Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Profusion   /prəfjˈuʒən/   Listen
Profusion

noun
1.
The property of being extremely abundant.  Synonyms: cornucopia, profuseness, richness.  "The idiomatic richness of English"






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 |





"Profusion" Quotes from Famous Books



... she had asked him so little. He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house full of flowers: and a heap of good things. As for shawls, kid gloves, silk stockings, gold French watches, bracelets and perfumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind love and unbounded credit. And having relieved his mind by this outpouring of generosity, he went and dined nervously at the club, waiting until the great moment of his ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hundred yards of the roughest ground had to be traversed—a part that seemed as if giants had been hurling down huge masses of the mountain to form a new chaos, among whose mighty boulders, awkward thorns, huge prickly cacti, and wild plums, grew in profusion. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... husband and they waited till the appointed time, when the King bade his Marids bring out to them a great litter of red gold, set with pearls and jewels and covered with a canopy of green silk, purfled in a profusion of colours and embroidered with precious stones, dazzling with its goodliness the eyes of every beholder. He chose out four of his Marids to carry the litter in whichever of the four quarters the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... circumstance of coolest neglect, and the most deliberate indifference. Surrounded with a numerous train of servants, to contribute to their personal ease, and wallowing in all the luxurious plenitude of riches, they neglect the wretched source, whence they draw this profusion. Many of their negroes, on distant estates, are left to the entire management of inhuman overseers, where they suffer for the want of that sustenance, which, at the proprietors seat of residence, is wastefully given to the dogs. It frequently happens, on these large estates, that they are not ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... wonderfully flowing and even melodious—or, as he would say, meloobious—while to all these qualifications for his task must finally be added the happy gift of pictorial expression, enabling him to double, nay, often to quadruple, the laughable effect of his text by an inexhaustible profusion of the quaintest designs. Generally speaking, these designs are, as it were, an idealization of the efforts of a clever child; but now and then—as in the case of the nonsense-botany—Mr. Lear reminds us what a genuine and graceful ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... more splendid portion of the city had been consumed, at least five hundred palaces, mostly of marble or hammered stone, being a smoldering mass of destruction. The dead bodies of those fallen in the massacre were on every side, in greatest profusion around the Place de Meer, among the Gothic pillars of the Exchange, and in the streets near the town-house. The German soldiers lay in their armor, some with their heads burned from their bodies, some with legs and arms consumed by ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... collecting art, books, and manuscripts to make, without benefit of any institution of learning and in defiance of all the slow processes of tradition found at Oxford and Harvard, a Huntington Library and a Huntington Art Gallery that, set down amid the most costly botanical profusion imaginable, now rival the ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... spoilt children, and such a Spanish way of flirting with a fan. Nevertheless they do not get married. No admirer has ever been able to get over the sight of that singular home. The wasteful and useless extravagance, the want of plates, the profusion of old tapestry in holes, of antique and ungilt lustres, the draughty doors, the constant visits of creditors, the slatternly appearance of the young ladies in slipshod slippers and dressing gowns, put to flight the best intentioned. In truth, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... habits and methods that destroy discipline and efficiency. So to keep the peace in a college means to remove the necessary causes of disturbance and disorder. If young Sardanapalus, by his extravagance and riotous profusion and dissipation, constantly thwarts the essential purpose of the college, demoralizing the students and obstructing the peaceful course of its instruction, he ought to be dismissed. The college must judge the conditions under which ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... my lord! I have no words to thank you as I ought! It is deeds alone, and rendering myself worthy of your indulgence, that must preserve your good opinion, and keep you from repenting having overwhelmed me with this profusion of happiness!—Yet how joyfully could I now pursue the rout to Paris, and content myself with owing every thing merely to your goodness, were I not with-held by all the considerations that ought to have weight with a man of honour!