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verb
Contract  v. t.  (past & past part. contracted; pres. part. contracting)  
1.
To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one's sphere of action. "In all things desuetude doth contract and narrow our faculties."
2.
To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit. "Thou didst contract and purse thy brow."
3.
To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease. "Each from each contract new strength and light." "Such behavior we contract by having much conversed with persons of high station."
4.
To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for. "We have contracted an inviolable amity, peace, and lague with the aforesaid queen." "Many persons... had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity... prohibited by law."
5.
To betroth; to affiance. "The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve us."
6.
(Gram.) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
Synonyms: To shorten; abridge; epitomize; narrow; lessen; condense; reduce; confine; incur; assume.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contract" Quotes from Famous Books



... which, from her earliest infancy, had befallen her family. She had also fixed her affections on Maximilian; and as she now deemed him her husband, she could not, she thought, without incurring the greatest guilt, and violating the most solemn engagements, contract a marriage with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... result? Ruin to itself; loss of the brotherhood. He who loves not his brother for deeper reasons than those of a common parentage will cease to love him at all. The love that enlarges not its borders, that is not ever spreading and including, and deepening, will contract, shrivel, decay, die. I have had the sons of my mother that I may learn the universal brotherhood. For there is a bond between me and the most wretched liar that ever died for the murder he would ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... Burbadge, who, his father having died or retired, was then the leader of the Blackfriars company, signed a contract for the building of the Globe theatre, in which Shakespeare is known to have been a large owner. The Blackfriars was not accommodation enough for the company's uses, but was entirely covered-in, and furnished suitably for the Winter. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... you shall hear, however you are loth, That, like a perjured prince, you broke your oath: To gain your freedom you a contract signed, By which your crown you to my king resigned, From thenceforth as his vassal holding it, And paying tribute such as he thought fit; Contracting, when your father came to die, To lay aside all marks of royalty, And at Purchena privately to live, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... thy hands! The right alone, though farther from the heart, Is giv'n as pledge of contract and of bond, Perhaps to indicate that not alone Emotion, which is rooted in our hearts, But reason, too, the person's whole intent, Must give endurance to the plighted word. Emotion's tide is swift of change as time; That which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... as Monsieur Dupin, Edmond About, and Michelet tell us, the extravagant demands of love for dress lead women to contract debts unknown to their husbands, and sign obligations which are paid by the sacrifice of honor, and thus the purity of the family is continually undermined. In England there is a voice of complaint, sounding from the leading periodicals, that the extravagant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... in the Equity side of the Exchequer to compel Mr. Alderman Harper to perform his contract, by taking out the lease. But the Alderman drew an answer, supported by no less than seven long affidavits, copies of all which were furnished to his lordship, and with the desired effect; for rather than compel him to place them upon the file of the court, his lordship ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... with the dam on the Pinas River while the water was low and before cold weather set in. The attorney would look after the incorporation of the company and the stock and bond issues. Lee could at once engage a staff of assistant engineers and arrange to let the building contract. In the matter of the canal line, he had received ample assurance from members of the Land and Water Board at Santa Fe that the changes he asked would be granted. Everything was propitious, everything ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... this, cousin," replied the king, with an effort which preserved his firmness. "On this head we cannot agree. Take what else thou wilt of royalty,—make treaties and contract marriages, establish peace or proclaim war; but trench not on my sweetest prerogative to give and to forgive. And now, wilt thou tarry and sup with us? The ladies grow impatient of a commune that detains from their eyes the stateliest ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "I shall have the honor to remind your majesty of it. It was with regard to a formal demand I had addressed to you respecting a marriage which M. de Bragelonne wished to contract with ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... "Girl-Moon." She was, he says, distressed by the exposure of her full-orbed charms, as she flew bare through the vault of heaven: the protecting darkness ever vanishing before her; and she took refuge for concealment in the cloud of which the fleecy billows were to close and contract about her, in the limbs of the goat-god. How little she accepted this her first eclipse, may be shown, he thinks, by the fact that she never now lingers within a cloud longer than is necessary to ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... week—isn't that a hundred and fifty pounds?