Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Destructive   /dɪstrˈəktɪv/   Listen
Destructive

adjective
1.
Causing destruction or much damage.  "Destructive criticism"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Destructive" Quotes from Famous Books



... was perpetually a hero in the field and a ragamuffin in the times of peace. Of course he was always arrayed against authority, and now—being fond of his galonne with that curious doglike, deathless attachment that these natures, all reckless, wanton, destructive, and mischievous though they may be, so commonly bestow—he muttered a terrible curse ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... worst was an indication that the mania for calculating in and out of season would lead to the catastrophe destructive of his happiness. Emma could not bear that. Without asking herself whether it could be possible that Tony knew the secret, or whether she would have laid it bare, her sympathy for Redworth revolted at the exposure. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... by hand, doing good execution. The six-pounder was now brought around by Lieutenant Wilson, who, at the distance of two hundred yards, poured a heavy fire of grape into the town. The enemy, during all of this time, kept up a destructive fire upon our troops. About half-past three o'clock, the six-pounder was run up within sixty yards of the church, and after ten rounds, one of the holes which had been cut with the axes was widened into a practicable breach. The storming party, among whom were Lieutenant ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... this way they drive the most active Comrades out of the meeting hall, as these Comrades get disgusted with the tactics pursued and leave the meeting. Then they drag the meeting on to all hours of the night until those left, having no opposition, carry all their destructive actions through, and this they call democratic decision for the Comrades of the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... iron storm began all too soon, and proved to the full as destructive as had been feared. Churches and houses were laid in ruins, and disastrous fires broke out, consuming others. The unhappy occupants of the Lower Town fled from the smoking ruins, some to take refuge with friends in the Upper Town, ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Thomas Gilfoyle were officially welded into one. They had received the full franchise each of the other's body, soul, brain, time, temper, liberty, leisure, admiration, education, past, future, health, wealth, strength, weakness, virtue, vice, destructive power, procreative power, parental gift or lack, domestic or bedouin genius, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... Britain declined his interference, but proposed direct negotiations with the United States. The commissioners appointed, however, did not meet till August, and, meanwhile, the war became more deadly and mutually destructive ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... troops was the deciding factor: "the English muskets were all new, the ammunition fresh; and whether from the peculiar construction of the muskets, the physical strength and coolness of the men, or all combined, {128} the English fire is the most destructive known" (Napier). ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... habits are so well known as not to detain us, must prove very prejudicial to the well being of the colony. This moth is in turn infested by an Ichneumon fly (Microgaster nephoptericis, Plate I, Figs. 3, 3a) which must prove quite destructive. ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... which consumption developed with extraordinary facility at the slightest contagion, he had come to think only of invigorating this soil impoverished by heredity; to give it the strength to resist the parasites, or rather the destructive leaven, which he had suspected to exist in the organism, long before the microbe theory. To give strength—the whole problem was there; and to give strength was also to give will, to enlarge the brain by fortifying ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... round has become a vulgar and an intolerable nuisance among us second-class gentry with our eight hundred a year—there or thereabouts;—doubly intolerable as being destructive of our natural comforts, and a wretchedly vulgar aping of men with large incomes. The Duke of Omnium and Lady Hartletop are undoubtedly wise to have everything handed round. Friends of mine who occasionally dine at such houses tell me that they ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... seen him as Petit Patou, all might have been well, in spite of Elodie who had been somewhat destructive of romantic glamour. But the visit to the circus, I concluded, finished the business. Beneath the painted monster in green silk tights the dignified soldier whom she loved was eclipsed for ever. And then a thousand commonplace social realities ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... understand and say, 'Not all were asleep in the night of our ancestors!' The mystery of these curious characters will save my work from the ignorance of men, just as the mystery of strange rites has saved many truths from the destructive ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... habitual, it takes on an offensive and degrading character. The intimate approach, to give genuine joy, must be a concession, a feat of persuasion, a victory; once it loses that character it loses everything. Such a destructive conversion is effected by the average monogamous marriage. It breaks down all mystery and reserve, for how can mystery and reserve survive the use of the same hot water bag and a joint concern ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... than anything that temporarily divides them and sets them in opposition to each other. If they affect art, they say that the decay in artistic expression is due to the decay in ethics, that art when shut away from the human interests and from the great mass of humanity is self-destructive. They tell their elders with all the bitterness of youth that if they expect success from them in business or politics or in whatever lines their ambition for them has run, they must let them consult all of humanity; that they must let them find ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... digging. However, in this case, I am inclined to give Colonel Roosevelt the benefit of the doubt for the reason that if nature had not created an enemy to check their increase, the prairie dog would now over-run the country, as they multiply faster than any known animal, and are very destructive to the farm. The Government, through its agents, have destroyed thousands every year in the West by distributing poisoned grain. Last, but not least, of the life of the plains was the Pole Cat. Conscious of his own ability to protect himself, he would often invade the ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... for an interval of time, longer or shorter. But he thought it was only a sort of sickness; he did not know that during those intervals his acts were the acts of a madman; never violent, aggressive, or harmful to any one; never destructive. It was piteous to see how in these intervals his delusions were always shaped by the bitterest experiences of his life. Sometimes he fancied that the Americans were pursuing him, or that they were carrying off Ramona, and he was pursuing them. At such times he would ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... of wo in the Emerald Isle, to seek relief in the industry or charity of Great Britain; and that all the great towns in the west of the island should be overwhelmed with pauperism and typhus fever, in consequence of their being the first to be reached by the destructive flood; although it was hardly to be expected that a hundred and thirty-two thousand applications for relief were to be made to the parochial authorities of Liverpool in a single week; and that they returned thanks to Heaven when the influx of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... ogresses, witches, and the like; besides, common to all peoples, a host of werwolves and vampires, giants and dwarfs, witches, ogres, ogresses, fairies, evil spirits of air, water, land, inimical to childhood and destructive of its peace and enjoyment. The names, lineage, and exploits of these may be read in Ploss, Grimm, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... tremendous difficulties encountered in the construction of this machine has already been given in preceding pages, hence we shall not now enlarge on the subject, except to note in passing that the terribly destructive effects of the spark of self-induction and the arcing following it were first manifested in this powerful machine, but were finally overcome by Edison after a strenuous application of his powers to the solution ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... which medicine has hardly yet entered upon the solution. Prominent among them is that of cancer. Little as we now know of the real nature of that disease, we know quite as much of it as we knew but a few years ago concerning other diseases equally destructive and far more prevalent, which, however, we have now practically mastered. Who can say that we shall not triumph over cancer while the Twentieth Century is still young? Our final triumph ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... attacked. The defence was as fierce as the assault, but everywhere victory rested upon the white banner of loyalty. Nitta's army pressed resistlessly forward, and the Hojo found themselves defeated and their army destroyed. Fire completed what the sword had begun, destructive flames attacked the frame dwellings of the city, and in a few hours the great capital of the shoguns and their powerful regents was a waste ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... the future of India, and to avert it will require the utmost effort of the people. They have not only to meet the economic crisis but also to protect the ideals of ancient Aryan civilisation from the destructive forces that are threatening it.... There is a danger of regarding the mechanical efficiency as the sole end of life; there is also the opposite danger of a life of dreaming, bereft of struggle and activity, the degenerating into parasitic habits of dependence. ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... to blink the fact that Slavery is the root of the rebellion; and so War is proving itself an Abolitionist, whoever else is. Practically speaking, the verdict is already entered, and the doom of the destructive institution pronounced, in the popular mind. Either the Secessionists will show fight handsomely, or they will fail to do so. If they fail to do it, they are the derision of the world forever,—since no one ever spares a beaten bully,—and thenceforward their social system must go down of itself. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... According to his conclusions, then, all that we term metaphysical science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied insight of reason into that which is in truth borrowed from experience, and to which habit has given the appearance of necessity. Against this assertion, destructive to all pure philosophy, he would have been guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes in its universality. For he would then have perceived that, according to his own argument, there likewise ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... small in size but great in destructive power, is a force to be reckoned with by the most powerful battle-ship. No defense has yet been devised that will ward off the deadly sting of the submarine's torpedo, delivered as it is from beneath, out of the sight and hearing of the ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... comparatively small mass of iron descending with great velocity from a considerable height—the velocity being in excess and the mass deficient, and calculated, like the momentum of a cannon-ball, rather for destructive than impulsive action. In the case of the steam pile-driver, on the contrary, the whole weight of a heavy mass is delivered rapidly upon a driving-block of several tons weight placed directly over the head of the pile, the weight never ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... heathen alone, since religion is, in its essence, a private and individual matter? Beautiful pictures, accordingly, are suggested to us of the domestic peace and happiness reigning amongst the tribes of Central Africa until the arrival of the Preaching Friar with his destructive dogmas. We are bidden to observe the high doctrines and the ascetic life of the Brahmin, the significant symbolism of the Hindu, and the philosophical attitudes of the Confucian. All these various relationships to God are, we are informed, ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... heerd it all, an' de Guv'ment ken see plain enough you's no carpet-bag jobber, an' ef a gen'elman like you tes'ify, an' say you was enemies—an' you did pass shots count er dat flag, how's dey gwine talk any more about dis destructive disloyal business? How ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a maximum of 64 drops a day but was forced to abandon his experiment at that point on account of the unpleasant symptoms induced—loss of appetite, great weakness and muscular pains. His deduction was that the plant contained a "destructive and irritant principle." The experiment is of interest as demonstrating the maximum dose of ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... the tension a little by playing safely through the over, and scoring a couple of twos off it. And when Ellerby not only survived the destructive de Freece's second over, but actually lifted a loose ball on to the roof of the scoring-hut, the cloud began perceptibly to lift. A no-ball in the same over sent up the first ten. Ten for two was not good; but it was considerably better than ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to account for the blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's cause and people in these poor nations."[33:2] It was such men who, on December 6th, 1648, to save the kingdom from a new war or from a peace destructive of everything they had fought for,[33:3] purged the House of Commons of its "malignant" members; and who cut the Gordian knot of the difficulties that beset the nation by bringing the King, who seemed to them to stand in the way of any and ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,' he replied. 'When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal dissolution—then the snakes and swans and lotus—marsh-flowers—and Gudrun and Gerald—born in the process of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... with my umbrella, the only semblance of a stick within reach, I descended on a tour of investigation. Opening the larder door I beheld six huge dogs, and devastation reigning supreme. These dogs are half wolf in breed, and very destructive, as I can testify. When I wildly brandished my umbrella, which could not possibly have harmed them, they jumped through the closed window leaving not a pane of glass behind. This, I suppose, is merely a nocturnal interlude ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... facts of the case—a prognosis which is essentially a sentence of serious import in respect to the future usefulness and value of the animal. For no disease, if we except those acute inflammatory attacks upon vital organs to which the patient succumbs at once, is more destructive to the usefulness and value of a horse than a confirmed spavin. Serious in its inception, serious in its progress, it is an ailment which, when once established, becomes a fixed condition which there is ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... Proper does not present to us so much as a single specimen. To obtain any idea of them, we must quit the mother country, and betake ourselves to the colonies, especially to those island colonies which have been less subjected than the mainland to the destructive ravages of barbarous conquerors, and the iconoclasm of fanatical populations. It is especially in Cyprus that we meet with extensive remains, which, if not so instructive as might have been wished, yet give us some important and ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... punishment on account of the offence against the king; and Mr. Attorney-General for the queen, to pray the court it would not be so far forgetful of her majesty's rights and dignity, as to establish a precedent so destructive of both. I caught a glimpse of hope glancing about the eyes of my brother Downright, who, waiting just long enough to let the two advocates warm themselves over these points of law, arose and moved the court ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... other account? Mr. Gilmore? Indeed, indeed, I am not thinking of him. He is out of my mind altogether. I say it because I know it is impossible that you and your cousin should be married, and because such an engagement is destructive ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... rounds in a camp or garrison, to march about and observe what passes."—Webster's Amer. Dict., 8vo. "Marshall; the chief officer of arms, one who regulates rank and order."—See Bailey's Dict. "Weevill; a destructive grub that gets among corn."—See Rhym. Dict. "It much excells all other studies and arts."—Walker's Particles, p. 217. "It is essentiall to all magnitudes, to be in one place."—Perkins's Works, p. 403. "By nature I was thy vassall, but Christ hath redeemed me."—Ib., p. 404. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... in which the Black Prince held aloof after the Speedy had bore up and was running down in the track of her enemies, sheering first upon one quarter of le Cerf, and then on the other, pouring in a close and evidently a destructive fire. At length Sir Hotham Ward bore up, and went off before the wind also, moving three feet to the Speedy's two, in consequence of being able to carry all three of her top-sails. It would seem that Monsieur Menneval was not satisfied with the manner ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... struggled for a week with her makeshift kitchen outfit, small in the beginning but greatly reduced by her destructive outburst on the night of their arrival, he had, without saying a word to her of his intentions, driven over to Prentice and laid in an entire new stock of crockery and several badly needed pots ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... all young things, he was foolish. He liked to roll about, and was often destructive—he would gnaw the nets and skins, break the traps, and lick up the gunpowder. Then Demid punished him, whereupon Makar would turn on his heel, make foolish ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... a destructive attack upon the mount in the early years of the thirteenth century and caused much damage to the buildings, Jourdain the abbot of that time planned out "La Merveille," which comprises three storeys of the most remarkable Gothic halls. At ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... of vegetables can be avoided if proper attention is given to them in the market. Food of this kind should be so displayed that it is not exposed to the dirt and dust of the street, nor to flies and other destructive vermin. The practice of displaying vegetables on a stand in front of a store is gradually losing favor with the housewife who understands the sanitary precautions that should be taken with foods. On the other hand, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... Tourette seeks to minimize it by the remark that "it is more mental than real." He means to say that it is more psychic than physical, but he implies that the physical element in sex is alone "real," a strange assumption in any case, as well as destructive of Gilles de la Tourette's own fundamental assertion that hysteria is a real disease and yet ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... resources of our intellectual strength: whatever may have been the prowess of the past, we may see it not merely rivaled but thrown into eclipse by the future; the burnished armour, and massive swords and maces of our old intellectual chivalry, superseded by more manageable and more destructive implements of success; and the sterner conflict followed by the more consummate triumph. Yet, when we undervalue the living ability of a nation from its quietude at the moment, we but adopt the example of every past age in succession. The last ten years of the last century ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... you once more, you must endeavor to reestablish your health as it was before—before they locked you up, you know. When that is done you can commence right there if you choose; I wish you would. Give the public—sell would be better, but it will hardly buy—a prison system less atrocious, less destructive of justice, and less promotive of crime and vice, than the one it has. By-the-by, I suppose you know that Raphael Ristofalo went to prison ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... peculiar pleasure that I quote this passage, respecting this truly great man, at a time when some of the infatuated politicians of this country are vainly thinking to build their wretched and destructive projects, on the ruins of his established reputation; a reputation as extensive as the spread of science itself, and of which it is saying very little indeed, to pronounce that it will last and flourish when the names of all his ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... these legends in Book I, chaps. iii and iv, when speaking of Zur, whom he associates with Sorrento. Benjamin had few other sources of information. In the immediate neighbourhood of Pozzuoli is Solfatara, where sulphur is found. A destructive eruption from the crater took place in 1198. Hot springs abound, and the baths at Bagnoli are much frequented to the present day. The underground road is the Piedi grotta ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... and destructive, was the first movement in which this general political sympathy announced itself; a desolating war of thirty years, which, from the interior of Bohemia to the mouth of the Scheldt, and from the banks of the Po to the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... these destructive operations of nature, the whirlwind and the whirlpool, the first whirling fancies that Christ saves from the punishment, and not from the power of sin, takes them from the gospel hope, and the second receives them into the vortex of misery. O my soul, be watchful unto prayer at ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... by a sudden jerk. Garman's arms licked out viciously and Roger found himself clasped to his enemy's breast. A horror possessed him such as he had never imagined, for Garman's whole body seemed like his hands, soft, clinging, destructive; and Roger put all his strength in ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... time in our history when unbelief and skepticism was more determined in its opposition to the Christian religion than at the present. There is an incessant attempt to instill into the minds of the young principles in opposition to, and destructive of Christianity. Many have split upon the rocks of infidelity, and stranded upon the quicksands of doubt and skepticism, in spite of the fact that Christianity presented them an example, which is the light and life of men—a character without a blot! ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various