—My royal general is inflexible to the persuasions of almost all ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... of beauty struck him more forcibly from its being totally different from that of the southern countries in which d'Artagnan had hitherto resided. She was pale and fair, with long curls falling in profusion over her shoulders, had large, blue, languishing eyes, rosy lips, and hands of alabaster. She was talking with great ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... interesting creation stood in the center of a vast pumpkin-field, where the vines grew in profusion and bore pumpkins of extraordinary size as well as those which were smaller. Some of the pumpkins now ripening on the vines were almost as large as Jack's house, and he told Dorothy he intended to add another pumpkin to ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... plate, hawks, hounds, fine cuirasses, suits of armor of wrought steel, helmets decorated with crests, tunics adorned with pearls, belts, precious jewels set in gold, and great quantities of cloth of gold and crimson stuff for the making of garments. Such was the profusion at this banquet that the remnants taken from the table were more than enough to supply ten thousand men." Not every heiress in Italy could have gloried in such a wedding feast as the one given in honor of Violante ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... additional attraction; the sea at low tide retires for a considerable distance and exposes a line of rocks which indicate the general trend of the ancient coast. Here treasures of the sea may be found in profusion and variety. During spring and leap tides the waves, backed by a strong wind, may cause great excitement by dashing across the front and invading the back streets; until the present wall was built this was of frequent occurrence. ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... braxy [1] mutton, raw potatoes, wet bannocks, hard cheese, and whisky. Very differently would the travellers have fared had the good Nicky's intentions been fulfilled. She had prepared with her own hands a moorfowl pie and potted nowt's head, besides a profusion of what she termed "trifles, just for Mary, poor thing, to divert herself with upon the road." But alas! in the anguish of separation, the covered basket had been forgot, and the labour of Miss Nicky's hands fell to be consumed by the family, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... pretty to see how effectual insects are. A short time ago I found a female holly sixty measured yards from any other holly, and I cut off some twigs and took by chance twenty stigmas, cut off their tops, and put them under the microscope: there was pollen on every one, and in profusion on most! weather cloudy and stormy and unfavourable, wind in wrong ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... much like a furrow of Nature's ploughing, cut out to serve as a drainage for the surrounding plains. It wound its irregular course away east and west, a maze of undergrowth, larger bluff, low red-sand cut-banks and crumbling gravel cliffs, all scattered by a prodigal hand, with a profusion that seemed wanton amidst the surrounding wastes ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... in the desert. The desert is a little coal-cellar of an arch, containing a skull and a profusion of pink and white paper bouquets, the two largest of which the Magdalene is hugging while she is saying her prayers. She is a very self-sufficient lady, who we may be sure will not stay in the desert a day ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... by his careful management, which her father had left her, and advised her to put her affairs in the hands of Mr. Atherton. She had shown a quite ungirlish eagerness to manage them for herself; in the midst of her profusion she had odd accesses of stinginess, in which she fancied herself coming to poverty; and her guardian judged it best that she should have a lawyer who could tell her at any moment just where she stood. She hesitated, but she did as he advised; and having once intrusted her property to Atherton's ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... troops in line and saluted her. "Open the gate," she again insisted. The poor captain made signs that he had not the keys. "Break it down, then," coolly suggested the daughter of the House of Orleans; to which his only reply was a profusion of profound bows, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... else, and no beggar had crossed his path to tempt from him the little he had. He needed nothing beyond his food, and of that the Ketterings' hospitality provided a sufficiency, though by the third day the over-profusion of plain dishes ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... after a dozen close-packed pages of subtle metaphysical distinction or solemn didactic declamation, in which the disembodied principles of all arts and sciences float before the imagination in undefined profusion, the eye turns with impatience and indifference to the imperfect embryo specimens of them, and the hopeless attempts to realise this splendid jargon in one poor work by one poor author, which is given up to summary execution with as little justice ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... perpetually exposed to the most extreme dangers, and considering every day as their last, their wealth was dissipated in the same manner in which it was acquired. They gave themselves up to all excesses of debauchery and profusion, and on returning from their expeditions, the intoxication of their victories accompanied them in their feasts: they would embrace their mistresses in their bloody arms and fall asleep for a while, lulled by voluptuous pleasures, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... window; he could not sit still in this odour-laden hothouse, where the very flowers were burdensome by excess. When Olga reappeared, she was gorgeous in flowing tea-gown; her tawny hair hung low in artful profusion; her neck and arms were bare, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... angles, Lawrence and his man had no difficulty in finding the principal square, or market-place, which was crowded with people selling and buying vegetables, milk, eggs, fruit, etcetera, brought in from the surrounding districts. The people presented all the picturesque characteristics of the land in profusion—peons, with huge Spanish spurs, mounted on gaily