagne, so carefully iced. What possible harm could there be in Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Watson's going together, mind you, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... Omnium, He was born to be a lord lieutenant and a Knight of the Garter. But not the less on account of his apathy, or rather quiescence, was it thought that Gatherum Castle was a fitting place in which politicians might express to each other their present hopes and future aims, and concoct together little plots in a half-serious and half-mocking way. Indeed it was hinted that Mr. Supplehouse and Harold Smith, with one or two others, were at Gatherum for this express purpose. Mr. Fothergill, too, was a noted politician, and was supposed to know ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... the good people that they can no longer remember their petty griefs, or unless he manage with rare tact to pass lightly over the sore points, and to anoint them by a careful hand with such healing salves as he can concoct out of his pastoral charities. Mr. Johns had neither art nor eloquence, as commonly understood; yet he effected a blending of all interests by the simple, earnest gravity of his character. He ignored all angry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... believed in him. But I knew very well that Corridon had betrayed that Chester affair, and so did Captain M'Afferty; and if I had met him at that time in Liverpool I don't think it would be him I would inform of our plans. I only want to show, my lord, how easily an informer can concoct a scene. I never in my life attended that meeting that Corridon swore to. All his depositions with respect to me is false. I did meet him twice in Dublin, but not on the occasions he states. I wish to show how an informer can concoct a story that ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... might have been good, by his preposterous dealing with it. Lord Hartington said (as indeed did John Bright) the very truth, that the Liberal Party cannot so disown its own traditions, and its wisest principles, as to allow an individual, however justly honoured, to concoct secretly from his old and trusted comrades, a vast, complicated, and far-reaching settlement and make himself sole initiator of it (as I have kept saying, reduce Parliament to a machine for saying ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... the quiet, almost listless woman could concoct dainty feasts for these illustrious people out of her poverty; for they were illustrious in their day. Were the wit and poesy and knowledge the successive desserts, and bright gossip the sparkle of the Barmecide wine? She thought of the little cottage, when she read of Madame ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... time on Mrs. Clyde was more observant of the boy, and the moment she saw the first signs of fatigue she would make some tactful suggestion for his benefit, relieving him of the necessity of saying he was tired, yet bringing about the possibility of rest. And often with her own hands she would concoct some nourishing dish, hardly so piquant as Gertrudis' red-hot creations, but rather more healthful for a growing boy. Neither she nor Blue Bonnet voiced their fears to the other girls nor to any of the men, but, with a silent understanding, ministered ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... included also Hasilrig, Whitlocke, Marten, Neville, Fleetwood, Sydenham, Salway, Scott, Chief Justice St. John, Downes, Strickland, and Sir Gilbert Pickering. What a work for a Committee! It was predetermined, of course, that the Constitution they were to concoct was to be one suitable for a Free Commonwealth or Republic, without King, Single Person of any other denomination, or House of Lords; but, even within that prelimitation, what a range of possibilities! Nor were the Committee to be perplexed only by the varieties of their own inventiveness ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... hopelessness of their cause, they sink to the depth of infamy by establishing among us secret orders, the aim of which is to educate men of base passions to deeds of dark dishonor and unmeasured infamy; men who receiving such instruction will concoct schemes for the burning of cities, for the liberation of their prisoners; and, lastly, they have sunk so low in the mire of dishonor, impelled by savage ferocity and hate, that it would appear folly, if not downright criminality ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... had a couple of days elapsed when public curiosity was whetted by a few startling headlines, such as the halfpenny evening papers alone know how to concoct. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... said, "insists on a personal interview with de Naquet, who does not exist, our entire scheme falls to the ground. Nay, worse! for I shall be driven to concoct some impossible explanation for the non-appearance of that worthy, and heaven only knows if I shall succeed in wholly allaying my ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the fine salaries they demand. Nor are these sent to minister to the sick, nor to the working people, nor to the poor. It would seem that even since before the time of Lucullus their business has been mainly to invent and concoct dishes that would appeal to perverted tastes ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... you I was glad to get his letter at Leith," said he. "I was thinking for the two days previous how I could best concoct a telegram to myself at Leith in order that I might have some excuse ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... standing with her face hidden behind her hands. Old Peter, always very bad at lying, stood silent, not