—for the six weeks, and I spent as little as possible; for I didn't get as large a salary as that in America. I engaged to dance for three hundred dollars a week there, which seemed perfectly wonderful to me at first; so I had to keep my contract, though other managers would have given me more. I wanted dreadfully to take their offers, because I was in such a hurry to have enough money to begin my real work. But I knew I shouldn't be blessed in my undertaking if I acted ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... all. He could not contract, testify, marry or give in marriage. He had neither property, knowledge, right, or power. The whole four millions did not possess that number of dollars or of dollars' worth. Whatever they had acquired in slavery was the master's, unless he had expressly ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... on his battle-sword). Why, at the hour when spirits walk the earth, Meet the three Cantons of the mountains here, Upon the lake's inhospitable shore? And what the purport of the new alliance We here contract beneath the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... roar of merriment. "Yes; marriage is a contract under our law, but not so with these people. The only question with them is whether they are suited to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... him angrily. "Well, your contract isn't up till the end of the week anyway. We'll see what we can do about a ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow

... originally during 1663-1665 by Thomas Harris, the father of the celebrated Renatus or Rene Harris, and the cost was defrayed by public subscription, to which, however, the inhabitants of Gloucester contributed but little. The contract was for the sum of L400, exclusive of the sum for the building of the organ-loft, and the decoration of the pipes and the case. The gilding and painting was entrusted to Mr Campion in November 1664, and the work was finished in December 1666. This artist was celebrated ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse

... awake, all right. With a government contract due on Saturday we needed a full shift. The Army wouldn't wait for its uranium; it wouldn't take excuses. But if something had happened to ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf

... whose power they respectively are, the necessity of which, and even of its being given before the marriage takes place, is recognised no less by natural reason than by law. Hence the question has arisen, can the daughter or son of a lunatic lawfully contract marriage? and as the doubt still remained with regard to the son, we decided that, like the daughter, the son of a lunatic might marry even without the intervention of his father, according to the mode prescribed ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... it was described in legal language as a court baron. If a court so occupied was made up of villain tenants only, it was called a customary court. If, on the other hand, the court also punished general offences, petty crimes, breaches of contract, breaches of the assize, that is to say, the established standard of amount, price, or quality of bread or beer, the lord of the manor drawing his authority to hold such a court either actually or supposedly from a grant from the king, such ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... pisteuein]. It was Marcion's purpose therefore to give all value to faith alone to make it dependent on its own convincing power and avoid all philosophic paraphrase and argument. The contrast in which he placed the Christian blessing of salvation has in principle nothing in common with the contract in which Greek philosophy viewed the summum bonum. Finally it may be pointed out that Marcion introduced no new elements (AEons, Matter, etc.) into his evangelic views and leant on no Oriental religious ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... he informed you that he had made a contract with Mr. Adie for curing fish at the time when you granted the permission?-I think he went from Busta to Lerwick, and spoke to Mr. Harrison and some other fish-curers, and I believe he expected to get some from Mr. Harrison, and ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... sheep, and hogs, is a prevalent disease. Boys walking the path, barefoot, where such diseased animals frequently pass, may contract the disease. This is always cured by washing in blue vitriol. Most cases are cured by one application, and the most confirmed by two or three. Make a narrow passage, where only one animal can pass at once. Put in a trough twelve feet long, twelve ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... the same was true for wealthy merchants and finally, some non-noble farmers who were successful in one or another way, bought additional land reaching the size of large holdings. All "gentry" families owned substantial estates in the provinces which they leased to tenants on a kind of contract basis. The tenants, therefore, cannot be called "serfs" although their factual position often was not different from the position of serfs. The rents of these tenants, usually about half the gross produce, are the basis of the livelihood of the gentry. ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... only daughter of the elder branch of the Fordyces. Her father had intended her to marry her cousin, the male heir on whom the Hillside estates and the advowson of that living were entailed; but before the contract had been formally made, the father was killed by accident, and through some folly and ambition of her mother's (such seemed to be the Fordyce belief), the poor heiress was married to Sir James Winslow, one of the successful intriguers of the days of the later Stewarts, and with a family ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... laid bets, and the greater part of it they refused to pay. In justification they pointed out that the deed performed by the pig was "an act of God," who in the analogous instance of the express companies had been specifically forbidden to take any action affecting the interests of parties to a contract, or the result of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... it has been very surprising to us to see in these our times that some people, who really