caparisoned mules; Gauchos, on active horses of the Pampas; market-women, in varied costumes more or less becoming, and dark-eyed senhoras on balconies and verandas sporting the graceful mantilla and ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... into a very tolerable garden. Just the kind of garden that I love—half trim, half wild—fruits, flowers, and vegetables living in comfortable equality and fraternity, none being too choice to be harmed by their neighbours, none esteemed too mean to be restricted in their natural profusion. Oh, dear old-fashioned garden! full of sweet-Williams and white-Nancies, and larkspur and London-pride, and yard-wide beds of snowy saxifrage, and tall, pale evening primroses, and hollyhocks six or seven feet ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... large space of ground, I do not know how much, but it is a very extensive building. The roof is covered with tin, with a railing around it, finished at the top with sharp points that look like silver, about a foot in length, and three feet apart. Over the front door there is a porch covered with a profusion of climbing plants, which give it a beautiful appearance. The building stands in a large yard, surrounded on all sides by a high fence, so high indeed, that people who pass along the street can see no part of the nunnery except the silver points on the roof. The top of this fence is ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... full of cattle and sheep and pigs and crowds of people standing round the shouting auctioneers! And horses, too, the beribboned hacks, and ponderous draught horses with manes and tails decorated with golden straw, thundering over the stone pavement as they are trotted up and down! And what a profusion of fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, and all kinds of provisions on the stalls, where women with baskets on their arms are jostling and bargaining! The Corn Exchange is like a huge beehive, humming with the noise of talk, full of brown-faced farmers ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... club, however, it was admitted that his work had improved almost as much as his appearance; and he put it all down to the roses in which he lived embowered for so many months of the year. Such was their profusion that you could have filled a clothes-basket without missing one, and Langholm never visited rich or poor without a little offering out ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... which, through a series of ornamented doorways, is approached by a long flat corridor, which, as usual, serves the purpose of a bazaar. Here perhaps the best Burmese gongs may be purchased, and the stalls for cut flowers display a rich profusion of blooms, whose scent fills the whole temple precincts. The temple itself is different in design from any others we have seen, being built in the form of a square tower, above which rises a series of diminishing terraces, each beautified by carved battlements ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... chair; he looked round on his books and his work, and then, for the first time, remembered how long and how patiently he had toiled for every hundred pounds he had made; and he laid the evidences of his wife's profusion and deceit by the side of those signs of painful industry and self-denial, and his soul ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... over the Towans towards St. Ia, as happy as a king. Everywhere the sun seemed to be shining. At his feet the wild thyme grew in profusion. Acres upon acres were made purple by this modest flower. The sea was glorious with many coloured hues, the whole country-side was beautiful beyond words. What wonder that he was happy! He was young and vigorous, the best and most beautiful girl in the world ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... and the lines of rooms which fronted each square were immense and furnished with richly carved woodwork; it was a rich house, and there was a profusion of everything which could be wanted—only no men! We securely bolted and barred the main gate, and for safety loopholed a little, because that is an art in which we had become adepts. Then, with candles murkily shedding their light, I explored every nook and corner ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... Nothing was spoken of but hot dishes in the marches and in the detachments; and the repasts that were carried to the trenches, during sieges, were not only well served, but ices and fruits were partaken of as at a fete, and a profusion of all sorts of liqueurs. Expense ruined the officers, who vied with one another in their endeavours to appear magnificent; and the things to be carried, the work to be done, quadrupled the number of domestics and grooms, who often starved. For a long ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... of the pleasures of vice as of the practice of cruelty; and it was said there were times when he became humanized amidst his debauchery, laughed at the terror which his furious declamations excited, and might be approached with safety, like the Maelstrom at the turn of tide. His profusion was indulged to an extent hazardous to his popularity, for the populace are jealous of a lavish expenditure, as raising their favourites too much above their own degree; and the charge of peculation finds always ready credit with them, when brought ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various