... and the obtuseness of their sensibility reduced to a minimum the bad results of wounds and shocks, while their warfare, being free from the awful devices due to the devilry of modern man, was comparatively innocuous; even if very destructive, its destruction was necessarily limited by the fact that those accumulated treasures of the past which largely make civilisation had not come into existence. We may admire the beautiful humanity, the finely developed social organisation, and the skill in the arts attained ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... the colonels Pride and Rainsborough, and as fiercely opposed by Cromwell and Ireton. The council of officers yielded so far as to require that no more addresses should be made to the king; but the two houses voted the papers destructive ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... mention'd these two great Principles, which are destructive of Chearfulness in their own Nature, as well as in right Reason, I cannot think of any other that ought to banish this happy Temper from a Virtuous Mind. Pain and Sickness, Shame and Reproach, Poverty ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... of the unknown. The power which made us has given us a mind, and the impulse to its use; let us see what can be done with it to rid the earth of its ancient evils. And do not be troubled if at the outset this book seems to be entirely "destructive". I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I am not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with a barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the heart of ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... really dangerous disorder. The modern world is like Niagara. It is magnificent, but it is not strong. It is as weak as water—like Niagara. The objection to a cataract is not that it is deafening or dangerous or even destructive; it is that it cannot stop. Now it is plain that this sort of chaos can possess the powers that rule a society as easily as the society so ruled. And in modern England it is the powers that rule who are chiefly possessed by it—who are truly possessed by devils. ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... gave any sign of life. They filled the earth, air, and sea with imaginary beings who had power over the elements and affected the lives of men. There were nymphs in the sea, dryads in the trees, kindly or destructive spirits in the air, household gods who watched over the home, and greater gods who managed the affairs of the world. When an intelligent man finds himself in new surroundings, he begins at once to study ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... which has been so often the seat of the most destructive wars, after a respite of a few years, has appeared always as fruitful and as populous as ever. Even the Palatinate lifted up its head again after the execrable ravages of Louis the Fourteenth. The effects of the dreadful plague ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... contest was not likely to end so speedily as was imagined, and to feel their consequence, by remarking, that to get their militia, in the course of the last year, many towns were induced to give them a bounty. Foreseeing the evils resulting from this, and the destructive consequences which would unavoidably follow short enlistments, I took the liberty, in a long letter, (date not now recollected, as my letter book is not here,) to recommend the enlistments for and during the war, assigning such reasons for it, as experience has since ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... twelve minutes, according to the rules governing the contest, and is largely constructive in nature. The rebuttal speech, commonly called the rebuttal, is usually a little less than half the length of the main speech, and is for the most part destructive. It is almost superfluous to add that both sides are allowed exactly the same amount of time in which to present their arguments; that the affirmative side speaks first, the order being, when there are several debaters, affirmative, negative, affirmative, negative, and so on; and that all the ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... past. They have been admired and petted for ages, consecrated as emblems of innocence and peace and sanctity, regarded as almost sacred from the earliest antiquity. They have been idealized and praised from Noah to Anacreon, both inclined to inebriety! But in reality they are a dirty, destructive, greedy lot, and though fanciers sell them at high prices, they only command twenty-five cents per pair ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn

... perished. The telephone was out, there was no way for a messenger to get out ahead of the flood. Only the quick widening of the valley, below the canyon's lower end, eased down the volume of the flood so that it was less destructive. There was no settlement at ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... prompted by the warmth of his temper, excited by emulation, or supported by his habits of hypocrisy, endeavored to distinguish himself beyond his fellows, and to arrive at a higher pitch of saintship and perfection. In proportion to its degree of fanaticism, each sect became dangerous and destructive; and as the Independents went a note higher than the Presbyterians, they could less be restrained within any bounds of temper and moderation. From this distinction, as from a first principle, were derived, by a necessary ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... reason is, that whereas the husband may keep himself informed on matters of general interest in literature, art, science, and progress, while the wife must give her mind to domestic activities, there is danger of the two growing apart, which growing apart is destructive of that perfect sympathy so essential to the happiness of married life. A certain librarian remarked. "If a man wants a book for himself, I pick out a solid work; if for his wife, a somewhat light and trifling ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... coal for illuminating purposes began in the latter part of the eighteenth century. From this beginning the manufacture of coal-gas has been developed to a great and complex industry. The method is essentially destructive distillation. The coal is placed in a retort and when it reaches a temperature of about 700 deg.F. through heating by an outside fire, the coal begins to fuse and hydrocarbon vapors begin to emanate. These ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... us seven letters from home. Oh the eternity that elapsed before the seals could be tremulously broken! and the halcyon sweetness of relief of the happy tidings of friends in safety and health. Although the fire-fiend had swept his destructive wings over the property within a hundred yards of our home, through a sudden shifting of the wind its course had been changed, thus saving us from what would have seemed to me ruin. Gratefully we resumed our business and remained for seven weeks in Virginia City and vicinity, where we had ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... as a living being whose power was to be dreaded. It punished King Loegaire for breaking his oath. But it was also personified as a god Vintius, equated with Pollux and worshipped by Celtic sailors, or with Mars, the war-god who, in his destructive aspect, was perhaps regarded as the nearest analogue to a god of stormy winds.[594] Druids and Celtic priestesses claimed the power of controlling the winds, as did wizards and witches in later days. This they did, according to Christian writers, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... gardeners, been honored with a purer or more scrupulous worship than that which was paid to her in this little enclosure. In fact, of the twenty rose-trees which formed the parterre, not one bore the mark of the slug, nor were there evidences anywhere of the clustering aphis which is so destructive to plants growing in a damp soil. And yet it was not because the damp had been excluded from the garden; the earth, black as soot, the thick foliage of the trees betrayed its presence; besides, had natural humidity been wanting, it could have been immediately ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... earth is so pleasant as being a little in love; nothing on earth so destructive as being too much so; and as Cecil, in the idle enjoyment of the former gentle luxury, flirted with his liege lady that night; lying back in the softest of lounging-chairs, with his dark, dreamy, handsome ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... Indeed, charcoal, which is impure carbon, might be obtained by strongly heating either a handful of corn, or a piece of fowl's flesh, in a vessel from which the air is excluded so as to keep the corn or the flesh from burning. And if the vessel were a still, so that the products of this destructive distillation, as it is called, could be condensed and collected, we should find water and ammonia, in some shape or other, in the receiver. Now ammonia is a compound of the elementary bodies, nitrogen and hydrogen; therefore both nitrogen and hydrogen must ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... he said to his wife, after describing the events of the day. "So far as I can see there are but two alternatives—either peace or a long and destructive war with failure at its end. It is even more hopeless trying to conquer a vast country like this, defended by irregulars, than if we had a trained and disciplined army to deal with. In that case two or three ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... is such a one as sea-beasts love to haunt. Its weed-covered surface shows that the surge has not shifted it for years past. It lies on other boulders clear of sand and mud, so that there is no fear of dead sea-weed having lodged and decayed under it, destructive to animal life. We can see dark crannies and caves beneath; yet too narrow to allow the surge to wash in, and keep the surface clean. It will be a fine menagerie of Nereus, if we can ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... so monstrously destructive to all we hold dear that for a time it is impossible to believe them. I remember now that as I read that amazing communication through—at the first reading it was a little difficult to understand because the Italian operator had guessed at one or two of the words, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... could not play false. The terrible crisis, which she so early passed through, probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding-school, such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in a destructive glow.' ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... sorry," said he, gravely. "It is not well that mortals should know the future, and your imprudent act is destructive of all the plans I have had for you. You must leave us instantly, for that instrument is for the gods alone. Moreover, the knowledge of ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... somewhere in the boiler—no matter what part—through which water may be pumped, and we have all that is desired. This is a very grave error. Many boilers have been ruined, and (we make the assertion with the confidence born of long experience) a large number of destructive explosions have been directly caused by introducing the feed water into boilers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various