at heart have the interest of women upon their minds, have been so short-sighted and reckless as to clamor for an easy dissolution of the marriage-contract, as a means of righting their wrongs. Is it possible that they do not see that this is a liberty which, once granted, would always tell against the weaker sex? If the woman who finds that she has made a mistake, and married a man unkind or uncongenial, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... could do. By this time they had made various improvements, especially in their engine, and had supplied themselves with two machines. With one of these, in the summer of 1908, Wilbur Wright came to France; with the other Orville Wright was to attempt to secure the contract in America for an army aeroplane. A French syndicate had agreed to buy the Wright patents and a certain number of machines on condition that two flights of not less than fifty kilometres each should be made in a single week, the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... one moment he is full of humour and robust talk, a genial, merry, shrewd-eyed old gentleman; at the next—at the mention of real sin—his brows contract, his eyes flash, and his tongue hisses out such hatred and contempt and detestation as no sybarite could find on the tip of his tongue for anything ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... with old Mervin in that hunting trip had been entirely accidental, and he had been astounded by the marriage contract which Mervin shortly after proposed between the two families. Ordinarily even Jude Cartwright, with all his self-esteem, would never have aspired to a star so remote as Mervin's daughter. The miracle, however, happened. He saw himself ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... there appears to be only this portion seriously injured, and another, almost a splinter, running along the part adjoining. It will be compulsory to cut a well-squared opening for the fitting, you will be careful to make the walls of this part contract as the descent is made, so that the wood inserted is slightly wedge-shaped. You will at the same time be careful and bear in mind that this fresh wood will have to match so nicely, that when inserted properly the threads or grain will appear continuous and not broken to the eye of ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... not ask about voting," said Mr. Clark. "The gentleman said awhile ago that voting did not constitute citizenship. I want to know if she is a citizen. Can she not sue and be sued, contract, and exercise the rights of ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... declivities of democratic decline are never remounted. The natural tendency there being to deny the right of the minority, (the most precious of all,) to sink the man entire in the ballot, to lay violent hands on the private portion of his life, and to force even his conscience into the social contract, it follows that governments arise in which the question of limitation becomes effaced by the question of origin. In the face of such a power, nothing is left standing; no more rights, no more principles, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... always respected his wife's request that they should live apart; with remarkable cunning he had drafted the marriage contract, in which, "In case there was no issue of the marriage, husband and wife bequeathed to each other all their property, without exception or reservation." Death disappointed his schemes. Mme. de Bonfons was left a widow three years ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... indifference. Yet there was a slight shrinking, a diminishing in his assurance. Physically even, he shrank, and his fine full presence waned. He never grew in the least stout, so that, as he sank from his erect, assertive bearing, his physique seemed to contract along with his ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... something of a partisan in the enmity which I perceived to smoulder between them. True, it seemed mostly on the mother's part. She would sometimes draw in her breath as he came near, and the pupils of her vacant eyes would contract as if with horror or fear. Her emotions, such as they were, were much upon the surface and readily shared; and this latent repulsion occupied my mind, and kept me wondering on what grounds it rested, and whether the son was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with literature left its impress upon all branches into which the Babylonian literature was in the course of time differentiated. In a certain sense all the literature of Babylonia is religious. Even the legal formulas, as embodied in the so-called contract tablets, have a religious tinge. The priests being the scribes, a contract of any kind between two or more parties was a religious compact. The oath which accompanied the compact involved an invocation of the gods. The decree of the judges in a disputed suit was confirmed by an appeal to ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... was my father's running thus: 'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head: Render him up unscathed: give him your hand: Cleave to your contract: though indeed we hear You hold the woman is the better man; A rampant heresy, such as if it spread Would make all women kick against their Lords Through all the world, and which might well deserve That we this night should ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... to grow dusk, but Tranta was early to-night. This was the reason that his eyes had a somewhat peculiar look just then, for he did not care very much for light. It made the pupils of his eyes contract from their usual vertical slits into small, round spots, and when this was the case he could not ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... have both hand and my hat full of trouble. But she's going to be done according to contract. I reckon I'll wish you was ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... of this new idea, Mr. Jerrold, Hannah and Grey entered heart and soul into Bessie's project, and