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Elaborate   Listen
verb
Elaborate  v. t.  (past & past part. elaborated; pres. part. elaborating)  
1.
To produce with labor "They in full joy elaborate a sigh,"
2.
To perfect with painstaking; to improve or refine with labor and study, or by successive operations; as, to elaborate a painting or a literary work. "The sap is... still more elaborated and exalted as it circulates through the vessels of the plant."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Elaborate" Quotes from Famous Books



... and adobe. God grant that Fremont's hair stood up more than once. But go to bed, my friend. Look, I will put you there." As if Dona Modeste were an infant, she undressed and laid her between the linen sheets with their elaborate drawn work, then made her drink a glass of angelica, folded and laid away the satin coverlet, ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... action, Wagner is above all an actor. The first thing that occurs to him is a scene which is certain to produce a strong effect, a real actio,(10) with a basso-relievo of attitudes; an overwhelming scene, this he now proceeds to elaborate more deeply, and out of it he draws his characters. The whole of what remains to be done follows of itself, fully in keeping with a technical economy which has no reason to be subtle. It is not Corneille's public that Wagner has to consider, it is merely ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... not deny that I expended the most elaborate pains on my toilet that afternoon, before waiting upon Mrs Clyde in accordance with my promise to Min. I did not otherwise comply fully with the essential requirements of Madame la Comtesse de Bassanville's Code ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... sheep, when, from the tail of his eye, he saw his hostess come in from the far entrance. Again, the sight of her, that was a picture, gave him the little catch-breath of gasp. She was clad entirely in white, and looked very young and quite tall in the sweeping folds of a holoku of elaborate simplicity and apparent shapelessness. He knew the holoku in the home of its origin, where, on the lanais of Hawaii, it gave charm to a plain woman and double-folded the charm ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... Plano Carpini's single mention of Prester John as the King of the Christians of India the Greater, who defeats the Tartars by an elaborate stratagem, Oppert recognizes Sultan Jalaluddin of Khwarizm and his temporary success over the Mongols in Afghanistan. In the Armenian Prince Sempad's account, on the other hand, this Christian King ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... The elaborate, systematic "course of reading" is a bore. After thirty years spent among books and bookish people I have never yet met anyone who would admit that he had ploughed through such a course from beginning to end. Of course a few faithful souls, with abundant leisure, have done this, just ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... rich, though somewhat out of harmony with each other, conveying to Captain Staunton's educated eye the idea that they had been collected at odd times from a number of other ships. The rudder-case, for example, was inclosed in a piece of elaborate carved and gilded work representing the trunk and branches of a palm-tree; but it had apparently been found too large, and the sections had accordingly been cut down to make them fit, the result being that the carving did ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... stockinette pantaloons, close-fitting from hip to ankle and there looped and buttoned, accentuated muscled calf and virile thigh in a manner somewhat disconcerting; his snowy waistcoat was of an original fashion and cut, and his cravat, folded and caressed into being by Peterby's fingers, was an elaborate masterpiece, a matchless creation never before seen upon the town. Barnabas had become a dandy, from the crown of his curly head to his silk stockings and polished shoes, and, upon the whole, was ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... with rude geometrical incised designs, imitating basketwork, and with the incised lines filled in with white. Later again is a buff ware, either plain or decorated with wavy lines, concentric circles, and elaborate drawings of boats sailing on the Nile, ostriches, fish, men and women, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... impedimenta, and sprang into the water. We were forced to follow suit, and begin our day's march with wet feet. A few steps up the stream we came upon an old elephant track and plunged boldly in,—and it was in! For three miles we labored through a series of the most elaborate mud-holes that I have ever seen. The elephants in breaking a path through the jungle are extremely timid in their boldness. The second one always steps in the footprints of the first. Year after year it is the same, until in course of time the path is marked by ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... winning hazard. For the scientific principles of billiards, and the full rules of the several games played on the billiard-table, the reader is referred to the excellent little shilling volume, "Billiards Made Easy,"[1] and the more elaborate ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... style, was born at Arpinum, Jan. 3, 106 