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Convertible   Listen
adjective
Convertible  adj.  
1.
Capable of being converted; susceptible of change; transmutable; transformable. "Minerals are not convertible into another species, though of the same genus."
2.
Capable of being exchanged or interchanged; reciprocal; interchangeable. "So long as we are in the regions of nature, miraculous and improbable, miraculous and incredible, may be allowed to remain convertible terms."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Convertible" Quotes from Famous Books



... sit down on the stern lockers," proposed Grace after a while, the lockers being convertible into bunks on occasion. As the girls went aft, there came from the forward cabin a series ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... "that ain't reasonable. A frost and a human life ain't convertible coin. He don't do unreasonable things. May be I've lost my head already. But I'd be glad to. That's all. I suppose I can ask You for a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... life." Ridiculing the doctrines of conversion and election as taught by the Missouri Synod, the Visitor continues: "These doctrines are the simon-pure, unadulterated, unalloyed Lutheran doctrines! Missourianism and Lutheranism are convertible terms!"— Regarding the fact that the United Synod has refused to take a definite stand with respect to the doctrinal differences within the Lutheran Church, the Visitor, March 15, 1917, remarked: "Still, husband ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... mission of Joshua[19] and Jehu than of the patience of Christ, whose sufferings he thought rather of avenging than imitating: and the question whether the other Kings of the Franks should either succeed him, or, in envy of his enlarged kingdom, attack and dethrone, was easily in his mind convertible from a personal danger into the chance of the return of the whole nation to idolatry. And, in the last place, his faith in the Divine protection of his cause had been shaken by his defeat before Aries by the Ostrogoths; and the Frank leopard had not ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... union, had been transported to those Territories, they would have been such as were bound by personal attachment mutually existing between master and servant, which would have rendered it impossible for the former to consider the latter as property convertible into money. As white laborers, adapted to the climate and its products, flowed into the country, negro labor would have inevitably become a tax to those who held it, and their emancipation would have followed that condition, as it has in all the Northern States, old or new—Wisconsin ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... reason for believing that one element is convertible into another element" (p. 135). What do you know about it? The reasons for believing in such a conversion can very well exist and at the same time escape your attention; and it is not certain that your intelligence in this respect has ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... the absurd statement that "the Indian astronomers regularly speak of the Yavanas as their teachers" (p. 252). Ergo, their teachers were Greeks. For with Weber and others "Yavana" and "Greek" are convertible terms. ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... fortunate enough to discover several thermos bottles unbroken. Hot coffee revived their fainting spirits. Treating their bruises and cuts as well as they could, they left the submarine or car—it seemed to have been convertible for use either in water or on rail—and ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg

... were a capitalist, I wouldn't mind starting him myself; but as you, my dear, are my most precious property, and are not readily convertible into cash, I don't quite see my way to do ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... Acushnit brook no longer ago than when he was rehearsing his parable of the fishes. The strawberries had been kept on the vines a day or two, for the occasion, and were in perfection. Eggs figured on the table in every shape into which those most convertible things could turn themselves; and, being praised, the lady of the house said that she must tell them of Ralph, a boy of fourteen, whom her husband had taken to look after his horse and garden, giving him his tuition in Latin and other branches, for ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams

... beautiful than the next paler shade, command very high prices; while jacinth, beryl, and aqua-marine—stones of exquisite hue and lustre—are cheap. But then, in this department, as in all others, Fashion and Beauty are not convertible terms. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... precious metals,' he fails to mention that the Bank was forced to suspend specie payments three years after its establishment, and that the resumption of those payments was not commenced until 1823, when the notes of the Bank began to be convertible at little over half their original value; the operation of raising them to par, on a graduated scale, having been completed only in 1842, a period since which the Bank, with an increased Reserve Fund, has maintained an uninterrupted and unimpeachable stability. But while the Bank still advances ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... be born poor, and with a dire necessity upon him of making immediate efforts in the hard and actual. George had a helpless invalid mother to support; so, though he loved reading and silent thought above all things, he put to instant use the only convertible worldly talent he possessed, which was a mechanical genius, and shipped at sixteen as a ship-carpenter. He studied navigation in the forecastle, and found in its calm diagrams and tranquil eternal signs food ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... pump are, after all, but toys, possessing an accidental value; and natural knowledge creates multitudes of more subtle contrivances, the praises of which do not happen to be sung because they are not directly convertible into instruments for creating wealth. When I contemplate natural knowledge squandering such gifts among men, the only appropriate comparison I can find for her is, to liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... It is very fortunate for the hive, that this queen departs, for the bees incessantly attend her; nor do they ever think of procuring another while she remains; and if she was long of leaving them, it would be impossible to replace her; for the workers worms would exceed the term at which they are convertible into royal worms, and the hive would perish. Observe, that the eggs dropped by the mutilated queen can never serve for replacing her, for, not being deposited in cells, ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber

... baskets—his Highmarket basket was by no means the principal one. Indeed all that Mallalieu possessed in Highmarket was his share of the business and his private house. As he had made his money he had invested it in easily convertible, gilt-edged securities, which would be realized at an hour's notice in London or New York, Paris or Vienna. It would be the easiest thing in the world for him, as Mayor of Highmarket, to leave the town on Corporation business, and within a few hours to be where nobody ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... already been remarked that Si-fan, convertible with Man-tzu, is a loose Chinese expression of no ethnological value, meaning nothing more than Western barbarians; but in a more restricted sense it is used to designate a people (or peoples) which inhabits the valley of the Yalung and the upper T'ung, with ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... principle that the prosperity of a nation is increased in proportion to the quantity of money in circulation; and that as no State can have gold enough for all its commercial transactions, paper-money may be issued to an unlimited extent, and {194} its full value maintained without its being convertible at pleasure into hard cash. This supposed principle has been proved again and again to be a mere fallacy and paradox; but it always finds enthusiastic believers who have plausible arguments in its support. It appears, indeed, to have a singular fascination ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... men,' to Riccabocca accustomed to his happiness, and carrying it off with the seasoned equability of one grown familiar with stimulants,—in a word, appeal from Riccabocca the wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I may be convertible, but conversion is a slow progress; courtship should be a quick one,—ask Miss Jemima. Finalmente, marry me ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... for sunlight in our cities, we will come to live on the roofs more and more—in summer in the free air, in winter under variformed shelters of glass. This tendency is already manifesting itself in those newest hotels whose roofs are gardens, convertible into skating ponds, with glazed belvideres for eating in all weathers. Nothing but ignorance and inanition stand in the way of utilization of waste roof spaces. People have lived on the roofs in the past, ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... I have been in the city I have invested every thing in government securities, as safe property, and readily convertible into cash." ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... preached—the thing itself is done—and I therein rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. When animated by this high principle, this ambition absolutely for the cause itself, its servant is a gainer, because it is a gainer, by all things convertible into tribute, whatever may be the temper or intention of the officers, either as towards the cause or towards himself. He may say to them, I am more pleased by what you are actually doing, be the motive what it will, in advancement of the object to which I am devoted, than it is possible ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... said ships to be each of not less than four thousand tons burden, to be so constructed as to be convertible, at the least possible expense, into war steamers of the first class, and to be built and equipped in accordance with plans to be submitted to and approved by the Secretary of the Navy, and under the superintendence of an officer to be appointed by him, two of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... joke and by stroke of any lie we entertain. Besides, a perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an essential element in a fine character.—A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... the Hassiebrock front room, convertible from bed- to sitting-room by the mere erect-position-stand of the folding-bed, a wave of this tarry heat came flowing out, gaseous, sickening. Miss Hassiebrock entered with her face wry, made a diagonal ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... Philosophy, and instead of the term Force, which is very indistinct and indefinite in character, there appeared the term Energy, although Force and Energy are not exactly synonymous terms. Thus electricity, heat, and light are forms of energy, and are convertible into one another, in the same way that the forces were convertible. Thus we get transformations of energy in the same way that we had transformations of force, and conservation of energy in the same way that ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... contradistinction from artificial grace. Moreover, she is a romanticist. There is an expression of romance, of unworldliness, in those deep-set eyes of hers, that sinks into my heart of hearts. 'Romance' and 'womanliness,' and the two terms appear to me to be convertible, are her distinguishing features. She is an artist, an idealist, and, over and above all—a woman! Hang it! ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... to be essentially good does not belong to God alone. For as one is convertible with being, so is good; as we said above (Q. 5, A. 1). But every being is one essentially, as appears from the Philosopher (Metaph. iv); therefore every ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... pay down at least three hundred thousand francs before you could borrow on those lands. Your liabilities are five hundred thousand. To meet them you have assets that are very promising, very productive, but not convertible at present; you must fail within a given time. My opinion is that it is better to jump out of the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... that has attached to it ever since Jefferson's sweeping reelection had the effect of coupling with it the charming idea of success. But who can be expected to say a word for Agrarian? One might as well look to find a sane man ready to do battle for the Jacobin, which is all but a convertible term for Agrarian, though in its proper sense the latter word is of exactly the opposite meaning to the former. Under the term Agrarians is included, in common usage, all that class of men who exhibit a desire to remove social ills by a resort to means ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... Government has recently been making progress on an ambitious economic reform agenda, and the IMF has called Moldova a model for the region. As part of its reform efforts, Moldova introduced a stable convertible currency, freed all prices, stopped issuing preferential credits to state enterprises and backed their steady privatization, removed export controls, and freed interest rates. With the election of President LUCINSCHI in December 1996, it is unclear how ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... would have thought essential to render a young girl like her presentable. There were a few heirlooms of old date, however, which she had kept as curiosities until now, and which she looked over until she found some lace and other convertible material, with which she enlivened her costume a little for the evening. As she clasped the antique bracelet around her wrist, she felt as if it were an amulet that gave her the power of charming which had been so long obsolete in her lineage. At the bottom of her heart ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... "by my theory" is "by the theory of descent with modification;" the words "on the theory of natural selection," with which the sentence opens, lead us to suppose that Mr. Darwin regarded natural selection and descent as convertible terms. "My theory" was altered to "this theory" in 1872. Six lines lower down we read, "ON MY THEORY unity of type is explained by unity of descent." The "my" here has been allowed ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... of Mrs. Martin, whom he had not seen for years and could not see now. She was to persuade him, with her filial affection, to make her the beneficiary of his will, to see that his money was kept readily convertible into cash. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... and Johnson contested the claim. I settled the matter by giving a horn to each of them. This trifling incident is mentioned as introductory to what follows, for it appeared on inquiry that these horns were highly valued, as being easily convertible into portable sheaths, or cases, for containing and keeping secure certain charms or amulets called saphies, which the negroes constantly wear about them. These saphies are prayers, or rather sentences, from the Koran, which the Mohammedan ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... per US dollar - 1.0000 (nonconvertible, official rate, for international transactions, pegged to the US dollar); convertible peso sold for domestic use at a rate of 1.00 US dollar per 22 pesos by the Government of ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... told you when he came back," Paredes said. "He may have believed it at first or he may not have. I daresay he wanted to, for he came back with his brother's money as well as his own—the cash and the easily convertible securities that were all men would handle in that hell. But he never forgot that his brother's wife was alive, and when he ran from Panama he knew she was about to become ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp

... which in this summary manner was to be made a 'platform of observation' for the Perso-Russian army to prepare for its descent upon Hindostan. The Afghans were tribes of hardy mountaineers, inhabiting a wild and thinly-peopled country. They consisted of soldiers, husbandmen, and shepherds, all convertible, at a moment's notice, into thieves and bandits; and through their formidable defiles flowed an uncertain stream of commerce, connecting India with the distant provinces of Persia and Russia. So little was known ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... a Quibbler, than of an Orator. Though he had acquired some reputation in public causes, he appeared to most advantage and was most courted and employed in private ones.—C. Piso, who comes next in order, had scarcely any exertion, but he was a Speaker of a very convertible style; and though, in fact, he was far from being slow of invention, he had more penetration in his look and appearance than he really possessed.—His cotemporary M. Glabrio, though carefully instructed by his grandfather Scaevola, was prevented from distinguishing himself by his natural indolence ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... flowers to bring on the brief delirium and final unconsciousness. As he lies there let us remember that his last word threw back the unworthy, dark misgiving, that beauty and deformity, good and bad, could by any jugglery become convertible. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... short, INVULNERABLE, and must be left, whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed. Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and mystic state are practically convertible terms. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... by the fact, that when asleep we often believe ourselves awake, was well answered by his plain neighbour, "Ah, but when awake do we ever believe ourselves asleep?" Things identical must be convertible. The preceding passage seems to rest on a similar sophism. For the question is not, whether there may not occur in prose an order of words, which would be equally proper in a poem; nor whether there are not beautiful lines and sentences of frequent occurrence in good poems, which would ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... rich lover in the abstract. But presented in this concrete and individual way the case was different. She was a little dazzled at the brightness of Phillida's worldly prospects, now that they were no longer merely rhetorical, but real, tangible, and, in commercial phrase, convertible. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... its territory or jurisdiction the city of Aghadez. Aheer is also called Azben, and its district Azbenouwa ‮ازبنوة‬—‮ازبن‬ which appear to have been the more ancient names. The town of Aheer is also called Asouty, ‮اسوطي‬ on the maps Asouda, the dentals ‮ط‬ and ‮د‬ being convertible. These districts are bounded on the north by Ghat and its tribes; on the east by the Tibboo country and Bornou, on the west by the Negro, Touarick and Fullan countries of the north banks of the Niger; and on the south, by the Housa districts, vulgarly called by ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... represented in these learned works, and there is no very obvious necessity for considering the principle of each contrivance separately when the principles of all are one and the same. Every pressure acting with a certain velocity, or through a certain space, is convertible into a greater pressure acting with a less velocity, or through a smaller space; but the quantity of mechanical force remains unchanged by its transformation, and all that the implements called mechanical powers accomplish ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... and harmony of the three kings of Bermuda were gone for ever. While poor devils, with nothing to share but the common blessings of the island, which administered to present enjoyment, but had nothing of convertible value, they were loving and united: but here was actual wealth, which would make them rich men, whenever they could ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... business on a specie basis. Every piece of paper that claimed to be money but was not, he would chase back to the man or corporation that forged it, and visit upon the criminal the penalties of the law. He would not allow a bank note to circulate that was not constantly, conveniently, and certainly convertible into specie." In the third place, he would issue interest-paying bonds of the United States, and "go into the market and borrow money and pay the obligations of the government. This would be honest, business- ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... free from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have six working stations in different ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... on the bed of Procrustes. Adj. equal, even, level, monotonous, coequal, symmetrical, coordinate; on a par with, on a level with, on a footing with; up to the mark; equiparant[obs3]. equivalent, tantamount; indistinguishable; quits; homologous; synonymous &c. 522; resolvable into, convertible, much at one, as broad as long, neither more nor less.; much the same as, the same thing as, as good as; all one, all the same; equipollent, equiponderant[obs3], equiponderous[obs3], equibalanced[obs3]; equalized &c. v.; drawn; half and half; isochronal, isochronous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... very much the largest, and so very much the most characteristic, that popular and almost traditional opinion is scarcely wrong in considering love-poetry and Provencal poetry to be almost, and with the due limitation in the first case, convertible terms. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... of Protestant historians, it would seem that they often forget that Reformation and Protestantism are by no means convertible terms. There were plenty of sincere and indeed zealous reformers, before, during, and after the birth and growth of Protestantism, who would have nothing to do with it. Assuredly, the rejuvenescence of science and of art; the widening of the field of Nature by geographical ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... that mighty and mysterious thing, life, is that the height of wisdom, or the depth of folly? And how such a central paralysis of the mental retina spreads its darkness, as, for example, in the affirmation that as oxygen and hydrogen are reciprocally convertible with water, so are water, ammonia, and carbolic acid convertible into and resolvable from living protoplasm!—a statement said to be as false in chemistry as it certainly is in physiology. An ordinary merchant's accountant will, if need be, work a week to correct ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... on imports were adjusted to that increase, and a new Loan Bill was enacted. The bill provided for borrowing, in addition to the authority given by previous Acts, any sum not exceeding $600,000,000 in bonds, or treasury notes convertible into bonds, at six per cent interest in coin or seven and three-tenths per cent interest in currency. This provision was found to be so comprehensive that it not only provided a strong instrumentality for meeting the immense demands ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... so rapid! Each shell is immediately convertible into gold; of which metal, let me again remind you, we possess more than any other nation; but which, indeed, we only keep as a sort of dress coin, chiefly to indulge ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... and a cricket sang creaking monotony in the grass. Once there was the distant thunder of a rocket blast from the launching station six miles to the west, but it faded quickly. An A-motored convertible whined past on the road, but ...
— The Hoofer • Walter M. Miller

... monetary circulation in Chile consists almost wholly of paper currency, nominally based on a gold standard of 18d. per peso. The conversion law of 1895 made the currency convertible at this rate, although the gold peso was rated at 48d. previous to that date; but the financial crisis of 1898 caused the suspension of specie payments, and a forced issue of additional paper led to a further postponement of conversion and the prompt withdrawal of specie from circulation. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... of from one to three cents per acre, according to the value of the land, besides a tribute in grain and poultry. The indirect taxation consisted of the obligation of maintaining the necessary roads, one day's compulsory labour per year, convertible into a payment of forty cents, the right of mouture, consisting of a pound of flour on every fourteen from the common mill, finally the payment of a twelfth in case of transfer and sale (stamp and registration). ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... have daily proved to us. Every sensation of any acuteness accelerates the pulse; and how sensitive the heart is to emotions, is testified by the familiar expressions which use heart and feeling as convertible terms. Similarly with the digestive organs. Without detailing the various ways in which these may be influenced by our mental states, it suffices to mention the marked benefits derived by dyspeptics, as well as other invalids, from cheerful society, welcome news, change ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... alone?" Even the close proximity of two persons affects their respective temperatures, and heat and motion we know to be correlative. It has been shown by the physicist that mechanical force producing motion is correlative with and convertible into heat, heat into chemical force, chemical force into electrical force, and electrical force into magnetic force. Moreover, that each of these is correlative and convertible into the other, all ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... to excellent account, and soon led him to a far more profitable traffic in those tickets with which, from the time of Charles II., our seamen were remunerated. They were paid in paper, not readily convertible, and were forced to part with their wages at any discount which it pleased the money-lenders to fix. Guy made large purchases in these tickets at an immense reduction, and by such not very creditable means, with some windfalls ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... a general principle which seems to have taken possession of our author's mind. The argument from silence is courageously and extensively applied throughout these volumes. It is unnecessary to accumulate instances, where 'knows nothing' is substituted for 'says nothing,' as if the two were convertible terms; for such instances are countless. But in the case of Eusebius the application of the principle takes a wider sweep. Not only is it maintained that A knows nothing of B, because he says nothing of B; but it is further assumed that A knows nothing ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... are, as I have already stated, almost identical with the principal nitrogenous constituents of animals. Unlike the non-plastic substances, they are convertible into each other with little, if any, loss either of matter or of force. Not many years since it was the fashion to estimate the nutritive value of a food-substance by its proportion of nitrogen; but this method—not yet quite abandoned—was based on erroneous views, and yielded results ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... such as could not write. In all their preachments they so highly pretended to the Spirit, that some of them could hardly spell a letter. To be blind with them was a proper qualification of a spiritual guide, and to be book-learned, as they called it, and to be irreligious, were almost convertible terms. None