within a week a plan for the cottage had been drawn, and a contract made with the builders who were to commence work at once. Neither Hannah nor Bessie were present when the walls of the main building went crashing down into the cellar they were to fill, but when it came to the bed-room and wood-shed, Hannah, Bessie, Grey and his father sat under a tree ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... on, bracing herself as if for a great effort, "to remind you that when you married, you entered into a contract which ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... fitted up at once as an office and a warehouse. Ships adapted both for war and for trade were required; but the means of building such ships did not exist in Scotland; and no firm in the south of the island was disposed to enter into a contract which might not improbably be considered by the House of Commons as an impeachable offence. It was necessary to have recourse to the dockyards of Amsterdam and Hamburg. At an expense of fifty thousand pounds ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... system of huge restaurants, whether in London or in the very large hotels, which are now run in Swiss, Italian and English summer resorts. Hundreds of visitors are "catered for" daily. There is no attempt at anything which deserves the name of cookery. Great monopolists control the supplies, and contract to deliver to these hotels, even in out-of-the-way localities, so much ice-stored, "mousey" fish, "mousey" quails, stringy meat, impossible vegetables and fruits, gathered from the cheapest markets of Europe and of a quality just not ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... given with a will. Joe waved his hand again in greeting. He must have guessed that they had heard about the contract he signed that same morning in the office of his employer, Mr. Charles Taft, whereby he agreed to be responsible for the upbuilding of the new gymnasium, and the character of its many boy members, for the period of a whole year, devoting ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... Shrewsbury,[181] whom he afterwards married, and by the law he could not have formed a second engagement so long as the first was undissolved. And again, he himself, when subsequently examined before the privy council, denied solemnly on his oath that any contract of the kind had existed.[182] At the same time, we cannot suppose Cavendish to have invented so circumstantial a narrative, and Percy would not have been examined if there had been no reason for suspicion. Something, therefore, probably had ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... as the naturalists would call it, was undoubtedly something of the whelk family; and if you can only find some of them large enough to cut up in slices, we shall have nothing to ear as to a supply of india-rubber shoe-soles. I've had some experience of contract beef in the army; but that is calves'-foot ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... Political Treatise, entitled "Du Contract Social," has the following observation: "Il est encore en Europe un pays capable de legislation; c'est l'isle de Corse. La valeur et la constance avec laquelle ce brave peuple a su recouvrer et defendre sa liberte meriteroit bien que quelque homme sage lui apprit a la conserver. J'ai ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... Jim," said I. "You may want me to help you out some day and I shall not undertake to handle the case unless it is clearly stated in the contract that I am to be in ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... knows In all the house of nothing that he owes,[9] For his concerns are all at my dispose: There's not a thing that he hath kept from me But all is in my hand, save only thee; Then how can I commit so foul a fact, And the displeasure of my God contract? Yet still she sued, and still did he deny her, Refusing to be with her, or lie by her. Now on a time when all the men were gone Out of the house, and she was left alone: And Joseph at that instant coming in, About ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... confusion, dearest! But I must think it all over. If you see me less often, be sure that it is because I am planning for our happiness. And now, darling,—my own, my own, now really and for ever, my own— one kiss to seal our contract! You won't refuse me that. I take you thus in my arms, my Paolina; for the first time as your promised husband. Good-night—good-night—my own! I trust I may be able to think of what I am doing at the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... another slip of paper for thyself to read immediately in my presence,' said the master. The words it contained were, 'Do thou the same, or there enters thy lips neither food nor water until thou landest in Italy. I permit thee to carry away more than double the sum: I am no sutler: I do not contract for thy sustenance.' The canonico asked of the master whether he knew the contents of the letter; he replied no. 'Tell your master, lord Abdul, that I shall take them into consideration.' 'My lord expected a ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... Sun.