knowing what consolation to concoct. The shadow passed, and Tommy's ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... excellent man above the rest, and so to follow him till he grow very he, or so like him as the copy may be mistaken for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what it takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds with an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn all into nourishment. Not to imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey, work it into one relish and savour; make our imitation sweet; observe how the best ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... to designate in one word the profession and calling of Colonel Prowley of Foxden, I should say he was a Correspondent. Of course I do not mean a regular newspaper-correspondent, paid to concoct letters from Paris in the office of the "Foxden Regulator"; nor yet the amateur ditto, who is never tired of making family-tours to the White Mountains. But rather was he a gentleman, with an immense epistolary acquaintance all over the country, whose main business ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... be so generally acknowledged as not to suffer contamination from the daring aspersion of a society of men scattered throughout the world, who, under religious habits, cover irreligious minds; who perpetrate crimes as they concoct slanders—not against, but in conformity with, their own maxims? No one can blame me, surely, for having destroyed the confidence which you might otherwise have inspired, since it is far more just ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... of the day, and an enemy of Pope. The implication is that if Pope will not grant Pitholeon's request, the latter will accept Curll's invitation and concoct a new libel against ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... recounted how she had consented to hide the famous gun piece brought to her one day by Vagualame; how she had helped the bandit to concoct the daring plan by which this piece was to be handed to a foreign power; how she had disguised herself as a priest in order to take Corporal Vinson to Dieppe. She did not know, at first, that she ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... willing that a property qualification should be exacted. Require, if you will, that each woman voter shall possess a gold watch, and keep it wound and up to time—a clothes wringer and a sewing machine; that she shall be able to concoct a pudding, sew on a button, and, at a pinch, keep a boarding-house ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... behaviour of nature to story-tellers, of whom there are not more than seven perfect in the great ocean of human writers, others, although friendly, have been of opinion that, at a time when everyone went about dressed in black, as if in mourning for something, it was necessary to concoct works either wearisomely serious or seriously wearisome; that a writer could only live henceforward by enshrining his ideas in some vast edifice, and that those who were unable to construct cathedrals and castles of which neither stone nor cement could be moved, would die ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... as if we ought to have company at every meal. It did not seem right to sit down to food as good as that, with just the family present. And it was such fun to bring home unexpected guests, and to know that Mrs. Willard could concoct a dream of a dish while the guests were removing their hats; and I not having to miss any of the conversation from being in the kitchen. Every other Sunday night we had the whole Department and their ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... helped Tommy by her helplessness. There is reason to believe that once in London, when she had need of a new hat, but money there was none, Tommy, looking very defiant, studied ladies' hats in the shop-windows, brought all his intellect to bear on them, with the result that he did concoct out of Elspeth's old hat a new one which was the admired of O.P. Pym and friends, who never knew the name of the artist. But obviously he could not take proper care of himself, and there is a kind of woman, of whom Grizel was one, to whose breasts this helplessness makes an unfair appeal. ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... set on a kettle, dragged blankets out of cupboards and piled them upon his mother. Then he found a pillow-case, aired it until the thing scorched, inserted a pillow, and placed it beneath the patient's head. His subsequent step was to rummage dried marshmallows out of a drawer, concoct a sort of dismal brew, and inflict a cup upon the sick woman. Doctor Parsons still tarrying, Will went out of doors, knocked a brick from the fowl-house wall, brought it in, made it nearly red hot, then wrapped it up in an old rug and applied ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... being ordered about now). Halfway there great alarm seizes him, for on attempting to say over the message to himself, to be sure that he has it quite right, he discovers he has forgotten it. He pauses, nervous and excited; cogitates as to whether it will be safe for him to concoct a message of his own, weighs anxiously the chances—supposing that he does so—of being found out. Suddenly, to his intense surprise and relief, every word of what he was told to say comes back to him; and he hastens on, repeating it over and over to himself as he walks, lest it should ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... emphatic. One of them, indeed, who appeared to have once been a jovial seaman, intimated that he would be glad to take as many more teaspoonfuls of "that same" as Bellew chose to administer! but the trapper, paying no attention to the suggestion, proceeded to open his store of provisions and to concoct, in his tin tea-kettle, a species of thin soup. While this was simmering, he began to remove the blankets with which Bob Smart ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne

... your arguments and concoct your pretty devices of words, and work yourself into a great heat in the speaking of them; but if you do not believe what you say you are only a play-actor after all—a poor mummer reciting ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... they used to concoct it in that bar, was generally enough for most of our customers, but he, before he left, contrived to put away three; also contriving, during the same short space of time, to inform 'Mam'sel Marie' that Paris, since he had ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome

... this information, proceeded to concoct a legend. She belonged, he said, to a great family in Russia. She had left her home "for reasons which the Journal was not at liberty ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... a pancake," continued Jack—"the biggest and best pancake which the skilful hand of this cook can concoct." ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... for the night, and then the veteran set to work to concoct one of these very remarkable programmes for which his name had become more or less famous in different parts of the country. It is true he was considerably perplexed over the difficulties that confronted him. Perplexities, difficulties, and Handy were ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville

... catarrhal sore throats. French herbalists direct that when fresh, and recently crushed, the fruit shall be applied on the face at night for heat spots and freckles by the sun. From the juice, with lemon, sugar, and water, they concoct a most agreeable drink, Bavaroise a la grecque; also they employ the roots and leaves against passive hemorrhages, and ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... the trouser description, taking in the feet at the same time, would very well answer her needs, and this I was requested to originate, pattern and all. Whatever should I do? I could more easily have climbed Mt. McKinley! If she had told me to concoct a new pudding, write an essay, or make a trip to Kotzebue, I should not have been so much dismayed; but to make a garment like that, out of "whole cloth," so to speak, from my own design—that was ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... favours, from Sir Stamford Raffles, and which, though bound in honour not to make known, he means to leave to his son by will, under certain injunctions. His cookery of a "French rabbit," provided the claret be first-rate, is superb; and on very particular occasions, he condescends to know how to concoct a bowl of punch, especially champagne punch, for the which he has a formula in rhyme, the poetry of which never, as is its happy case, losing sight of correctness and common-sense, comes, as well as its subject ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various

... coast, and for whom the Squire had a hatred he always made known in his decisions. To Belhash the Americans were all of a flock, they would steal, smuggle, take a Nova Scotiaman's eyeteeth out, and, what he most hated, concoct some republican plot to overthrow his darling government. 'Now,' said the Squire to me, one day, 'I have no bad opinion of you individually, Smooth; for, by the righteous, you're a sort of clever feller—an exception to Yankees in general—nor do I ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... "Fool, imbecile, idiot, that I am!" he thought. "He was waiting to be questioned about this circumstance. He is so wonderfully shrewd that, when he saw me take the dust, he divined my intentions; and since then he has managed to concoct this story—a plausible story enough—and one that any jury ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... who, lost in the crowd and confusion, here find ample opportunities for carrying on their nefarious practices. Their common haunts are the "sly grog-shops" which spring up like weeds on all sides. Here they rendezvous, and concoct those deeds of darkness which have given the colony such an ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... the doctor said so when I had it; and whatever I shall do with all of you on my hands at once, I can't imagine." There is always a great deal to do in times of sickness, so this was a very busy day. Lota had to make broth for Stella, to concoct medicine out of water and syringa-stems, to prepare dinner for the other children, and hear all their lessons, for of course education must not be neglected let who will have measles! Pocahontas was unusually troublesome. Imogene cried over the spelling lesson; and altogether ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... such lust in Herod? Was she a monster, a worse than vampire as she is represented by Wilde and Strauss? Was she an "Israelitish grisette" as Pougin called the heroine of the opera which it took one Italian (Zanardini) and three Frenchmen (Milliet, Gremont, and Massenet) to concoct? No wonder that the brain of Saint-Saens reeled when he went to hear "Herodiade" at its first performance in Brussels and found that the woman whom he had looked upon as a type of lasciviousness and monstrous cruelty had become metamorphosed into a penitent Magdalen. Read the ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... latter were the Chinese t'an, 'to extend'; or t'ang, Cantonese dialect for 'Chinese.' It was suggested that probably some American or Englishman who knew a little Chinese or Cantonese, wanting a name for the puzzle, might concoct one out of one of these words and the European ending 'gram.' I should say the name 'tangram' was probably invented by an American some little time before 1864 and after 1847, but I cannot find it in print before ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... times was very mild compared with what it is now. Such a thing as a common highwayman was almost unknown. The brigands of that period—the Tulisanes of the north and the Pulajanes of the south—went in parties who took days to concoct a plan for attacking a country residence, or a homestead, for robbery and murder. The assault was almost invariably made at night, and the marauders lived in the mountains, avoiding the highroads and the well-known tracks. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... plot. A few days later Steele found another occasion to mention Button's. His plan this time was to concoct a letter from one Hercules Crabtree, who offered his services as lion-catcher to the Guardian, and incidentally mentioned that he already possessed a few trophies which, he wished to present to Button's ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... for the line of my musket, as I had expected. But by some unlucky chance it didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in the hurry, any good reason for firin' off my piece. But they say necessity's the mother of invention; so just as I was giving it up and clinchin' my teeth to bide the worst o't and take what should come, a sudden thought came into my head. I stepped out before the rest, seemin' ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... as it was masculine, she would have taken him and turned him inside out in a very short time; for one who would bear to see his love look coldly on him rather than endure a minute's false estimate of his character, and who could yet stoop to concoct a vile plot, must either be mad or simulating the baseness for some reason or other. She perceived no motive for the latter, and she held him to be sound in the head, and what was spoken from the mouth she accepted. Perhaps, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... said that "fine words butter no parsnips"? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce. As the immortal Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler. Nay, we know ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fishes. In my harem there were always good musicians who played dance tunes. When I went out I enjoyed nature or hunted birds and fished. When I came home, I enjoyed playing the lute or reading; I also liked to concoct an elixir of life and to take breathing exercises,[3] because I did not want to die, but wanted one day to lift myself to the skies, like an immortal genius. Suddenly I was drawn back into the official career, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... will thank you for a slice of lamb, with lemon and pepper. Before I proceed with this discussion,—Vin de Grave, Mr. Skionar,—I must interpose one remark. There is a set of persons in your city, Mr. Mac Quedy, who concoct, every three or four months, a thing, which they call a review: a sort of sugar- plum manufacturers ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... on the way down-town, that Mr. Prime would doubtless make some inquiries as to my previous history and present circumstances, and that I must go a step further and concoct some rational story in order to carry out my deception successfully. I was correct in my surmise. He received me with kindness, and showing me into his private office asked a few direct questions, which I answered ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... her tell her her fortune by means of cards, predict the future, brew potions for her which would make her husband faithful, teach her spells which would cause flies and other vermin to vanish, to concoct balsamic cakes to keep the skin white—in fact, she hung upon every word the old ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... Turk nor Tugendheim knows the whole truth, but if they get together they might concoct a very plausible, ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... consequence. While many extol in vague terms of admiration the deep "spiritual insight" of the founders of Christianity, they do not trouble themselves to explain how it is that this exquisite illumination left them to concoct that huge mass of legendary follies and mystical doctrines which constitute, according to the modern "spiritualism," the bulk of the records of the New Testament, and by which its authors have managed to mislead the world; ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... as to how the quaggas were to be captured. This was the first point to be settled; and the four—Von Bloom himself, Hans, Hendrik, and Swartboy,—sat deliberately down to concoct some plan of effecting ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... converses by the book, and does not talk, but quote. If he can but screw in something that an ancient writer said, he believes it to be much better than if he had something of himself to the purpose. His brain is not able to concoct what it takes in, and therefore brings things up as they were swallowed, that is, crude and undigested, in whole sentences, not assimilated sense, which he rather affects; for his want of judgment, like want of health, renders his appetite ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various



Words linked to "Concoct" :   create by mental act, idealise, invent, ready, prepare, cookery, make, cook up, fabricate, cooking, make up, amalgamate, create mentally, idealize, preparation, commix, mingle, cook, mix, unify, fix, manufacture



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