save tradesmen and mechanics were allowed to have the Spirit, and those only were accounted like St. Paul who could work with their hands, and were able to make a pulpit ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... exclusion of all idea of power from any part of the transaction. They forget that in England not one shilling of paper money of any description is received but of choice,—that the whole has had its origin in cash actually deposited,—and that it is convertible at pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest loss, into cash again. Our paper is of value in commerce, because in law it is of none. It is powerful on 'Change, because in Westminster Hall it is impotent. In payment of a debt of twenty shillings a creditor may ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... brighter than he would have preferred on his own character, he did not therefore choose to be made the subject of raillery. And if it was not safe to mock him, neither was it very safe to talk of money to him. The thought of money—of thousands of francs, easily convertible into pounds, marks, dollars, florins, or whatever chanced to be the denomination of the country to which free and golden-winged steps might lead him—had a very inflaming effect on M. Paul de Roustache's imagination. The Baron ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... colorless crystals as the diamond, in black, opaque, metallic scales as graphite, and in shapeless masses and powder as charcoal, coke, lampblack, and the like. In the intense heat of the electric arc these forms are convertible one into the other according to the conditions. Since the third form is the cheapest the object is to change it into one of the other two. Graphite, plumbago or "blacklead," as it is still sometimes called, is not found in many places and more rarely ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... That liberty is a convertible term, which means exclusive privileges in one country, no privileges in another, and ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... umbrella, it is an illustration of a portable tent," explained Ernest. "The canvas folds up and can be carried in the pocket, while the pole also folds and is convertible into a walking-stick by day. Thus you are able to camp where you will; throw off ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... Overyssel boer[Footnote: Peasant and farmer as a rule are convertible terms. A farmer is a peasant, although a peasant is not always the owner of a farm. In point of education the farmer himself does not differ from the average labourer on his farm, and both alike are classed as 'boeren.'] follows his example unless ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... made therefrom by the school of politicians and statesmen to which the gentleman belongs, arises from confounding the terms State rights and State sovereignty, and using these as though they were convertible terms. The several States of this Union possess certain rights clearly defined, and known and understood by the reader of American political history. Subject to the restrictions of the national Constitution, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... oddly pleased. While he was trying to find a way to say it, Mrs. Bagley relieved him of the necessity. "It won't be a brand-new convertible," she warned. "But they tell me you can get something that runs for two or three hundred dollars. Tim Fisher has some that look about right in his garage—and besides," she said, clinching it, "it gives me a chance to give out a little more Maxwell ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... Ritter among the Ionian philosophers, was born B.C. 503. Like others of his school, he sought a physical ground for all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as fire, since all things are convertible into it. In one of its modifications, this fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating every thing as the soul or principle of life, is endowed with intelligence and powers of ceaseless activity. "If Anaximenes discovered ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... word as it stands has exactly the meaning these alterations are intended to secure. Interrogatio is merely the conclusio or syllogism put as a series of questions. Cf. Paradoxa 2, with T.D. II. 42 which will show that interrogatiuncula and conclusiuncula are almost convertible terms. See also M.D.F. I. 39. Nec dicendi nec disserendi: Cic.'s constant mode of denoting the Greek [Greek: rhetorike] and [Greek: dialektike]; note on 32. Et oratorum etiam: Man., Lamb. om. etiam, needlessly. In Ad Fam. IX. 25, 3, the two words even occur ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... when Vanderbilt's brokers began to buy. The mysteries of that transaction are fully known only to a few of the principal actors. An injuction of Judge Barnard's had forbidden Drew or anybody connected with the road to manufacture any more stock by the issue of convertible bonds. But Drew was 'short' of Erie; the Vanderbilt pool threatened ruin; and stock must be had. The new certificates had already been made out in the name of James Fisk, jr., and were in the hands of the Secretary ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... been spoken of by his friends and admirers as "Mr. Nicholas," but after his last mistakes had been discovered, he began to be known merely as "Old Nick the Lawyer," or "Old Nick the Liar," which some ignorant people look upon as convertible terms. I think Lizard Skin, the cannibal, was a better Christian than old Nick the lawyer, as he was brave and honest, and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... scheme. The pine logs are a foot or more in diameter, and have a waterway dug in them about 10 or 12 inches deep and wide. These trees were felled and the troughs dug with the wasay, a short-handled tool with an iron blade only an inch or an inch and a half wide, and convertible alike into ax ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... the career. The extremely imperfect development of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... power of expulsion: but if you expel, not upon legal, but upon arbitrary, that is, upon discretionary grounds, and the incapacity is ex vi termini and inclusively comprehended in the expulsion, is not the incapacity voted in the expulsion? Are they not convertible terms? and, if incapacity is voted to be inherent in expulsion, if expulsion be arbitrary, incapacity is arbitrary also. I have, therefore, shown that the power of incapacitation is a legislative power; I have shown that legislative power does not belong ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... which the control is liable to vary, and be thrown on to one side or the other, also has an analogy in the hypnoidal state of Boris Sidis—this being an intermediate state (so it is thought) which is convertible either into ordinary sleep, on the one hand, or into hypnotic sleep on the other. It all depends upon how this state is handled and controlled. It may be the same here; the medium may sink into internal ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... winnings, but the trouble attracted the attention of the teacher, and under adverse legislation a period of liquidation set in. The distress was great. Many found themselves with property which was not convertible into photographs or anything else. To make matters worse, the discovery was made that the big boys had left school to begin the spring's work, and no one wanted the photographs. Bankrupt and disillusioned, we returned to the realities of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... thoughtful for a long time. I did not understand it all. I was appalled, for there was a convertible fortune committed to my care, and I was to be its custodian for twenty years without knowing for whom I held it in trust, and there were many contingencies that might occur. The securities might fall in value, the institutions ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... of civil life will it be which awaits the soldier-workman? I suppose, if anything is certain, a plenitude, nay a plethora, of work is assured for some time after the war. Capital has piled up in hands which will control a vast amount of improved and convertible machinery. Purchasing power has piled up in the shape of savings out of the increased national income. Granted that income will at once begin to drop all round, shrinking perhaps fast to below the pre-war figures, still at first there must be a rolling river of demand and the wherewithal to satisfy ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... peasant were consolidated into three ten-acre fields, henceforth to be used as the owner thought best. One year a field would be under a cereal crop; the next year converted into pasture. This improved method, known as "convertible husbandry" practiced in England and to a lesser extent on the Continent, was a big step in the direction of scientific agriculture. Regular rotation of crops {547} was hardly a common practice before the eighteenth century, but there was something like it in places where hemp and flax would be ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... inevitable. In 1893, nearly fifteen years after this offer had been made, more than $1,000,000 of the old bonds were still outstanding. In 1901, a New York firm presented to the State of South Dakota ten of the class which had been made convertible at twenty-five cents on the dollar. That State brought suit in the Supreme Court of the United States and collected the amount sued for.