... telescopic treasures can anywhere discover. We could not have made a better beginning, for here within a space of a few square degrees we have a wonderful variety of double stars and multiple stars, so close and delicate as to test the powers of the best telescopes, besides a profusion of star-clusters and nebulae, including one of the supreme marvels of space, the Great Nebula ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... stood there perfectly still, and I guard over him. I thought he looked ugly and mad; he would hardly say a word. In two or three minutes Crandell came up, puffing-and blowing like a porpoise. The sweat was running off him in profusion, and while wiping it from his brow with his hands, he said to the Indian: "You would not stop when I told you to, if I had got a good sight of you I would have shot you." Of course Crandell only said this because he wanted to ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... during the summer months. The principal descent to the park is by a broad drive, which zig-zags till it gains the proper level. There are also several pleasant paths which descend in labyrinths under a profusion of lilacs and other flowering shrubs, overhung by birches ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various

... ranged against the wall opposite the fire; a handsome chair upholstered in blue velvet stood near the fireplace. Velvet stools were here and there about the room, and cushions, some covered with velvet, some with crewel-work, were to be seen in profusion. They nearly covered the velvet settle, at one side of the fire, and they nestled in soft, plumy, inviting fashion, into the great Flanders chair on the other side. In one corner was "a chest of coffins"—be not dismayed, gentle reader! the startling phrase only meant half-a-dozen ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... height, with aisles and lateral chapels, a transept with aisles, and a choir (with deambulatory) ending in an apse surrounded by chapels. The total length is 469 ft., the breadth 216 ft. The facade, which is flanked by two square towers without spires, has three portals decorated with a profusion of statuary, the central portal having a remarkable statue of Christ of the 13th century; they are surmounted by two galleries, the upper one containing twenty-two statues of the kings of Judah in its arcades, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... advocate, released from his cold hiding-place, rolled rapturously into the warm sheets, thinking to himself, "Oh! this is good!" To tell the truth, the maid gave him his money's worth—and the good man thought of the difference between the profusion of the royal houses and the niggardly ways of the citizens' wives. The servant laughing, played her part marvellously well, regaling the knave with gentle cries, shiverings, convulsions and tossings about, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... characteristics of his finest poetry are a tender love of nature, a profusion of figurative language, and ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... know either," said Betty, humorously and simply, and who shall deny that this blankness of mind, when combined with profusion, mother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard ways, moments of astonishing daring, humour, and sentimentality—who shall deny that in these respects every woman is nicer than ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... momentary silence and added considerably to the sense of political importance of those assembled. The Abbe Touvent made it his special care to preside over the table where small glasses of eau-de-vie d'Armagnac and other aids to digestion were set out in a careful profusion. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... to lose, and were apt to exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and even sometimes by rapine and extortion. The industry and frugality of this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest. The monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... there assume the shape of steps as regular as if the hand of man had fashioned them. The summits of the castellated banks are crowned with trees, and wherever their rocky steepness will allow of it, luxuriant shrubs grow in profusion from every crevice, and add another charm to the wild beauty ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... of middle size, slender frame, homely but interesting and benevolent face, dark and strongly Jewish complexion, deep-seated, sparkling eyes, overshadowed by an unusually strong, bushy pair of eyebrows, black hair flowing in uncombed profusion over the forehead, an old-fashioned coat, a white cravat carelessly tied, as often behind or on one side of the neck as in front, a shabby hat set aslant, jack-boots reaching above the knee; think of him thus either as sitting ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... abstains from even the slightest infusion of startling or unusual incident, of "exciting" story, of glaring colour of any kind: relying only on congruity of speech, sufficient if subdued description, and above all a profusion of the most delicately, but the most vividly drawn character, made to unfold a plot which has interest, if no excitement, and seasoned throughout with the unfailing condiment—the author's "own sauce"—of gentle but piquant ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather, too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle. Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes, cigar-boxes, neckties, ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... style of the house, the rustic stairway did not really detract from its beauty. And as there were already clambering vines and roses in profusion, an extra arbor more or less, could, as Eveley claimed, pass without serious comment. Although the house was old, it was still exquisitely beautiful, with its cream white pillars and columns showing behind the mass of ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... the hunt the King returned from Milan, and then honored me with a military dinner, his Majesty and all the guests, numbering eighty, appearing in full uniform. The banqueting hall was lighted with hundreds of wax candles, there was a profusion of beautiful flowers, and to me the scene altogether was one of unusual magnificence. The table service was entirely of gold—the celebrated set of the house of Savoy—and behind the chair of each guest stood a servant ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... around the strangers, conducted them up to their wigwams, which were very pleasantly situated on a rich and tolerably well cultivated plain extending back from the river. The guests were regaled with the greatest profusion of barbarian hospitality. These Indians had attained a very considerable degree of civilization. They had quite a large number of slaves, whom they had captured from tribes with whom they were at war. The fertile ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... Nature has done wonderful things for him; but alas! he has thus far done but little for himself. The great pieces he has sometimes given us have cost him but little effort, and he has thrown out his productions, in prose as well as poetry, with a profusion and a variety that seem miraculous; and yet, of all our bards, he has met with the most severe and merciless censures. In some measure he has deserved the treatment. In College he would not condescend to study, and charity only for his high genius enabled ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... to her mother's exclusive service. Mrs. Gibson was more anxious about her attire than was either of the girls; it had given her occasion for deep thought and not a few sighs. Her deliberation had ended in her wearing her pearl-grey satin wedding-gown, with a profusion of lace, and white and coloured lilacs. Cynthia was the one who took the affair the most lightly. Molly looked upon the ceremony of dressing for a first ball as rather a serious ceremony; certainly as an anxious proceeding. Cynthia was ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... are made tributary here. Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum. Fish, flesh and fowl, are here in profusion. Chickens, of{84} all breeds; ducks, of all kinds, wild and tame, the common, and the huge Muscovite; Guinea fowls, turkeys, geese, and pea fowls, are in their several pens, fat and fatting for the destined vortex. The graceful swan, the mongrels, the black-necked wild goose; partridges, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... same unexpected way, to men who desired to create an artificial thirst—after having first ascertained that the champagne was something to be fondly remembered and regretted, at other parties, to the end of the season. The hospitable profusion of the refreshments was all-pervading and inexhaustible. Wherever the guests might be, or however they were amusing themselves, there were the pretty little white plates perpetually tempting them. People eat as they had never eat before, and even the inveterate ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... only pharmacien but proprietaire, though not by inheritance; his possession of one of the prettiest and most prolific of the small vineyards in the beautiful suburb, and a charming inconvenient house, with low ceilings, liliputian bedrooms, and a profusion of persiennes, jalousies, and contrevents, comes by purchase. This enviable little terre was sold by the Nation, when that terrible abstraction transacted the public business of France; and it was bought very cheaply by the strong-minded father ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... can scarcely possess all the necessary skill and experience. Among trees and birds and beasts the art is surer because it is exercised unconsciously, on the foundation of a large tradition in which failure meant death. In the common procreative profusion of those forms of life the frequent death of the young was a matter of little concern, but biologically there was never any sacrifice of the offspring to the well-being of the parents. Whenever sacrifice is called for it is the parents who are sacrificed to their ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... days, had been oppressively sultry; the irregular patches of sky, glimpsed through the branches, were a transparent blue; the springy ground was bright with wild blossoms and colorful berries,—dogwood and service berry,—adder's tongue, bleeding heart and ferns in rich profusion. His subconscious senses drank in the manifold beauties, but his active mind was ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... carving. One window there was—a perfect and unpretending cottage window—with little diamond panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with roses, and, in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jasmine and other fragrant shrubs. From the exuberant luxuriance of the vegetation around it, this window, though tolerably large, did not furnish a very powerful light to one who entered from the open air . . . . I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... and arms which I brought them, was such, even to profusion, that they could not but rejoice at them; for now they could march, as I used to do, with a musket upon each shoulder, if there was occasion; and were able to fight a thousand savages, if they had but some little advantages of situation, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... tropical blossoms. No lily-field in Bermuda could give a fragrance half so magical as the fairy-like odour of these woodland slopes, soft carpeted with the green of glossy vines above whose tiny leaves, in delicate profusion, ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... surprise and wonder. The beautiful town with its straight streets, some of them with a narrow park in the centre, houses that were palatial to her inexperienced eyes, with terraced lawns, wide porches, graceful shrubbery