—Examine a crockery plate or dish that has been many times in and out of a hot oven, noticing the little cracks all over its surface. Most substances expand when they are heated and contract when they are cooled. When the plate is placed in the oven the surface heats faster than the inner parts, and cools faster when taken out of the oven. The result is that there is unequal expansion and contraction in the plate and consequently tension or pulling of its parts against each other. The ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... person, who, either as principal or agent—(a) Makes or enters into or enforces or seeks to enforce any rule, order, regulation, contract, agreement or arrangement in restraint of or with intent to restrain, prevent or hinder the marriage of any person (N.B. A woman is a "person" in Western Australia) who is in his employment or in the employment ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... married." He caught the look upon her face. "I don't say it was ideal. It simply was," he digressed slowly in answer, then hurried on: "That was only five years ago, Eleanor, and we were far from young." He looked at her, searchingly. "You've not forgotten the contract we drew up, that stood above the marriage obligation, above everything, supreme law for you and me?" Instinctively his hand went to an inner pocket, where the rustle of a paper answered his touch. "Remember; it's not a favor I ask of you, but the fulfilment of your own word. Think ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... will, but I think I remain a little strange. I seem a spectator that a caprice has cast upon this globe, and though I live here, I must succumb to a certain alienation, a lack of mediation between their life and my former existence, and because of this subtle estrangement, I shall contract disease, or meet with accident, or waste in age, while you shall stay young, and living, sink into the Martian life and yield to it a spiritual, a mental acquiescence. You will become absorbed, and, with your love realized, the whole rhapsodic life of this world will mingle ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... particular shade, model, or style may I show you? Something seasonable and yet durable? Here is a very attractive and well-bound ten-pound creation covering most of the common or garden varieties of contract, including breach of promise to marry. Nice summer reading. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... women—the idea of woman. Woman is their shepherdess of sheep. He loved freedom, loathed the subjection of a partnership; could undergo it only in adoration of an ineffable splendour. He had stepped to the altar fancying she might keep to her part of the contract by appearing the miracle that subdued him. Seen by light of day, this bitter object beside him was a witch without her spells; that is, the skeleton of the seductive, ghastliest among horrors and ironies. Let her have the credit of doing her work thoroughly before the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... outstretching her palms against him as he sprang to his feet, "I tell you we are not married. Why should I recognize the rites of your nation when you do not acknowledge the rites of mine? According to your own words, my parents should have gone through your church ceremony as well as through an Indian contract; according to my words, we should go through an Indian contract as well as through a church marriage. If their union is illegal, so is ours. If you think my father is living in dishonor with my mother, my people will think I am living in dishonor with you. How do I know when ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... the ship Hunter, whose voyage is the backbone of my story; to Captain David Woodard, English mariner, who more than a hundred and twenty years ago was wrecked on the island of Celebes; to Captain R.G.F. Candage of Brookline, Massachusetts, who was party to the original contract in melon seeds; and to certain blue-water skippers who have left sailing directions for eastern ports and seas, I am grateful for fascinating narratives and journals, and indebted for incidents in this ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... a little talk which we had together, he awarded his approbation to the general view, but censured the position of Goat Island, observing that it should have been thrown farther to the right, so as to widen the American falls, and contract those of the Horseshoe. Next appeared two traders of Michigan, who declared that, upon the whole, the sight was worth looking at; there certainly was an immense water power here; but that, after all, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... night named Smith, from Perrysburgh, with whom I was acquainted in the North. He was on his way to Kentucky to buy up a drove of fine horses, and he wanted me to go and help him to drive his horses out to Perrysburgh, and said he would pay all my expenses if I would go. So I made a contract to go and agreed to meet him the next week, on a set day, in Washington, Ky., to start with his drove to the north. Accordingly at the time I took a steamboat passage down to Maysville, near where I was to ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... year ago my old friend, Jules Simon, author of "Devoir," came to me with a request that I write a novel for the "Journal pour Tous." I gave him the outline of a novel which I had in mind. The subject pleased him, and the contract was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... his characters stutter soon," said Millaud. "We had better pay him by the line." Of course this is a story faite a plaisir, as is also the one that as soon as Dumas made his first contract by the line, enchanted with the arrangement, he invented dear old Grimaud, who only opened his mouth to utter "yes," "no," "what?" "ah!" "bah!" and other monosyllables; but when the editor, who knew the cash price of "peuh" and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... course, there has been balances of the kind you speak of before now. I wouldn't say but—looking at the matter in that way—and besides there'd be a commission from the fellow that got the contract for the statue. And with regard to the L5 ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham

... approach those millions of families now living at a wage with the proposal for the contract of service for life, guaranteeing them employment at what each regarded as his usual full wage, ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... playing together in harmony. He and his fellows are always fighting. With them familiarity naturally breeds contempt. If they ever praise each other's bad drawings, or broken-winded novels, or spavined verses, nobody ever supposed it was from admiration; it was simply a contract between themselves and a publisher ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... suggestions. He carried out these instructions to the letter. He wrote a beautiful hand. He was, as the reader knows, an admirable accountant. For several days Mr. Burns seemed disposed to ascertain his capabilities by putting a variety of matters into his hands. He gave him a contract to copy, and then asked for an abstract of it. He submitted several long accounts to him for arrangement. He sent him to the mill or factory, sometimes to deliver a message simply, sometimes to look after a matter of consequence. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... around the shop wouldn't turn anyone gray-headed; but he makes the most of it. He swells up more over orderin' a few office supplies than Mr. Robert would about signin' a million-dollar contract, and the way he keeps watch of the towels and soap and spring water you'd think our stock was fallin' below par, 'stead of payin' nine per cent, on common. Gen'rally Piddie don't handle anything but petty cash; but once in awhile, when no one else is handy, they chuck something big his way, ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... would be erected until the following year, as it was necessary to have a millwright and all the machinery from either Montreal or Quebec. It was intended that the estimate of the expense should be given in, the contract made, and the order given during the autumn, so that it might be all ready for the spring of the next year. It was on a Monday morning that Henry arrived from the fort, where he had staid the Sunday, having reached ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... under such pretended masters of this art, who can only give them the worst, and who, instead of teaching, stand themselves in need of being taught. The consequence then of such a bad choice, is, that young people of the finest disposition in the world, contract, under such teachers, bad, awkward habits, that are not afterwards ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... subject to temporary fits of insanity. By sheer terror, Le Prun extorted from her a written declaration, to the effect that she lived with him merely as his mistress, and that no marriage ceremony, or any contract of marriage, had ever been performed between them. It was about three months after these terrible occurrences that she gave birth to a male child. This child, it appeared, was removed after a few weeks from its mother, and placed in the care of a poor woman in the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... are subdivided into personal service and maintenance. Personal service in turn is divided into salaries and wages, and maintenance into supplies, materials, equipment, contract or open order service, and fixed ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... same Bishop there is a deed, wherein Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, farmers of Shottery, bound themselves in the Bishop's court under a surety of L40 to free the Bishop of all liability should a lawful impediment—"by reason of any pre-contract or consanguinity"—be subsequently disclosed to imperil the validity of the marriage, then in contemplation, of William Shakespeare ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... hardness which the bed exhibits. Where the strata are very firm there is likely to be a narrow gorge, the steeps of which rise on either side with but slight alluvial plains; where the beds are soft the valley widens, perhaps again to contract where in the course of its descent it encounters another hard layer. Where, however, the beds have been subjected to mountain-building, and have been thrown into very varied attitudes by folding and faulting, the stream now here and now there encounters beds which either restrain its flow or ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... hills, the left resting upon the Hudson, thus recovering touch with the strategic centre of interest. This menacing position of the Americans, upon the flank of the line of communications from New York to the Delaware, compelled Howe to contract abruptly the lines he had extended so lightly; and the campaign he was forced thus reluctantly to reopen closed under a gloom of retreat and disaster, which profoundly and justly impressed not only the generality of men but military critics as well. "Of ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... old grant which they have always supported and the larger grant which they are determined to oppose. But never was attempt more unsuccessful. They say that, at the time of the Union, we entered into an implied contract with Ireland to keep up this college. We are therefore, they argue, bound by public faith to continue the old grant; but we are not bound to make any addition to that grant. Now, Sir, on this point, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and Lombardy had brought the city of Lucca under the rule of Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona, who, though bound by contract to assign her to the Florentines, had refused to do so; for, being lord of Parma, he thought he should be able to retain her, and did not trouble himself about his breach of faith. Upon this the Florentines joined the Venetians, and with ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... was happening, and not a day passed but saw desperate races between fleet ocean greyhounds and hostile cruisers, which, as a rule, terminated in favour of the former, thanks to the superiority of private enterprise over Government contract-work in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... ambulances and lorries and had made long journeys from their depots. They, too, demanded demobilization. They refused to be drafted out for service to India, Egypt, Archangel, or anywhere. They had "done their bit," according to their contract. It was for the War Office to fulfil its pledges. "Justice" was the word on their lips, and it was a word which put the wind up (as soldiers say) any staff-officers and officials who had not studied the laws of justice as they concern private soldiers, and who had ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... had the upper