[1] No progress has been made in collecting the special tax bonds issued during Reconstruction though ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... Circuits. The consideration of Fig. 279 brings us to the subject of so-called convertible cord circuits. Some switchboards, serving a mixture of metallic and grounded lines, are provided with cord circuits which may be converted at will by the operator from the ordinary type shown in Fig. 276 to the type shown in Fig. ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... be noted here that Jesus' argument with the Sadducees on the resurrection (Luke xx. 37, 38) logically proceeds on the assumption that living after death and rising after death are convertible terms. Also, that the contrast involved in the idea of the resurrection (the anastasis, or rising up) is a contrast not between the grave and the sky, but between the lower life of mortals ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... beg the question in disguise by postulating what has to be proved, either (1) under another name; for instance, "good repute" instead of "honour"; "virtue" instead of "virginity," etc.; or by using such convertible terms as "red-blooded animals" and "vertebrates"; or (2) by making a general assumption covering the particular point in dispute; for instance, maintaining the uncertainty of medicine by postulating the uncertainty of all human knowledge. (3) If, vice versa, two things follow ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... additional fund from which he may maintain more labour: but it will not be a real and effectual fund for the maintenance of an additional number of labourers, unless the whole, or at least a great part of this increase of the stock or revenue of the society, be convertible into a proportional quantity of provisions; and it will not be so convertible where the increase has arisen merely from the produce of labour, and not from the produce of land. A distinction will in this case occur, between the number of hands which the stock of the society could employ, and the ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... a Definition is of course susceptible of Simple Conversion, and this is shown by Fig. 2: 'Men are rational animals' and 'Rational animals are men.' But any other A. proposition is presumably convertible only by limitation, and this is shown by Fig. 1; where All hollow-horned animals are ruminants, but we can only say ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... elders, and those with cropped curls had draped their heads with shawls, the fringes of which they had combed out with their fingers to simulate hair—long hair, such as Sabrina, the eldest, had hanging so low down her back that she could almost sit on it. A cylindrical-bodied horse, convertible (when his flat head came out of its socket) into a locomotive, headed the sad cortege; then came the defunct Flora; then came Jack, the raffish sailor doll, with other dolls; and the children followed ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... seventeenth century which has been adduced on the other side, save that of Henderson, whose statement, however, is rather inferential than direct. In fact, the eldership is used in the Second Book of Discipline itself as a convertible term with presbytery, and is often so used in the acts of contemporary assemblies. When presbyteries came to be set up, they are sometimes designated by the name of eldership, and sometimes by that of presbytery; and where our present authorised ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... thought that the content, in order to be aesthetic, that is to say, transformable into form, should possess some determinate or determinable quality. But were that so, then form and content, expression and impression, would be the same thing. It is true that the content is that which is convertible into form, but it has no determinable qualities until this transformation takes place. We know nothing of its nature. It does not become aesthetic content at once, but only when it has been effectively transformed. Aesthetic ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... a national currency of fixed, unvarying value as compared with gold, and as soon as practicable, having due regard for the interests of the debtor class and the vicissitudes of trade and commerce, convertible ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... finger in some political pie, and political pies in Russia before the war were lese-majesty. The result—Gregor got in wrong with his secret society and the political police and was forced to fly to save his life. But before he fled he had all his convertible funds transferred. Only his estate was confiscated. Hawksley was in London when the war broke out. There was a lot of red tape, naturally, regarding the funds. I shan't bother you with that, Hawksley, hoping to better his protector's future, returned to Russia and joined his regiment ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... of the recommendations of the authors for increasing agricultural production—the increased recovery of moorlands. They show that Germany has at least 52,000 square miles (more than 33,000,000 acres) of moors convertible into good arable land, which, with proper fertilizing, can be made at once richly productive; they yield particularly large crops of grain and potatoes. Moreover, the State Governments must undertake the division of large landed estates among small ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... between the Atlantic and the Mississippi river, came upon the market in large amounts, affording ample security for investment and loans, the great banks of Wall Street were quick to appreciate the advantages of loans made upon such undoubted values, which were at all times convertible into cash on the stock exchange. In times of pressure, commercial paper is an inferior asset for a bank, all of whose obligations are payable on demand. At such times notes become practically unsalable, and are not always paid at maturity. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... Just tell where the paper went, for in the loss of that lot of paper, as it proved, the bottom dropped out of the Treasury tub. On that paper was to have been printed our new issue of ten per cent., convertible, you know, and secured on that up-country cotton, which Kirby Smith had above the Big Raft. I had the printers ready for near a month waiting for that paper. The plates were really very handsome. I'll show you a proof when we go up stairs. Wholly new they were, made by some Frenchman we got, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... She would look the part so well, and, no doubt, act it so well. Or if she preferred Zara, Miss Georgiana Falconer would, with pleasure, take the part of the confidante. Dresses in great forwardness, Turkish or Roman, convertible, in a few hours' notice—should wait ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... suitable place, beneath a rock, in the cleft of a tree, or a hole dug in the ground, and then, perhaps, the man died before he came back for his wealth. Or, again, another man might prefer to carry his wealth about with him. So he went and got jewels, easily carried, not easily noticed, easily convertible ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... age, without dependence on a book. But, if a religion has a doctrine, this implies a revelation or message from Heaven, which cannot, in any other way, secure the transmission of this message to future generations, than by causing it to be registered in a book. A book, therefore, will be convertible with a doctrinal religion:—no book, no doctrine; and, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... characteristic is a magnificent monotony, and all apparently the outcome of a theory that to be wayward is to be creative, that human interest is a matter of apophthegms and oracular sentences, and that axiomatic and dramatic are identical qualities and convertible terms. This is the opinion of those adventurers in whom defeat has generated a sense of injury and an instinct of antagonism. Others less fortunate still have found Landor a continent of dulness and futility—have come to ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... electrician, commenced a series of experiments which resulted in his publishing his remarkable book[2] on the connection of the physical forces of nature. He showed that heat, light, and electricity are mutually convertible; that they must be regarded as modes of motion; and, finally, that all force is persistent and indestructible, thus proving, as Professor Tyndall says, that "to nature, nothing can be added; from nature, nothing can be taken away." Together, the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... for some determined opponent who may treat him to cold lead instead of pure gold; the sneaking thief, cool and cowardly, ready-witted at the extricating falsehood—for it is well known that the thief and liar are convertible terms—his eye feeble, cunning, and circumspective, and his whole appearance redolent of duplicity and fraud; the