B.C. His father, who was a man of property and belonged to the class of the "Knights," moved to Rome when Cicero was a child; and the future statesman received an elaborate education in rhetoric, law, and philosophy, studying and practising under some of the most noted teachers of the time. He began his career as an advocate at the age of twenty-five, and almost immediately came to be recognized not only as a man ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... never changed her readings, her effects, her ornaments. What was to her true, when once arrived at, remained true for ever. To arrive at what stood with her for truth, she labored, made experiments, rejected with an elaborate care, the result of which, in one meaner or more meager, must have been monotony. But the impression made on me was that of being always subdued and surprised for the first time. Though I knew what was coming, when the ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... mutations. Obviously each progressive change is dependent upon the production of a new character, for whenever this is lacking, no such mutation is possible. Retrograde changes, on the other hand, do not require such elaborate preliminary work. Each character may be converted into the latent condition, and for all we know, a special preparation for this purpose is not at all necessary. It is readily granted that such special preparation may occur, because the [706] great ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... trade union alone has made no sign of any disposition to relax its elaborate restrictions upon the labour of amateurs and women, or to abate one jot or one tittle of its habitual rewards. There has been no attempt to reduce the costly law officers of the Government, for example, or to call in the help of older men or women to release law officers ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... escape from being made the subject of a grotesque feudal constitution conceived by John Locke, the philosopher, and approved by the Earl of Shaftesbury. This constitution proposed to inflict on the infant colony a system of titled aristocracy as elaborate as that of Germany. The good sense of the colonists repelled the absurd scheme, and saved Carolina from being a laughing stock for the nations. In 1680, the settlers on Ashley River moved to Oyster Point, at the junction of the Ashley and ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... learned doctors of Protestantism think that however learned they might be, still they are foolish and ignorant enough to be self-satisfied. It is doubtful whether the most elaborate sermon of a Protestant doctor smells more beautifully than incense. The most learned theologians in Germany and elsewhere have whole-heartedly supported the criminal enterprise of the warlike and criminal ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... barren mountain-masses and table-lands, like that vast desert plateau which stretches through Central Asia,—not struck out in blank, like the Russian steppes and the South American llanos, as if Nature had wanted leisure to elaborate and finish. Indeed, these primary conditions of fertility and large habitability appertain to America, as a whole, to such degree, that, with less than half the extent of the Old World, it actually numbers more acres of fertile soil, and can, of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... after a few days (luckily I was out) with some elaborate story of paying calls in the neighbourhood. She sent me a note of thanks next day. I was reading it when Harvey and Malachi entered and disposed themselves as usual, Harvey close up to stare at me, Malachi half under the sofa, watching ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... roof was the sky and a very wonderful sky during those long rainless cloudless months. Round about the Headquarters, the Colonel, the Adjutant, the Doctor, the Sergeant-Major, had their dug-outs, and the Mess did for Orderly Room also. The Company Messes were not so elaborate, and were situated nearer the front line and close to our own dug-outs. We endeavoured however to make ourselves as comfortable as possible, but for some reason or other the flies took a great liking to ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... numerous poems and his magnus opus, Guido, a novel of 360 pages, written under the pen-name of "Isidorus Orientalis," and intended as a continuation of Novalis' Ofterdingen; he used Tieck's notes for this purpose. He wrote also a great number of letters, between 60 and 70 elaborate reviews, and some critical essays, the best of which seems to be his commentary to Madame de Stael's De l'Allemagne, while he translated from Anacreon, Dante, Guarini, Horace, Ovid, Petrarch, Vergil, and others, and left a number of fragments including the outline of a pretentious novel of ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield

... man was fined five shillings and costs for being found in a state of inebriation, when he made an elaborate appeal to their Worships (the Bench) in mitigation of damages, founded upon the extreme hardship he had undergone in being fined four several times ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various