hand, was conducted with a minimum of vituperation. The severity shown was hardly more than sufficient to demonstrate earnestness, while gentlemanly feeling was too predominant to permit that earnestness to contract itself to bigotry or to clothe itself in abuse. It was probably the memory of this discussion which caused another excellent friend of mine to recommend to my perusal the exceedingly able work which in the next article I have endeavoured ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... retorted. "And it's exactly upside down, like most Northern ideas of Florida. When it comes to picking the fruit and shipping it North—that's the one time we can loaf. For we don't pick it or ship it. That's done for us on contract. It's our lazy time. But every other step is a fight. For instance, there's the woolly white fly and there's the rust mite and there's the purple scale. and there are a million other pests just as bad. And we have to battle with them. all the time. And ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... church had degenerated from her standard. [Sidenote: Sacraments] In the first place he reduced the number of sacraments, denying that name to matrimony, orders, extreme unction and confirmation. In attacking orders he demolished the priestly ideal and authority. In reducing marriage to a civil contract he took a long step towards the secularization of life. Penance he considered a sacrament in a certain sense, though not in the strict one, and he showed that it had been turned by the church from its original significance of "repentance" [1] to that of sacramental penance, in which no faith was ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... clear-cut face, which was distinctly the face of a man who has not made a good thing of life, and who can never for a moment lose sight of that fact. There were lines above the eyes, clear, blue, and somewhat sunken eyes, which denoted the habit of the brows to contract on very slight provocation, and far oftener than was good for their owner's peace of mind, and the bronze underlying the clear skin told of a former life in the open—possibly under a warmer sun than ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... slavery; for if the Christians were not expelled to the last man from the island, all the natives would sooner or later become their slaves. Hojeda, on the other hand, negotiated with Caunaboa, urging him to come in person to visit the Admiral, and contract a firm alliance with him. The envoys of the caciques promised Caunaboa their unlimited support for the expulsion of the Spaniards, but Hojeda threatened to massacre him if he chose war rather than peace with the Christians. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... advised by a very great statesman indeed to secure the editorial services of Mr. Arncliffe; and he had managed to do it in forty-eight hours by dint of the exercise of a certain amount of political and social influence in various quarters, and by entering into a contract which, for some years, at all events, would make Arncliffe a tolerably ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... to visit the funerary chambers, to note the condition of their occupants, and, if necessary, repair the damage done by time, and to provide on certain days the offerings prescribed by custom, or by clauses in the contract drawn up between the family of the deceased and the religious authorities. The titles of these officials indicated how humble was their position in relation to the deified ancestors in whose service they were employed; they called themselves the "Servants of the True Place," and their chiefs the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... was not good, it had just substituted a Concordat that was worse. This new alliance, concluded by it with the Church in 1802, is not a religious marriage, the solemn sacrament by which, at Rheims, she and the King promised to live together and in harmony in the same faith, but a simple civil contract, more precisely the legal regulation of a lasting and deliberate divorce.—In a paroxysm of despotism the State has stripped the Church of its possessions and turned it out of doors, without clothes or bread, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... degenerating in this period of great prosperity. Hiram Powers, of Cincinnati, the ablest sculptor of his country, was greatly hurt because Congress refused him the contract for the decorative work on the magnificent Capitol in Washington, at last nearing completion. His aspirations were not unreasonable, for his Greek Slave, a beautiful work in marble, had captured the imagination of both American and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... a new interest in my friend. I loved the open road, but with the heavy expenses I had recently sustained I could not afford it. Besides, my firm had just secured a big electric lighting contract with the corporation of Chichester, and I was constantly travelling between that city and London, sometimes by rail and ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... 27, 1325, to Lawrence de Hastings, Earl of Pembroke: contract broken by Queen Isabelle, who on January 1st, 1327, sent a mandate to the Prioress of Sempringham, commanding her to receive the child and "veil her immediately, that she may dwell there perpetually as a regular nun." (Rot. Claus., 1 Edward the Third.) Since it was not usual for a nun ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... encouraged sinners satiated with vice to transmit their misery-making propensities from generation to generation. I believe firmly that marriage, when those who marry are of such character as to make the contract holy matrimony, is a perfect state, fulfilling every law of our human nature, and making earth with all its drawbacks a heaven of happiness; but such marriages as we see contracted every day are simply a degradation of all ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... whenever she speaks of subjects which seem to agitate the depths of her being. How and why is it that