and a profusion of flowers. True, the station was quite at one side and a little farther down the road crossed the river that went meandering along, too winding and shallow for business purposes. Opposite there was a succession of wooded hills with here and there ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... work will quickly discover, for we are now entering a sphere of life where the beauty of the sterner sex (if so severe a word can be applied to such sublimation of everything that is soft and voluptuous and endearing) is more considered than that of the other. Beautiful ladies are here in some profusion, but the first place is for ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... aquatic plant, which is allied to the Liliaceae, growing in the greatest profusion on the banks of a river in Southern Brazil. (4/15. "Ueber den Trimorphismus der Pontederien" 'Jenaische Zeitschrift' etc. Band 6 1871 page 74.) But only two forms were found, the flowers of which include three long and three short stamens. The pistil of the long-styled form, in two ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin

... RUDOLPH. He is meanly and miserably dressed in old and patched clothes, but blazes with a profusion of orders and decorations. He is very weak ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... interrupted the complacent discourse of Madame Cheron and the painful considerations, which it had forced upon Emily. When the repast, which was rendered ostentatious by the attendance of a great number of servants, and by a profusion of plate, was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant came to shew Emily to hers. Having passed up a large stair-case, and through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which led into a short passage in a remote part of the chateau, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... servers are found within the chancel, clad in gorgeous yellow robes, and genuflecting now and again before the images which stand above the richly-vested altar. Outside the sanctuary rails, the congregation is assembled in greater or less numbers, according to the importance of the day. Around is a profusion of lights and flowers; while the air is fragrant with the fumes of incense. The prayers, which the officiating priest recites in monotone, are in Pali, a form of Sanskrit; and if an air of perfunctoriness ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... medals, of which Stedman seemed to have an innumerable quantity, were strung in profusion over Albert's uniform, and in a lesser quantity over Stedman's; while a handful of leaden ones, those sold on the streets for the Constitutional Centennial, with which Albert had provided himself, were wrapped up in a red silk handkerchief ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... nominal this was we shall see later by the light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor. Charles had complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in consequence, the ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which reigned in the camp of the Christians; and he concluded that these indeed must be the lords of the earth, as luxury and profusion was hardly the note of such courts as then existed in the northern portion of the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... evening of the following day Jeanne thought of nothing but the month of Mary. She plagued her mother with questions; she dreamt of the church adorned with a profusion of white roses, filled with thousands of wax tapers, with the sound of angels' voices, and sweet perfumes. And she was very anxious to go near the altar, that she might have a good look at the Blessed Virgin's lace gown, a gown worth a fortune, according to the Abbe. But ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... size to Denver, and is an outgrowth of the rich mining wealth with which it is environed. Indeed, it seemed as if some geni had touched all around it with a magic wand. Silver-ore was strewn in rich profusion, piled like cord-wood in huge masses at every step; was talked of in the street, the hotel, and the home, until it seemed as if we thought, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... entered the house, we found such of our comrades as had arrived before us, seated round a table, enjoying a handsome cold collation, which was spread thereon for the occasion. There was cold ham, fowls tongue, &c. &c. tea, coffee, wine and beer in great profusion; and, if I recollect right, there were no less than three rooms furnished with the same substantial proof of our Cornet's hospitality: so that, as he arrived, each member of the troop was provided with a liberal allowance ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... produces a great quantity of honey, and has abundance of fish. The kings, and other rich men, drink mares milk, while the poor people and slaves use only mead[13]. They have many contests among themselves; and the people of Estum brew no ale, as they have mead in profusion[14]. There is also a particular custom observed by this nation; that, when any one dies, the body remains unburnt, with the relations and friends, for a month or two; and the bodies of kings and nobles remain longer, according to their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... our poets, they are far outnumbered by the novelists, whose works are poured forth every season with bewildering profusion; but as story-tellers have always commanded a larger audience than grave philosophers or historians, and as our singers deal as much in philosophy as in narrative, perhaps in seeking for the cause ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... the ward, including Eton Road, Provost Road, Oppidans Road, College Road, and Fellows Road, is made up of medium houses, many covered