... beauty for which he had damned himself, glowed the fire of an unholy joy. Not without inner detriment had Marcian accustomed himself for years to wear a double face; though his purpose had been pure, the habit of assiduous perfidy, of elaborate falsehood, could not leave his soul untainted. A traitor now for his own ends, he found himself moving in no unfamiliar element, and, the irrevocable words once uttered, he thrilled with defiance of rebuke. ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... true to her design, to her elaborate plan for the future, she must not soften toward him—for his reappearance, with the old-time boyish look and manner, the fond expression now wistful and alarmed, the tender eyes now startled and affrighted, revived much that ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... body. Perhaps Mr. Muller might like to read that." She pointed to a sheet of newspaper on the desk. The commissioner handed it to Muller. It was an evening paper, dated G—, September 24th, and it gave an elaborate account, in provincial journalese, of the discovery that morning of the body of John Siders, evidently murdered, in his lodgings. The main facts to be gathered from the long-winded ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner

... honour, papers of mark only being chosen for it by the council of the Society. Faraday's first Bakerian Lecture, 'On the Manufacture of Glass for Optical Purposes,' was delivered at the close of 1829. It is a most elaborate and conscientious description of processes, precautions, and results: the details were so exact and so minute, and the paper consequently so long, that three successive sittings of the Royal Society ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... architectural oratory of Webster and Burke, though in his best period he sometimes came very close to this, but neither did he speak to the House of Commons, nor before a bench of judges. Nothing is more fatiguing to untrained minds than a consistent and elaborate argument; and the mixed character of Phillips' speeches, like a bonfire made out of all inflammable materials, was remarkably well suited to the audiences whom he addressed. It is said that even Burke often emptied the benches, as if his associates ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... travelers in Inca times, even the bearers of burdens, were acting under official orders. Commercial business was unknown. The rights of personal property were not understood. No one had anything to sell; no one had any money to buy it with. On the other hand, the Incas had an elaborate system of tax collecting. Two thirds of the produce raised by their subjects was claimed by the civil and religious rulers. It was a reasonable provision of the benevolent despotism of the Incas that inhospitable regions like the Panticalla ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... "They are not elaborate, Monsieur, but they are complete. When I leave you I step into a pirogue which is tied to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... shall find the true flowers, minute affairs, some staminate; others, on distinct plants, pistillate, the berry bearers; or rarely both male and female florets seated on the same club, as if Jack's elaborate plan to prevent self-fertilization were not yet complete. Plants may be detected in process of evolution toward their ideals just as nations and men are. Doubtless when Jack's mechanism is perfected, his guilt will disappear. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... species are continually being modified, do we not see multitudes of transitional forms around us? How can the elaborate structure and special habits of a bat have been formed by the modification of some animal of entirely different habits? How can the marvellous perfections of the human eye or that of one of the higher animals be supposed to have ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... here," Cousin Jasper directed, and, when the somewhat embarrassed visitor in his worn best clothes appeared upon the terrace he got up with as elaborate courtesy as he would have accorded the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... Queen and Court had come on the way to France to spend their Pentecost. Five days the Emperor remained with his aunt, whom he now saw for the first time; but the days were devoted to business rather than to elaborate ceremonial and show, for which there had ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... Hawaikans on the two-step dais. All wore robes fitting tightly to the upper portion of their bodies, girded to their waists with elaborate belts, then falling in long points to floor level, the points being finished off with tassels. Their heads were covered with tight caps which were a latticework of decorated strips, glittering as they moved. And the mixture of ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... solitary sport of fishing. He caught a few roach and dace, and vainly endeavoured to inveigle pike. His failure was caused, perhaps, by scruples as to the use of live bait, which led him to look up some elaborate recipes in Walton's 'Compleat Angler.' Pike, though not very intelligent, have long ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... to understand these as real stage plays is through some sort of dramatization. This does not mean, however, that they need be produced with elaborate scenery and costumes, memorizing, and rehearsal; often the best understanding may be secured by quite informal reading in the class, with perhaps a hat and cloak and a lath sword or two for properties. With simply a clear space in the classroom for a stage, you and ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... fields are neatly trimmed and cut. Useless trees and clumps of jungle are cut down; and in fact the Zeraats round a factory shew a perfect picture of orderly thrift, careful management, and neat, scientific, and elaborate farming. ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... policy. A French alliance meant peace; and peace was needful for the plans which Edward proceeded steadily to carry out. With the closing years of his reign the Monarchy took a new colour. The introduction of an elaborate spy system, the use of the rack, and the practice of interference with the purity of justice gave the first signs of an arbitrary rule which the Tudors were to develope. It was on his creation ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... seem to have gone farthest in the way of words for "child" are the Andaman Islanders, who have an elaborate system of nomenclature from the first year to the twelfth or fifteenth, when childhood may be said to end. There are also in use a profusion of "flower-names" and complimentary terms. The "flower-names" are confined to girls and young women who are not mothers. The following list shows the peculiarity ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... station himself at the side of the track, and do sentinel duty about the half-mile post, with orders to report to me the moment Simms puts in an appearance, and to have him shadowed. Of course, this elaborate plot may exist only in my imagination, but if, as I believe, there is a carefully arranged scheme to beat Blake's horse, we shall have done him a good turn, and perhaps saved him a lot of money. I must go now, but don't fail to meet me to-morrow ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for the most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through a series of illustrations, to convince the reader that whenever these principles are correctly applied, results must follow which ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... dressed in her thick maroon wrapper; over her shoulders (lest she should stray despite our watchfulness) is a shawl, not placed there by her own hands, and on her head a delicious mutch. O that I could sing the paean of the white mutch (and the dirge of the elaborate black cap) from the day when she called witchcraft to her aid and made it out of snow-flakes, and the dear worn hands that washed it tenderly in a basin, and the starching of it, and the finger-iron for its exquisite frills that looked like curls ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... an elaborate pantomime of shock, horror, indignation, grotesque dismay and a dozen other assorted emotions. "Little man, youre fruitcake sure. W R wouldnt part with half a C for a tipoff on the Secondcoming. No, brother—you rang the wrong bell. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... side. He left me, and, looking back, I saw him pouring his news into the ear of a gaping stranger whom he had arrested for the purpose. I almost went back to hear would he tell the same tale or would he elaborate it into a new thing, for I am interested in ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens

... induced the Government of India to assist a struggling Amir with money, after its repeated and emphatic declarations that interference was impossible, was undoubtedly brought about by an able and elaborate memorandum written by the late Sir Henry Rawlinson on the 28th July, 1868. In this paper Rawlinson pointed out that, notwithstanding promises to the contrary, Russia was steadily advancing towards Afghanistan. He referred to the increased facilities of communication ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... sitting-room together, divided only by the hanging folds of a rich crimson silk curtain, and exquisitely fitted with white enamelled furniture ornamented with hand-wrought silver. The bed had no resemblance whatever to a ship's berth, but was an elaborate full-sized affair, canopied in white silk embroidered with roses; the carpet was of a thick softness into which my feet sank as though it were moss, and a tall silver and crystal vase, full of gorgeous roses, was placed at the foot of a standing mirror framed in silver, so that ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... unnatural; and if there is less to be said about him than about some others, it is certainly not because he is less good to read. On the contrary, he is so easy and so good to read, and he has been read so much, that elaborate discussion of him is specially superfluous. It is almost a pity that he was not born ten or fifteen years earlier, so that he might have had more chance of hitting a strictly distinct style. As it is, with all his pathos and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... living-room. They were tall four-posters, such as he had seen elsewhere, but with the difference that a canopy covered them. Each had a carved wooden frame, surmounting the top of the posts like a roof. The wood was black with age, its surface being covered with elaborate foliage and armorial devices, representing the toil of some old French artisan of the seventeenth century. They probably had been brought across the Atlantic by