... out for him. Taking up a course of study leading to the degree of M.E., or C.E., or E.E., in four years, upon graduating, he can retrace his way, or the way of his brother, over the battle-fields of Europe, a constructive rather than a destructive agent now, a torch-bearer, a pilgrim, a son of democracy once again advancing the standard in the interests of humanity. He may do this as a mechanical engineer, as a civil engineer, as an electrical engineer, as a mining engineer; it matters not. What ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton

... the attacks of wild beasts, and, like the Spanish sheep dog of the present day, had nothing to do with the management of sheep. Indeed, he seems to have been regarded with great dislike by the Jews, and, if not carefully watched, was more destructive to the sheep than the beast of whose approach he was to give warning. When he was not on duty, he was regarded as a ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie

... end that a dollar or pound or franc may command as nearly as possible the same amount of commodities when a contract is completed as when it is made. Economists dispute about almost everything else, but they are unanimous in this: That a money which changes rapidly in purchasing power is destructive of all stability and even of commercial morality. Will anybody pretend that gold has not changed rapidly in purchasing power within the last twenty years? Has not the universal experience shown that the variation has been very much greater in one metal than it ever was ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... territories as feudal grants. Thus arose Norman principalities in the Low Countries, in France, in Italy, and in Sicily; and the Northmen, rapidly blending with the native population, soon showed as much political talent as they had formerly shown reckless and destructive valour. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... the houses, maintained an incessant and destructive fire, The rebels in their turn lost heart, and even their leader's matchless courage could hardly keep them at their posts. A cheer on the right announced our success in that quarter, and presently arose an answering cry from the left. The three divisions had fought their ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... being dug in that dry Soil contributes to the good keeping of their Drink, it being of a close texture, and of a drying quality, so as to dissipate Damps; for damp Cellars, we find by experience, are injurious to keeping Liquors, as well as destructive to the Casks. The Malt of this Country is of a pale Colour; and the best Drink of this County that I have met with to be sold, is at a small House against the Church at Blackwater, four Miles beyond Dorchester, in the Road to Bridport, in Dorsetshire; ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... within the walls some excellent riflemen, chiefly Albanians. They placed stones, one over the other, on the walls, put their firearms through the interstices, and thus, completely sheltered, fired with destructive precision. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... insert, among the motley records of this journal, some account of its ants. The immense number of these insects, which infest every part of the land, is a remarkable provision in the economy of Africa, as well as of other tropical countries. Though very destructive to houses, fences, and other articles of value, their ravages are far more than repaid by the benefits bestowed; for they act as scavengers in removing the great quantity of decaying vegetable matter, which would otherwise make the atmosphere intolerable. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... unceremonious hermit, lies the tree-lobster, which is believed to climb cocoa-trees in search of the nuts. Upon the next table (21) are the sea craw-fish and sea locusts; and upon the succeeding table (22) the visitor will remark the destructive scorpion-lobster of India, the excavations of which seriously damage the roads of that part of the world; Shrimps in all their varieties; the delicate alima, with its pale thin shell; and the long king crab. Upon the last two ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... traced in the last outbreak of the destructive principle in Europe. An insurrection takes place against tradition and aristocracy, against religion and property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, extirpation of the Jewish religion, whether in the Mosaic or in ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... principles upon which these ants proceed in securing themselves, at every step of their progress, by galleries or covered ways, which, though extremely feeble, are sufficiently strong to keep off the attacks of every other kind of ant. It is curious enough, that, although the white ant be the most destructive of its species, it is said to be, individually, by far the weakest, and cannot move a step without the artificial protection of the galleries it constructs as it goes along; just as the besiegers of a fortification secure themselves in their ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... dismantle the royal navy, start the guns overboard, and leave the hulls of the men-of-war to sink or swim, in harbour or out, as they might. Conscious of the inherent rottenness or insanity of such a destructive principle of action, its advocates would now persuade us, that, although inimical to protective imposts, they are by no means averse from the imposition of such fiscal burdens as might be necessary for raising the amount of revenue required for State exigencies. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... Mr. Pitt Indifference of Statesmen Fruit Trees preferable to Lumber Trees Roehampton Monastic Dwellings Inhabitants of Cottages Humility of Pride Pilton's Invisible Fences House and Character of Mr. Goldsmid Destructive Electric Storm Nature of Electricity investigated Secondary Causes discussed Security against Lightning The District described Dundas and Tooke contrasted Barnes Its Poor-House on a Common Wretchedness of Parish-Poor Geology of Barnes-Common Fitness and Harmony of Things Kit-Cat Club ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... Jewdwine of The Museion had been in Maddox's opinion a harmless philosophic crank; he had done nothing, absolutely nothing for Rickman's genius; but Jewdwine of Metropolis was dangerous, for he encouraged Rickman's talent; and Rickman's talent would, he was afraid, be ultimately destructive to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... Sitgreaves, following up a previous position, "if you cut upwards, the blow, by losing the additional momentum of your weight, will be less destructive, and at the same time effect the true purpose of war, that ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... Gilbert, and all the men having collected on one side, discharged a volley which brought well nigh a score of Indians to the ground. The rest wavered, though they did not fly. Time was thus afforded to the garrison to reload, and another volley almost as destructive as the first was fired. Many sprang back and gazed around with looks of astonishment, supposing that the defenders of the house were twice as numerous as was the case. Still, urged on by their chiefs, they discharged another flight of arrows, but, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston

... and came running across the intervening distance with swiftness incredible in one of his bulk at this gravity. His blizzer was out. It was one of the very latest models of blizzers. Very destructive. Mr. Wordsley had always been ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns

... alone (seek not food for themselves,) but sitting idle, seek how they may eat of the flesh others have provided being destructive through ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... but to have a greater variety. We are better off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the invader does not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They exist side by side, and compete with each other; but such competition is not necessarily destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and re-acts healthily and to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in small islands, very far removed from the mainland, where the animals have been exempt from all foreign competition—that ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... there is formed a little bantling of the mortal race, a degenerate, puny parenthesis, that totally frustrates our most sanguine views and expectations, and disgraces the whole gestation. Here is this destructive parenthesis: "Unless some adequate compensation be secured to us." To us! The Christian world may shift for itself, Europe may groan in slavery, we may be dishonored by receiving law from an enemy,—but all is well, provided the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... magnesian carbonate of lime this quality. But I have tested it fully. I rather think the doctor's mistake must have arisen from a supposition that Mr. Phillips intended to say that the magnesia, when in combination with carbonate of lime, and in situ, was destructive to vegetation. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... The destructive Tybalt scowled at first, and twirled his fierce mustache, and young Paris took to writing dejected poetry; but they both soon recovered their serenity, seeing that nobody minded them, and went together arm in arm to pay their ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... suggested by "Fidelio," but now it was made plain and Dr. Damrosch paid heed to it at once. The dimensions of the Metropolitan Opera House forbade the intimacy which operas founded on the German Singspiel demand for appreciation, and spoken dialogue, especially in a foreign tongue, was painfully destructive of artistic illusion. The operas which followed were more to the purpose: "William Tell," on November 28th, with Robinson as the hero, Schroeder-Hanfstngl as Mathilde, Slach as Gemmy, Staudigl as Gessler, Koegel as Walter, Udvardi ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... air-blast is used to blow away the arc-producing spark liable to form between the brushes and commutator. It is the invention of Prof. Elihu Thomson. The air is supplied by a positive action rotary blower connected to the main shaft, and driven thereby. The wearing of the commutator by destructive ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... or three men in a small boat. Can we suppose that invention in this respect will stay where it is? In a few years it may well be that either in this direction or some other we wot not of, the whole of a national fleet will be in the power of one man with destructive engines at command. Will this not stop maritime warfare? Further, think you invention, science, will be idle as regards the annihilation of armies? How many new destructive agents, how many new modes of ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... the Austro-Germans carried off all the animals and farming implements they could lay their hands on, the agricultural prosperity of Rumania is astounding. In 1916, for example, while involved in a terribly destructive war, Rumania produced more wheat than Minnesota and about twenty-five times as much corn as our three Pacific Coast states combined. At frequent intervals we passed huge scarlet threshing machines, most of them labeled "Made in U.S.A.," which were centers ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... nature is inherently "bad," while true Christianity, endorsed by psychology, proclaims it inherently "good," which means that, properly guided, properly educated, it is creative and contributive rather than destructive. No more striking proof of this fact can be cited than the modern experiment in prison reform in which hardened convicts, when "given a chance," frequently become useful citizens. Unjust and unintelligent social conditions are the chief factors in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... occurrence had changed radically the relation of men and women to the community and to the physical universe in which they lived. What was begun in the fifteenth century by the events that took place then, and what was continued as a destructive process until recently, is, in my judgment, being finished now through a constructive process which has been set up by certain other things—some ten or twenty—which have happened since the beginning of ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit

... over, climbed up the rocky hillside, pausing only when he had reached the summit, and turning round with a long gasping breath. The air was clearer there, and it pleased him to look down from this eminence on his destructive work. The smoke of the burning roof hung over the little dwelling as though to hide its degradation; jets of flame leaped through it now and then; from time to time one of his men approached with the ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... were, in the first instance, wrongly drawn up; and there seems to have been little or no notion of the seriousness of the counter-claim, which came with all the effect of a volley from a masked battery, destructive alike to our diplomatic reputation and to our ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... tower peeping out among the elms, they all make a most effective picture. There's something dreadfully sleepy and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems to be the dominant note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and harvest, an occasional outbreak of measles or a mildly destructive thunderstorm, and a little election excitement about once in five years, that is all that we have to modify the monotony of our existence. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... not correctly speaking an insect, though it is commonly spoken of as such, neither is it a spider, as its name would imply, but an acarus or mite. Whether its name is correct or not, it is a most destructive and troublesome pest wherever it makes its presence felt, it by no means confines itself to one or only a few kinds of plants, as many insects do, but it is very indiscriminate in its choice of food, and it attacks both ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... my passion was to foster a disease destructive either of my integrity or my existence. It was indispensable to fix my thoughts upon a different object, and to debar myself even from her intercourse. To ponder on themes foreign to my darling image, and to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... that by the method of Franchimont a higher proportion of acetyl groups can be introduced; but this result involves a destructive hydrolysis of the cellulose: the acetates are not derivatives of cellulose, but of products ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross

... three times do I pronounce thy name. O Isis, who givest birth to serpents, crocodiles, and ostriches, may thy name be thrice praised. O Isis, who preservest grains of wheat from robber whirlwinds, and the bodies of our fathers from the destructive toil of time, Isis, take pity on my son and preserve him! Thrice be thy name repeated and here and there and beyond, today and forever, and for the ages of ages, as long as the temples of our gods shall gaze on themselves in the waters of ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... were either placed upon field carriages or sledges made out of the trunks of trees. The sailors, who were harnessed by twenties, soon had them in their places, and when they were mounted they gave three hearty cheers, which must have astonished the enemy. The guns soon after opened a most destructive fire on the nearest work, as we could see quantities of the wall fly like showers of hail. During the night we expected a sortie from the fort, and were provided for such an event. A constant fire from all the batteries was kept up all night; the shells were well directed, and an explosion ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... not often allied to good-nature, for the indulgence of the first is destructive to the existence of the second, except where the wit is tempered by a more than ordinary share of sensibility and refinement, directing its exercise towards works of imagination, instead of playing it off, as is too frequently the case, against those with ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... caterpillars of the Gipsey are very destructive to fruit trees, over which they wander during the day, but at night retire into a web like that of a spider. In 1731, they attacked and destroyed most ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown

... poor Mrs. P——, uttering a shriek, fled from the table, exclaiming that she knew she should have the measles; in fact, she immediately fell sick of that disorder, (and died, I think I understood.) All her family took it, and it raged through the island, proving dreadfully destructive. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various

... with which, assisted by yellow liveries and a pack of hounds, he managed to make duck and drake of his wife's little fortune. This account has now been "simply riddled in its details" (as Mr. Saintsbury puts it) by successive biographers, the last destructive critic being the late Sir Leslie Stephen, who plausibly suggested that the "yellow liveries" (not the family liveries, be it noted!) were simply a confused recollection of the fantastic pranks of that other and earlier ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live"; while you with ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... to their feeding and in their search for water; by night he took his turn at guarding from wolves. His sleep was broken often, even when not on guard. They were such timid folk, these sheep; their fears passed easily into destructive precipitances. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... they are well-fed and cared for, they generally break down utterly after two or three years. One delusion seems to become common to three-fourths of them after a certain time of imprisonment. Under the impression that there is something destructive put into their food 'pour les guerir de crime' (says M. Verdeil), they ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... not call this passion of mine an unhappy one, for in the very perception of it lies happiness. We are only wretched when we lose self-control. To this point Love shall never lead me. She yields me the highest delight, but she shall never bring me to self-destruction. Grief for her may, like a destructive whirlwind, crush every blossom of my heart; but she shall never destroy me. The man, the poet, must stand higher than the lover; for where the latter is about to yield to despair, the former will rise, and, with the defiance of Prometheus, challenge the gods to recognize ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... wastes where these tribes lived were infested with large birds called "Rohs", [Footnote: Pronounced softly.] which were very destructive to human beings—devouring men, women, and children greedily whenever they could catch them. Such a terror were they that the tribes had to protect their village with high walls, [Footnote: Can this have anything to do with ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson

... We want Arthur to be something more than a mere ghost, something even more than the blameless hero of a beautiful Victorian poem. Yet if we go to the learned authorities the ghost becomes more ghostlike, the phantom becomes more dim; it is mainly destructive criticism that we meet with, and assertions that are largely negative. In spite of this, there must be something tangible behind so persistent a rumour as this tradition of Arthur. Wherever the Brythonic tribes extended, there ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... employed for iron manufacture, or under steam boilers, its phosphorus, and especially its sulphur, should be estimated, as they injure the quality of iron when their quantity exceeds a certain small amount, and have a destructive effect on grate-bars and boilers. For common uses it is unnecessary to regard ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... reformer,—and of the right type, too; not destructive, declamatory, vituperative; not a monomaniac, snarly, and ill-natured,—as if zeal in riding a favorite hobby excused exclusiveness of soul and any amount of bad temper. He would not demolish the social system and build on its ruins a new one; being clearly of the opinion that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... which is to support their projects, and are most determined anti-Gallicans." This, as time has demonstrated, was a most unjust and ungenerous charge. So thoroughly was Mr. Jefferson then imbued with the spirit of the French revolution, in its most democratic and destructive aspect—so bitter was his hatred of monarchy and aristocracy—that his judgment seemed entirely perverted, his usual charity utterly congealed; and every man who differed with him in opinion was regarded as a conspirator ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... without injury to their souls. Hence, in order to guard against its fatal influence, not less preparation, nor less time, nor less efforts, are required than to suffer the privations imposed by adversity, for experience proves that the former is more destructive than the latter to the work of ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... how shall memory trace "Thy glories, lost in either Charles's days, "When through thy fields destructive rapine spread, "Nor sparing infants' tears, nor hoary head! "In those dread days, the unprotected swain "Mourn'd, in the mountains, o'er his wasted plain; "Nor longer vocal, with the shepherd's lay, "Were Yarrow's banks, or groves ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... methods of modern historical and literary study. In their scientific zeal they have repeatedly overturned what were once regarded as fundamental dogmas. Unfortunately the first reports of their work suggested that it was only destructive. The very foundations of faith seemed to be shaking. Sinai appeared to be enveloped in a murky fog, instead of the effulgence of the divine glory; Moses seemed to become a vague, unreal figure on the ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... not believe that this would have been tamely borne. But we do believe that, if the nation had been deluded by the King's professions of toleration, all this would have been attempted, and could have been averted only by a most bloody and destructive contest, in which the whole Protestant population would have been opposed to the Catholics. On the one side would have been a vast numerical superiority. But on the other side would have been the whole organization of government, and two great ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of which there are two common species closely resembling each other, are often abundant and destructive on tomato foliage, particularly southward. The arsenicals will kill them, or they can be held in check by hand-picking, a little experience enabling one to detect their presence readily. Turkeys are utilized in destroying ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... Canada during her life, whether we remember the bloody atrocities of the savages on the often defenceless colonists, or the fiercely contested wars between the French and English that demoralized the whole state of society north of the St. Lawrence, or the tremendously destructive fires that swept away whole cities in whirlwinds of flame, or the pestilences that filled so many wayside graves, and not always with the dead. She was an eye-witness of these woes, and what wonder is it if her memoirs ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... cruel penalty. Down to our own century, and for the avowed purpose of injuring the only flourishing trade of the country (that of linen), the English cotton and woollen manufacturers procured the passing of acts better called destructive than protective; and in sober truth, if England now deplores the low industrial and commercial state of Ireland, she has only to look over her own statute-book, and see if ingenuity could have further gone in the way of discouragement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... commercial treaties stipulating great advantages in favor of France, and perhaps other Powers. It means, of course, the overthrow of the blockade, so as to carry out those treaties. It means conditions destructive of our interests, and favorable to the recognizing POWERS. It means advantages and discriminations in tariffs and tonnage duties, and navigation privileges, which would exclude us from Southern ports, including New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi, and deprive us of the markets ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... intelligent of household pets, and much attention should be bestowed upon them. So large a bird suffers if kept constantly confined in a cage, but a parrot is so destructive that it is impossible to allow it the liberty of a house, as chairs, carpets, in short, every article of furniture, will soon show the marks of its strong beak. If there is a garden, the parrot should ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of the poor—he even favoured some of their unreasonable complaints. Thus he writes the "Address of the Laundresses to the Steam Washing Company," to show how much they are injured by such an institution. In a "Drop of Gin," he inveighs against this destructive stimulant. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... loud thunder, vivid lightning and very hard rain later part, till 9 A.M. Was calm then. A breeze sprung up at east. Hove up our B.* (* Bower, that is anchor.) and hung by the kedge, by this time it fell calm and our hopes of getting to sea vanished, needless to observe this kind of weather is as destructive to the intent of this cruise as gales at sea. I took a walk along the beach far enough to see all the entrances to this port and by ascending an eminence was confirmed in my opinion that several of those dangerous sand rollers had shifted their ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... for her that he subdues the elements and searches out the hidden treasures of earth; for her that he measures the stars and determines the procession of the planets, for her that he fills the world with art and luxury,—for her that he is a creative god, rather than a destructive demon. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... because his wife listened to the siren voice of the tempter, and desired to explore and explain this mystery. The forbidden fruit ever grows upon the tree beside her. Those who would be wiser than that which is written, have plucked and eaten it, and have given to others that which is so destructive. Witchcraft is a womanly profession. The heathen divinities were nearly all ministered unto by woman, and mystery was the influencing cause. We know the result in the case of Eve. It led her away from God. It caused her to listen to the enemy of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... loathsome character incurred by those who do not restrain their passions. Apart from this aspect of the question, it must be obvious to every thinking person that looseness of conduct between the sexes such as is shown to exist in New Zealand is destructive to the high ideals of family life associated with the finest types of British manhood and womanhood, and if not checked must lead to the decadence ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health