receiver of stolen goods, affecting much honest simplicity; the good creature, whether man or woman, apparently in great distress, and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... together; until as the gentlemen came up to match colours and claim their partners, Wych Hazel hurriedly put the green streamer in Josephine's hand, and went off with Captain Lancaster. The green and blue were such convertible colours in the gaslight that no one took any notice. But Rollo saw that Wych Hazel drew a long breath as she moved away, and looked down, and did not say much for several minutes. That figure passed off ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... system the use of the precious metals as currency has been reinforced and expanded by the printing of an enormous mass of pieces of paper, whether in the form of notes, or in the form of cheques, which economise the use of gold, but have hitherto always been based on the fact that they are convertible into gold on demand, and in fact have only been accepted because of this important proviso. Gold as currency was so convenient and perfect that its perfection has been improved upon by this ingenious device, which prevented its actually passing ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... is your meaning, Phdrus; and excuse me for interrupting you; I am anxious to lose no time; and therefore let me remind you, as soon as possible, that "the words" of Adam Smith cannot prove any agreement with Mr. Ricardo, if it appears that those words are used as equivalent and convertible at pleasure with certain other words not only irreconcilable with Mr. Ricardo's principle, but expressing the very doctrine which Mr. Ricardo does, and must in consistency, set himself to oppose. Mr. Ricardo's doctrine is, that A and B are to each ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... these names is sufficiently evident. That the letters C and G have been commonly convertible between the Latin and Saxon is without doubt. Query: Have B and F been at all used convertibly? Or can any of your readers, by any other means, strengthen the probability, or prove the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various

... out of two persons. Therefore Christ is, according to Nestorius, in no respect one, and therefore He is absolutely nothing. For what is not one cannot exist either; because Being and unity are convertible terms, and whatever is one is. Even things which are made up of many items, such as a heap or chorus, are nevertheless a unity. Now we openly and honestly confess that Christ is; therefore we say that Christ is a Unity. And if this is so, then without controversy the Person of Christ is one ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... scientific mind of an age which contemplates the solar system as evolved from a common revolving fluid mass—which, through experimental research, has come to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative and convertible forms of one force, instead of independent species—which has brought the so-called elementary kinds of matter, such as the metals, into kindred groups, and pertinently raised the question, whether the members of each group may not be mere varieties ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... gold standard, which could be effected without any contraction of the volume of paper money, except to the extent of the coin thrown into circulation: and the resumption of specie payments by the Treasury—greenbacks to be convertible into coin only at the Treasury and sub-treasuries—would be resumption by the entire country, for gold would no longer command a premium. The National banks thus deprived of their own notes would have to bank on greenbacks, just as the State banks—which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... the enemy, even when these slaves had been impressed into the United States' service. In half a score of cases since the last war, Congress has rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property are not used as convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere property, and generally by a recognition of their personality. In the invariable recognition of slaves as persons, the United States' constitution caught ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... besieged by an anxious crowd of depositors clamouring to withdraw their money; but luckily for that society, and for the building societies generally, a very large portion of its funds was invested in easily convertible securities, and it was enabled by that means to get sufficient assistance from the Bank of England to pay without a moment's hesitation every depositor who asked for his money. Its credit was so firmly established by this means that many persons sought to pay money in. Had ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... into a very spacious drawing-room, with galleries on either side, and three smaller drawing-rooms beyond. The terrace over the portico, at the other end, separated from this suite of apartments by a verandah, is easily convertible into a fourth reception-room, it being roofed in by an awning, and furnished with blinds, which in the day-time give a very Italian air to the ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... patiently. "You can't keep a thing like this out of the papers, Mr. Skidder. Why, here's a man, Angelo Puma, who pounces on every convertible asset of his firm, stuffs a valise full of real money, and ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... property is probably as general as that of being convertible into gas. There is perhaps no body so hard, compact, and apparently inodorous, as to be absolutely incapable of exciting smell by proper methods: two pieces of flint rubbed together, produce a very perceptible smell. Metals which appear nearly inodorous, excite a sensation ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... have but one, I think that the best. The expense of maintaining a metallic currency is of course greater than that of paper; but it must be borne in mind that a paper currency is only tolerable when convertible at the will of the holder into coin—and no one asks for more than that. A metallic currency is also subject to considerable loss by abrasion or the annual wear; and it is quite important to know which metal—gold or silver—can be ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... of issue, produces no dangerous redundancy of circulation, affords no temptation to speculation, is attended by no inflation of prices, is equable in its operation, makes the Treasury notes (which it may use along with the certificates of deposit and the notes of specie-paying banks) convertible at the place where collected, receivable in payment of Government dues, and without violating any principle of the Constitution affords the Government and the people such facilities as are called for by the wants of both. Such, it has appeared ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... in the course of twelve years had produced.'[52] Ricardo, meanwhile, and the economists had from the first applied to agriculture the principles which Huskisson applied to manufactures.[53] Huskisson's melancholy death has left us unable to say whether upon this matter he would have been as convertible as Peel. In any case the general principle of free trade was as fully adopted by Huskisson and Canning as by the Utilitarians themselves. The Utilitarians could again claim to be both the inspirers of the first principles, and ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... elected general manager, and went north to sell the $100,000 of capital stock, convertible at the option of the holder into our lands at schedule price, leaving a Mr. B—— as superintendent to cut avenues, build a hotel, and conduct the general affairs in ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... of extension, which is nothing but a composition of visible or tangible points disposed in a certain order. In causing this mistake there concur both the relations of causation and resemblance. As the first species of distance is found to be convertible into the second, it is in this respect a kind of cause; and the similarity of their manner of affecting the senses, and diminishing every quality, forms the ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... "Monks and Friars" as if these were convertible terms. The truth is that the difference between the Monks and the Friars was almost one of kind. The Monk was supposed never to leave his cloister. The Friar in St. Francis' first intention had no cloister to leave. Even when he had where to lay his head, his life-work ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... to their enthusiasm. Have I not good wine, good food, good air, the fields and the forest for my walk, a house, an admirable wife, a boy whom I protest I cherish like a son? Now, if I were still rich, I should indubitably make my residence in Paris—you know Paris—Paris and Paradise are not convertible terms. This pleasant noise of the wind streaming among leaves changed into the grinding Babel of the street, the stupid glare of plaster substituted for this quiet pattern of greens and greys, the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... usages of society, to take the place of the precious metals as money. Paper, in the shape of bank-bills, promising