with rough stucco, and with a profusion of flowering trees and bushes in the small gardens. This section of the parish might well be part of some fashionable and fresh watering-place. At No. 6, Eton Road lived Robertson, author of "Caste" ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... more met with Miss Curzon! Yet how was she altered! She was now about sixteen, and considerably above the common height of women, and her figure possessed an air of far greater slenderness than when I first met her. Then, too, her hair, which was mostly concealed, was light—now she wore a profusion of it, of a dark and glossy brown. She was ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... quickly, however, and emerged triumphant, though blue and puckered, his wilderness of whiskers streaming like limber stalactites, his boots loosely "squishing," while oaths still poured from him in such profusion that Dextry whispered: ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... a little lonely cemetery in the Berkshires, a tiny burying-ground on a wind-swept hill, a few miles from Conwell's old home. In this isolated burying-ground bushes and vines and grass grow in profusion, and a few trees cast a gentle shade; and tree-clad hills go billowing off for miles and miles in wild and lonely beauty. And in that lonely little graveyard I found the plain stone that marks the resting-place of ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... porteur de la chambre, in those days, was probably similar to that of the present groom of the chamber, and if so, was a highly respectable and confidential post. In the ballad, Robin Hood is represented, while at court, as spending his money freely with knights and squires. His profusion, indeed, soon exhausted his purse, which the daily pay of 3d., however munificent it may have been at that period, could not replenish. Robin became, observes Mr Hunter, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... and a glance at his face forbids all thought of his being a runaway from justice. Its expression is open, frank, and manly; whatever of fear there is in it certainly cannot be due to any consciousness of crime. It is a handsome face, moreover, framed in a profusion of blonde hair, which falls curling down cheeks of ruddy hue. An air of rusticity in the cut of his clothes would bespeak him country bred, probably the son of a farmer. And just that he is, his father being a yeoman-farmer near Godalming, some thirty miles ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... such peaches to be seen, nor such apricots, nor such cherries, as ripened slowly on the red brick walls of the old garden. Inside the walls almost all well-known English flowers flourished in lavish profusion. There was also fruit to be found here in quantities. Never were such strawberries to be seen as could be gathered from those great strawberry beds. Then the gooseberries with which the old bushes were laden; the currants, red, black, and white; the raspberries, had surely ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... arrived about an hour ago; for the last two miles the country was a perfect garden—cherries, gooseberries, apple-trees, corn, vineyards, all chequered together in profusion; in other ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... our arrival at Hampton Court is almost as clear and bright as a summer's day in France; the atmosphere is laden with the delicious perfume of the geraniums, sweet-peas, seringas, and heliotrope, which are scattered in profusion around. It is past mid-day, and the king, having dined after his return from hunting, paid a visit to Lady Castlemaine, the lady who was reputed at the time to hold his heart in bondage; and, with this proof of his devotion discharged, he was ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... prostitution in proclaiming the illegitimacy of his birth. The public indignation was appeased by her exile, and the punishment of the meaner accomplices: the death of an unpopular prince was forgiven; and the guilt of Zimisces was forgotten in the splendor of his virtues. Perhaps his profusion was less useful to the state than the avarice of Nicephorus; but his gentle and generous behavior delighted all who approached his person; and it was only in the paths of victory that he trod in the footsteps of his predecessor. The greatest part of his reign was employed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... who exhausted on this subject, as upon most others, a profusion of learning, found the first idea of the elfin people in the Northern opinions concerning the duergar, or dwarfs.[23] These were, however, it must be owned, spirits of a coarser sort, more laborious vocation, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say, what their use, had he the powers of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assign'd; 180 Each seeming want compensated, of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: Is Heaven unkind to Man, and ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... Cayrol's. In the drawing-rooms of the mansion in the Rue Taitbout everything was resplendent with lights, and there was quite a profusion of flowers. Cayrol had thought of postponing the party, but was afraid of rousing anxieties, and like an actor who, though he has just lost his father, must play the following day, so Cayrol gave his party and showed a smiling face, so ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... yourself and make good cheer, and we shall send you back to Persia a fine strong fellow." And with the word he had dishes of meat and game set before his grandson. The boy was taken aback by their profusion, and exclaimed, "Grandfather, do you give me all this for myself, to do what I like with it?" "Certainly I do," said the king. [7] Whereupon, without more ado, the