an excessive amount of feeling always finds its first expression in the eye? One kind of emotion seems to widen the pupil, another kind to contract it. TO be noticed in future, how particular emotions ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... beyond sea. By threats Gloucester got the Duke of York into his hands, and lodged him with his brother in the Tower. He was now in a temper which would stop at no atrocity. He put up a Dr. Shaw to preach a sermon against Edward's claim to the throne. In those days if a man and woman made a contract of marriage neither of the contracting parties could marry another, though no actual marriage had taken place. Shaw declared that Edward IV. had promised marriage to one of his mistresses before he met Elizabeth Woodville, and that therefore, his marriage with ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... is no fear of their not turning out well. We consider we have made a capital bargain with you; we have been paid by you for our work in sinking the shaft, and now it will be easy for us to work our claims. It was a lucky day for us when we made that contract to sink ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... vastly his inferior in station, that marriage to him was merely a political contract? What would ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... manner it was desirable to avoid. There was a good deal of merry talk between Jean and the hosts, enemies though she regarded them. The Duke of York was evidently much struck with her beauty and liveliness, and he asked Sir Patrick in private whether there were any betrothal or contract in consequence of which he ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the iron-master in the freezing-out process was an unsolved riddle to many. But there were reasons. For one, there was the lease of the coal lands, renewable year by year—this was Caleb's own honest provision inserted in the contract for the Major's protection—and renewable only by the Major's friend. Further, a practical man at the practical end of an industry is a sheer necessity; and by contriving to have honest Caleb associated with himself in the receivership, a fine color of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... that nothing extra will happen between this and then to make a change in his character for better, or for worse. And besides, as he has entered into an engagement ... not to quit this world before the year 1800, it may be relied upon that no breach of contract shall be laid to him on that account, unless dire necessity should bring it about, maugre all his exertions to the contrary. In that same, he shall hope they would do by him as he would do by them—excuse it. At present there seems to be no danger of his ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... on the foot of the best authorities made it evident, that George III. King of Britain, has endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this country, by breaking the original contract between king and people; by the advice of wicked persons has violated the fundamental laws; and has withdrawn himself by withdrawing the constitutional benefits of the kingly office, and his protection ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... half instinctive tactics of the lax and lazy-minded to evade trouble and austerities. The incompetent medical practitioner, incapable of regimen, repeats this cant even to-day, though he knows full well that, left to Nature, men over-eat themselves almost as readily as dogs, contract a thousand diseases and exhaust their last vitality at fifty, and that half the white women in the world would die with their first children still unborn. He knows, too, that to the details of such precautionary ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... blessing to himself and those around him, he lived and died the Squire Western of his day, without that refinement and cultivation of the tastes and mental powers which the more polished inhabitants of the metropolis insensibly contract. Sure there were many to whom this does not apply, many who combined the "gifts" of both a town and country life. But, nevertheless such was the great bulk of that class, among whom, had London been England, as even in our own time Paris is or was France, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... made up, and of course mostly from memory. Under all these circumstances, the wonder is that there are not more errors in them. Almost at the last moment did I learn that I could include these rolls in my book, without exceeding its limits under the contract price. During this time I have endeavored at considerable expense and labor to get them correct, but even so, I cannot hope that they are more than approximately complete. Nothing can be more sacred or valuable to the veteran and his descendants than ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... faintest nocturnal light (which we call darkness) it sees with much more distinctness than we do in the splendour of noon day, at which time these birds remain hidden in dark holes; or if indeed they are compelled to come out into the open air lighted up by the sun, they contract their pupils so much that their power of sight diminishes together with the quantity of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... into my hands," explained the don. "And the end of your journey—San Cristoval, for he cannot go beyond that point—you will pay him the remainder and give him a paper assuring me that he has performed his part of the contract. You are thus safeguarded, and I shall have done my duty by Don Jos['e]'s friends," concluded Se[n]or Abreguardo, bowing ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... could not say," she said. "I cannot tell you now if he be alive or dead." Then she became drowsy, as old age does when it has talked enough; so, as Aunt M'riar had plenty to see to, she took her leave, Dolly remaining in charge as per contract. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan



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