... easily reduced to powder. Care should be taken to distinguish it from Peat, which is hard when dry, destitute in a great measure of the sand, and mostly of a red colour. This contains in great quantities sulphureous particles and mineral oil, which are known to be highly destructive ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... Britain was certainly, on the whole, a destructive one, and it has been justly contrasted with the Frankish conquest of Gaul; where the conquerors quickly assimilated with the conquered. The relics of Roman civilisation which the Saxons adopted, were indeed few. This is true, as a general statement. But there is some ground for regarding ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... handling, depend on that," I answered, laughing; "they are after us again—hurrah!" Before long the largest frigate approached, and suddenly hauling up, fired her broadside, which would have proved most destructive, had not the Droits-de-l'Homme hauled up likewise, the troops which were posted on the upper-deck and poop replying with a heavy discharge of musketry. Fortunately, perhaps, for us, though we did not consider it so at the time, one of the French officers thought ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... is carried out in another particular. Whenever the enemies of God or destructive agents are intended, objects of a corresponding desolating character are chosen as their symbols; whereas the peaceful triumphs of the cross, as exhibited by God's chosen people, are described under symbols of an equally benign and gentle character. Thus, the anti-christian, persecuting power ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... sea, and these saints expected a share of the prize money. Fridays and Sundays were the favourite days for sailing; a gun is fired in honour of their tutelary patron; "God speed us!" shout the crew; "God send you a prize!" reply the crowd on the shore, and the galleot swiftly glides away on its destructive path. "The Algerines," says Haedo, "generally speaking, are out upon the cruise winter and summer, the whole year round; and so devoid of dread they roam these eastern and western seas, laughing all the while ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... doubtful title of succession would but too much resemble an election, and that an election would be utterly destructive of the "unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation," which they thought to be considerations of some moment. To provide for these objects, and therefore to exclude forever the Old Jewry doctrine of "a right to choose our own governors," they follow with a clause containing a most solemn ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... tribute. It was no unusual occurrence for a native to be tied up and whipped to compel him to bring out all his treasures. The Goldees call the Manjours 'rats,' in consequence of their greediness and destructive powers. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... century ago Admiral Lord Cochrane, a man of wonderful scientific knowledge, advanced a project to the British Government for a terrible and unseen agent which could be used against an enemy, and which was so destructive and powerful it would render their armies helpless. That secret was asphyxiating gas. His plan was on the field of battle when the wind was favorable to build large fires with tar and damp straw behind which an attack could be prepared. Then sulphur was to be thrown on these burning piles so as ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... Athanas Brazovics was of two stories—a rarity in Komorn; for in remembrance of the destructive earthquakes by which the town had been visited in the last century, people usually only built on the ground-floor. The lower story was occupied by a large cafe, which served the resident tradespeople as a casino; the whole upper floor was inhabited by the family ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... its sojourn there it frequents chiefly open prairies, or wheat fields, where it nibbles the young and tender blades, and cornfields, where it feeds upon the scattered grains. In California, Ridgway says, it is so numerous in winter as to be very destructive of the growing wheat crop, and it is said that in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, farmers often find it necessary to employ men by the month to hunt and drive them from the fields. This is most successfully accomplished by means of brush hiding places, or "blinds," or ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... enthusiastic belief in the merits of this particular scheme. Hardly anyone off the Treasury Bench had a good word to say for it, but fortunately for its chances their criticisms were often mutually destructive. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various

... able to endure much ill-treatment; while the female voice is quickly forced by it into a piercing shrillness, or is driven back into the throat, soon to be entirely exhausted, or is, at least, prevented from attaining a natural, fine development. This second evil is the reckless and destructive straining of single tones to their extreme limits, even to perfect exhaustion. The poor singer urges and squeezes out the voice, and quivers to the innermost marrow, in order that the two requirements of "Boldness" ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... election, in its other form, as usually taught by Orthodoxy, so harsh and terrible,—"horrible decretum,"—so dishonorable to God, so destructive to morality, so palsying to effort, grows lovely and encouraging ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put into action and invested with a semi-substance. That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog—had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various



Words linked to "Destructive" :   destroy, cataclysmal, annihilative, devastating, destructive distillation, damaging, harmful, wasteful, self-destructive, mordant, erosive, caustic, annihilating, cataclysmic, vitriolic, ravaging, soul-destroying, ruinous, withering, destructive-metabolic, negative, iconoclastic, corrosive, constructive, crushing, blasting



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org