boy Cyrus took first one dish and then another and gave them to the attendants who stood ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... therefore a more studied exhibition of the media may be proper; and some verse may border more on mere narrative, and there the style should be simpler. But the great thing in poetry is, quocunque modo, to effect a unity of impression upon the whole; and a too great fulness and profusion of point in the parts will prevent this. Who can read with pleasure more than a hundred lines or so of Hudibras at one time? Each couplet or quatrain is so whole in itself, that you can't connect them. There is no fusion,—just ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... Church, Staffordshire, are the fine monumental effigies of Sir Humphrey Stafford and his wife (1450), remarkable alike for the rich armour of the knight and the courtly costume of the lady. She wears a profusion of rings, every finger, except the little finger of the right hand, being furnished with one. They exhibit great variety of design, and are valuable as exponents of the fashion of that day. We engrave in Fig. 151 the hands of the lady, as uplifted in ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... the caissiere swaying in her high seat. On the pavement of the boulevard she looked up and down; there were people at little tables by the door; there were people all over the broad expanse of the asphalt; there was a profusion of light and a pervasion of sound; and everywhere, though the establishment at which they had been dining was not in the thick of the fray, the tokens of a great traffic of pleasure, that night-aspect of Paris which represents ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... giant trees, their huge limbs clothed in the green leaves and drooping trails of blossoms of the orchids, the tangled pattern of the interlaced creepers, the flower-decked bushes and the high ferns, looked all the lovelier in their untrammelled profusion. ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... gold, bordered with gold and silver lace. On the head she has a shawl or square kerchief bordered with lace. A poor woman has simply a bodice and pyjamas, with a cloth round the waist to cover their ends. Women as a rule always wear shoes, even though they do not go out, and they have a profusion of ornaments of much the same character ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... were opened, and through them one saw the rippling of the rich green foliage in the park; the large iron balconies were filled with flowers, fragrant mignonette, lemon-scented verbenas, purple heliotropes, all growing in rich profusion. The spray of the little scented fountain sparkled in the sun. Every one agreed that there was no other room in London like the ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... prosperity, such superb profusion, Slight not, Furius, idly nor reject not. 25 As for sesterces, all the would-be fortune, Cease to wish it; ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... to a circle. A mellow western light from that portion of the sky unswathed in clouds streamed through the window, and did duty as a lamp. The cloth was white, and tapered down in soft folds at the corners; a pleasant profusion of sparkling china and silver, and of savory eatables, filled the circumference of the board, leaving just space enough to operate in, and no more. In the centre of the table, and perceptible both to eyes and nose on entering the room, was a tall glass ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... Mr. Roger Blake appeared at the door of the dining-room. He was a young man with a profusion of fair hair and a good deal of color, the latter heightened considerably by the somewhat embarrassing circumstances attending his introduction. But Indiman relieved the situation immediately, going forward and greeting the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... pin there. For it didn't seem as if anybody there, man or woman, stood in need of any more ornaments, and if they took it, I should always thought they done it out of pure meanness. For such a profusion of jewelled ornaments I never see, and such dresses, oh, my! I thought even before I met the royal party what would I give if Almina Hagadone could be sot down there with liberty to bring a lot of old newspapers, the Jonesville "Augurses" and "Gimlets" and take ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... la Farre, Archeveque of Nancy, was to celebrate mass, the streets through which the procession was to pass were one mass of silken banners and the richest stuffs depending from every window, every balcony. Crown tapestries lined the way in double row, and flowers in profusion were strewn along the streets. Vast throngs surged backward and forward, held in check by the soldiers of the splendid Maison du Roi and the Swiss troops, while every balcony, every window, every roof-top, every possible place of vantage was filled to overflowing with eager spectators. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... that all the chairs were deep and well padded and that much space was occupied by a writing-table of which the ingenious perfection bore the stamp of London and the nineteenth century. There were books in profusion and magazines and newspapers, and a few small, odd, elaborate pictures, chiefly in water-colour. One of these productions stood on a drawing-room easel before which, at the moment we begin to be concerned with her, the young girl I have mentioned had placed herself. She was looking ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James



Words linked to "Profusion" :   profuseness, copiousness, cornucopia, wilderness, verdancy, verdure, overgrowth, greenness, teemingness, abundance



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org