to pay money on demand, is the most frequent, because the most cheap and convenient substitute; accordingly, when convertible paper-money is increased, it raises prices, and when it is diminished, it depresses prices, just as in the case of a metallic currency. But there are these two signal points of distinction between a paper and a metallic currency: first, that paper money may be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... absent the effect you seek will of necessity withdraw, else may you have power and not attempt. This notion Aristotle had in light, though not in use. For the two commended rules by him set down, whereby the axioms of sciences are precepted to be made convertible, and which the latter men have not without elegancy surnamed the one the rule of truth because it preventeth deceit, the other the rule of prudence because it freeth election, are the same thing in speculation and affirmation which we now observe. An example will make my meaning attained, and ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... nickel. The annual $4 billion Soviet subsidy, a main prop to Cuba's threadbare economy, is likely to show a substantial decline over the next few years in view of the USSR's mounting economic problems. Instead of highly subsidized trade, Cuba will be shifting to trade at market prices in convertible currencies. In early 1991, the shortages of fuels, spare parts, and industrial products in general had become so severe as to amount to a deindustrialization process in the ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... His resources, whatever they were, gradually failed him, while his habits remained as extravagant as ever. If the popular belief is to be credited, he lived during the two last years on his prospect of marrying the Countess von Brehm, which prospect in Copenhagen was always convertible into cash. The countess, by the way, was unflinching in her devotion to him, and he would probably long ago have led her to the altar, if her family had not so bitterly opposed him. The old count, it is said, swore that ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... arrived, a sturdy young fellow, serene of eye, slow of speech, and muscled like a panther. He departed back home again, carrying our tale by simple word of mouth for greater security, and having concealed on his person some of the gems which the maharanee had saved and which would be readily convertible into money. Then, after a second interval of time, other tribesmen came sifting into the city by twos and threes, until we had full fifty of the finest material for a bodyguard a young prince could desire. These ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... and the manifold engagements of the day that was to come. The thought thrilled me like a trumpet in the hour of battle. In a moment, I had leaped from bed, crossed the office where Pinkerton lay in a deep trance of sleep on the convertible sofa, and stood in the doorway, in my night gear, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... "We have all been in error in recommending wine as a tonic. Ardent spirits and poisons are convertible terms." ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... liquid assets, was not necessarily a criterion on this agrarian frontier, where a man's assets were not easily convertible into cash. Hence, property was the main economic source ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... as if he were reading it, but its letters swam before his eyes. He needed money sorely, and had this gift come in a shape more readily convertible into cash, he might have found it impossible to resist it. As it was, he allowed himself to be fiercely angry. He was furious, but he was consciously so. He raised his eyes, flashing and distended, and fixed them upon the ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... single valid argument to support it. History clearly demonstrates that, wherever ignorance and superstition have prevailed, every obscure occurrence has been attributed to supernatural agency, and it is freely acknowledged that, under their influence, 'inexplicable' and 'miraculous' are convertible terms. On the other hand, in proportion as knowledge of natural laws has increased, the theory of supernatural interference with the order of nature has been dispelled and miracles have ceased. The effect of science, however, is not limited to the present and future, but its action ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... angel-fish is not so well named as the parrot-fish; it might better be called the ghostfish, it is so like a moonbeam in the pools it haunts, and of such a convertible quality with the iridescent vegetable growths about it. All things here are of a weird convertibility to the alien perception, and the richest and rarest facts of nature lavish themselves in humble association with the commonest and most familiar. You drive ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... were true that vital energy turned into or was anyhow convertible into inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body had more inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that "these inorganic energies" always or ever "reappear on the dissolution of life," then undoubtedly cadit quaestio; life would immediately be proved to be a form of energy, ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... artist, but a furnished country is still more to his purpose. A ripe midland English region is a museum of accessories and specimens, and is sure, under any circumstances, to contain the article wanted. This is the great recommendation of Broadway; everything in it is convertible. Even the passing visitor finds himself becoming so; the place has so much character that it rubs off on him, and if in an old garden—an old garden with old gates and old walls and old summer-houses—he lies down on the old grass (on an immemorial ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... cannot be in any sense created, but only made manifest as a transformation of another kind of motion, then must not the same thing be true of all those other forms of "force"—light, electricity, magnetism—which had been shown to be so closely associated, so mutually convertible, with heat? All analogy seemed to urge the truth of this inference; all experiment tended to confirm it. The law of the mechanical equivalent of heat then became the main corner-stone of the greater law ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... this fact was ingeniously explained by Dr. Darwin, in a letter to Mr. Pilkington, upon the supposition that some of the saccharine matter in the malt combines with the calcareous earth of hard waters, and forms a sort of mineral sugar, which, like true sugar, is convertible into spirits. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various

... that in my judgment the feeling of uncertainty inseparable from an irredeemable paper currency, with its fluctuation of values, is one of the greatest obstacles to a return to prosperous times. The only safe paper currency is one which rests upon a coin basis and is at all times and promptly convertible ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... is in his very hospitable offer of lodgings. I had been telling him of my ill success of the morning in the pursuit of the same. He is an odd union of the gentleman of the old school and the old-fashioned, hot-headed merchant-captain. I suppose that certain traits in these characters are readily convertible. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... a loss exactly how to answer this question. Notwithstanding the high motive which had led his fathers into the wilderness, and his own peculiar estimate of his religious advantages, an oath had got to be a sort of convertible obligation with him ever since the day he had his first connection with a custom-house. A man who had sworn to so many false invoices was not likely to stick at a trifle in order to serve a friend; still, by denying the acquaintance, he might ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.... This strong persuasion,' he adds, 'extended to the powers of light.' And then he examines the action of magnets upon ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... false theory, according to which money was regarded, not as value, but merely as the measure of value. It is now understood that it owes its capacity to measure value solely to its own intrinsic value; that its paper representatives can equal it in purchasing power only when convertible at pleasure into coin; and that paper not immediately convertible can obtain the character of money only so far as there is promise or hope of its ultimate conversion into coin. It follows that money stands on the same footing with all other values,—that ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... short cuts." Without waiting for a reply, Solomon started, head bent, white hair blowing; through the office, out the back door and down passages hardly wide enough for a boy, let alone a man. He disappeared around a hearse, and surfaced on the other side of a convertible, leading the boy and his father a chase that was more a guided tour of Solomon's yard than a short cut. "Yes, sir, here they are," announced Solomon over his shoulder. Stepping aside he made room for the boy and his father to pass, between a couple ...
— Solomon's Orbit • William Carroll

... Nothing can be more simple in theory than such an arrangement, nothing easier or more unerringly just in execution. It would make the postage stamps of the cheap postage nations an international currency, better than gold and silver, because convertible into that which gold and silver cannot buy, the interchange of thought and ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt

... his Zil aircushion convertible along the edge of Red Square, turned right immediately beyond St. Basil's Cathedral, crossed the Moscow River by the Moskvocetski Bridge and debouched into the heavy, and largely automated traffic of Pyarnikskaya. At Dobryninskaya Square he turned west to Gorki Park which he ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... and the entailed estates had fallen to his successor the colonel, now Sir Harry; but the bulk of his wealth, being in convertible property, he had given by will to his other nephew, a young clergyman, and a son of a younger brother. Mary, as well as her mother, were greatly disappointed, by this deprivation, of what they considered their lawful splendor; ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... however it may change its form. Now, it has been proved that the quantity of power or energy is constant. If lost in one body, it reappears in another; if it ceases in one form, it is exerted in another, and this according to definite ratios. One form of energy is convertible into another: heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, are so related that one can be made to produce either of the others. This fact is termed the correlation of physical forces. Connected with the discovery of it are ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... burden which a visit in this evil, hard winter would no doubt have been to you. As concerns myself, nothing can make my mood worse than it is. I am getting accustomed to all kinds of trouble, and the disagreeable and the necessary and natural are to me convertible terms. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... the officers who knew enough to call on him—which in those crude days of the army many did not—he was asked by more than one experienced soldier whether he had requested an escort in view of the fact that he was burdened with valuables that, though small in bulk, were convertible into cash that was anything but small in amount. To such queries Mr. Loring, who had an odd aversion to answering questions as to what he was going to do, merely bowed assent and changed the subject. Lieutenant Gleason, an officer who had recently joined the ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... been issued, for the most part, on the one or the other of two conditions, namely: as irredeemable, when it has been made to rest on the vague obligation of some government to pay it some time or other in property; or as convertible into gold and silver on demand. But under both conditions it seems to have been impossible to preserve it from excess and consequent depreciation. Nothing would appear to be safer and sounder, on the face of it, than a money-obligation backed by all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... then know the reason for the crash, and the knowledge of those who did, brought little comfort. But, gradually, the country recognised that the prosperity of a nation is not increased in proportion to the quantity of paper money issued, unless such currency be maintained at its full value, convertible, at pleasure, into hard cash—the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... constitution of plants or the properties of light and heat. The old philosophers considered light and heat to be fluids, which passed out of substances when they were too full. Count Rumford showed that motion was convertible into heat, but did not trace the motion to its source, so far as we know, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... to explain the different refrangibility of the rays of light by supposing them composed of particles differing in size. The same great man has put the query whether light and common matter are not convertible into each other; and, adopting the idea that the phenomena of sensible heat depend upon vibrations of the particles of bodies, supposes that a certain intensity of vibrations may send off particles into free space, and that particles in rapid motion in right lines, in losing their own motion, may ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... into some other form of energy; granted (which may or may not be true) also, that the life of a living body is only the energy which keeps the particles which compose it in a certain disposition; and granted that the energy of the stone may be convertible into the energy of a living form, and that thus, after a long journey a tired idea may lag after the sound of such words as "the soul of the world." Granted all the above, nevertheless to speak of the world as having a soul is not sufficiently in harmony with our common notions, ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler

... some future great chemical discovery realize the dream of the alchemists, and enable us to transmute iron into gold, and indeed every chemical Element into every other chemical Element (convertible identity), still the sixty-four (nearly) Chemical Elements now known would remain the real Elements of Organic and Inorganic Compounds, in a sense just as important as that in which they are now so regarded. The now known Elements would still continue to constitute ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... because, although both entities issue figures, national-level statistics are not available. Moreover, official data do not capture the large share of activity that occurs on the black market. In 1999, the convertible mark - the national currency introduced in 1998 - gained wider acceptance, and the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina dramatically increased its reserve holdings. Implementation of privatization, however, faltered ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... whole course of his arguments there is one leading point enforced with all his eloquence and ingenuity—the excellence of the proposed currency, its stability and its security. He declares that, being based on the pledge of public lands and convertible into them, the notes are better secured than if redeemable in specie; that the precious metals are only employed in the secondary arts, while the French paper money represents the first and most real of all property, the source of all production, the land; that while other nations have been obliged ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... Moldova must import all of its supplies of oil, coal, and natural gas, largely from Russia. Energy shortages contributed to sharp production declines after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. As part of an ambitious reform effort, Moldova introduced a convertible currency, freed all prices, stopped issuing preferential credits to state enterprises, backed steady land privatization, removed export controls, and freed interest rates. Yet these efforts could not offset the impact of political and economic difficulties, both internal and regional. In ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... speculations. From causes which it would be easy, but foreign to our present purpose, to explain, the profits arising from these various speculations were not only in the aggregate larger than those hitherto derived from railways, but the former speculations or investments being more temporary and convertible in their nature, secured to the parties engaging in them a far greater command over the capital employed in them. By diverting, as the railway system has done, so much money from the ordinary channels of mercantile enterprise, in which large profits ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... into Cornwall with Alfred Tennyson, to tread in the steps of King Arthur. Tennyson was dreadfully afraid of being recognised and mobbed, and desired to be called 'the other gentleman,' which straightway became convertible now and then into 'the old gentleman,' much to his vexation. But Mr. Prinsep is in the roses and lilies of youth, and comparatively speaking, of course, the great Laureate was an ancient. He is in considerable trouble, too ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... in incurred by accidents at table. Then the caprices of fashion, which in England are so various and despotic, have here a more limited influence: the form of a dress changes as long as the material is convertible, and when it has outlasted the possibility of adaptation to a reigning mode, it is not on that account rejected, but is generally worn in some way or other till banished by the more rational motive of its decay. All the expences of tea-visits, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady



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