the original emigrant, and carefully preserved ever since. They stood in diagonally opposite corners of the room, and upheld the hugest ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... posture; her thin fingers playing mechanically with the flowers and sweet-scented herbs spread scantily before her. The trial was very brief: the evidence, emphatically conclusive, was confidently given, and vainly cross-examined. Nothing remained but an elaborate ad misericordiam excusative defence, which had been prepared by me, and which the prisoner begged her counsel might be allowed to read. This was of course refused; the recorder remarking, they might ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... O'Brien's remarks, Mr. Labouchere gave the following reply, a more formal and elaborate one than the above. He said:—"Her Majesty's Government were satisfied, after the best inquiry they were able to make upon the subject, that it was expedient and proper that on a certain day the number of persons employed on the public ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... 185-198), is a letter of John Maidstone, which contains the best summary of the Civil War that I ever read. Indeed, it gives a clearer insight into its causes, and a better view of the vicissitudes of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, than any one of the more elaborate histories. There is a singular equity and absence of party passion in it which gives us faith in the author's judgment. He was Oliver's Steward of the Household, and his portrait of him, as that ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... is a full-length picture of the archbishop in eucharistic vestments (the stole unusually short), a pall over his shoulders, and an elaborate pastoral ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... of the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is an elaborate paper (since reprinted for private circulation) by the Rev. F.G. Fleay 'On the Actor Lists, 1538-1642.' The learned writer tells us nothing new about Samuel Rowley; but his essay well deserves ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... interest as she darted away, for it was a distinguished-looking old gentleman who lifted his hat with elaborate courtesy at her approach. He was dressed in white duck, and the right ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... to reject the Potential Mode, and who prefer a more elaborate and technical classification of the mode and tense forms, are referred to pages 373, 374. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... argued with Thaumaste, and merely linking his own prelection to the last by a few flippant criticisms. Now, as the rule stands, you are saddled with the side you disapprove, and so you are forced, by regard for your own fame, to argue out, to feel with, to elaborate completely, the case as it stands against yourself; and what a fund of wisdom do you not turn up in this idle digging of the vineyard! How many new difficulties take form before your eyes? how many superannuated ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cheeky one's "Hum's," and greatly encouraged the chief, who thereafter broke forth in a flow of language which was more in keeping with his name. After a few boastful references to the deeds of himself and his forefathers, he went into an elaborate and exaggerated description of the valorous way in which they had that day stormed the fort of their pale-face enemies and driven them out; after which, losing somehow the thread of his discourse, he fell back on an appallingly solemn ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... eyes were closing tight in determined efforts to force the sleep that would make the time till morning so much shorter. But in Bethlehem Center were six boys who, it is safe to say, were thinking less of the morrow's gifts than of the morning's plan; for preparations for early rising had been as elaborate as if it were fourth of July, and there was a solemn agreement that not one present should be looked at until ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... National Educational Union (which issues the Parents' Review). In America, where specially valuable work has been done, several universities have encouraged the study (notably Chicago, while under the auspices of Professor John Dewey); and Professor G. Stanley Hall's initiative has led to elaborate inquiries, the principal periodical for the movement being the Pedagogical Seminary. The impetus to this study of the child's mind and capacities was given by the classic work of educationists like J.A. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... indictment, expressed in the frankest terms, of the self-seeking, the luxury, the unnatural vices, the rampant robbery of the average provincial despot. His auditors learnt the details of a commander's environment—the elaborate cooking apparatus, the throng of handsome favourites, the jars of wine which, when emptied, returned to Rome as receptacles of gold and silver mysteriously acquired. Gracchus must have delighted his audience with a subject on which the masses love to dwell, the vices of their superiors. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... minutely to describe what was in its own splendour of glory indescribable. How beautifully, without exciting any disappointment in a reader of taste, feeling, and judgment, does he, by a few artless words, render most impressive and sublime, what more elaborate description could only have made confused and unsatisfactory. Nothing can be more admirable than this brief and indistinct report of the perspective glass, it cannot offend the most fastidious taste, yet leaves scope for the exercise ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... winning were the people, officers, midshipmen and crew on board the Chicago that they had made all their plans for the elaborate tea and dance to be given on board the ship of the ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... The ex-soldier looked the worse for wear after his jail sentence. His uniform was frayed, and over his face lay a grayish cast that marks negroes in bad condition. At his side, attached by a belt and an elaborate shoulder holster, hung a big army revolver, while on the greasy lapel of his coat was pinned his military medal for exceptional bravery ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... The servants had all fled after the arrest of the marquis and his wife, and the mob had taken possession of the house. The lofty mirrors were smashed into fragments, the costly hangings torn down, and after they had destroyed much of the elaborate furniture, every man and woman began to lay hands upon whatever they fancied and the mansion was already stripped of the greater ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... principle; for, if lunch be not taken, the interval between breakfast and dinner is too great, and in that case hunger tempts to make the meal too heavy for the exhausted powers of the stomach: if, on the contrary, lunch be taken, dinner becomes an absurdity, as in that case a meal so elaborate and heavy is not required, and cannot healthfully be partaken of at so late an hour. Nevertheless, in a plan of life which devotes the eight or nine hours after breakfast either to business or to out-door ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... fingers turned into thumbs, and Dorothy busied herself in fastening points and laces, adjusting his ruff, and setting his cap at the proper angle. Captain Dawe found that sword and belt required his critical attention, and Master Jeffreys started a most elaborate dissertation on court etiquette in "the most polite court in Europe." Johnnie's head buzzed, his mind wandered in a maze; and when at last he stepped out into the sunshine of the streets, he confessed to Mistress Stowe that he felt "like a thief going to be hanged." Captain Dawe ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... than those of the Stone period, the enclosed relics are of metal, and that this metal is an alloy of copper and tin—bronze—not brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc. Not only are such relics more elaborate in respect to their workmanship, but the kinds of them are more varied. They are referable indeed to the three classes of warlike instruments, industrial implements, and personal ornaments, but the varieties of each sort are comparatively ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... colour, the red is almost that of the Spurge Caterpillar, but it is the result of a dye on which nitric acid has no effect as a detector of urates. The same chromatic principle must certainly exist in a more elaborate form and under a different molecular arrangement in the skin of the abdomen and the wing-cases which will presently replace ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... and surrendered to him two young men, who advanced and sat down before him on the floor, covering their heads with their blankets, to receive the tomahawk. [Footnote: I have followed the contemporary letter to Mason rather than the more elaborate and slightly different account of the "Memoir." The account written by Clark in his old age, like Shelby's similar autobiography, is, in many respects, not very trustworthy. It cannot be accepted for a moment where it conflicts with any contemporary accounts.] Then he granted ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... even when the probabilities are derived from observation and experiment, a very slight improvement in the data, by better observations, or by taking into fuller consideration the special circumstances of the case, is of more use than the most elaborate application of the calculus to probabilities founded on the data in their previous state of inferiority. The neglect of this obvious reflection has given rise to misapplications of the calculus of probabilities which have made it the real opprobrium of mathematics. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... his eyes on Ivan's face, felt his humor change. His work, if better than he had hitherto believed it, was certainly not being spoiled as yet. Still—he must wait till the turning of the page, where began some of those elaborate pyrotechnics that cheapen so much of his work. Could this modest youth accomplish anything intricate? Probably not. And yet—the fellow was calm enough. Even Rubinstein failed to divine the extent of the strain under ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... In his elaborate defence of Jay's treaty, Alexander Hamilton paid much attention to the question of the fur trade. Defending Jay for permitting so long a delay in evacuation and for granting right of entry into our fields, he minimized the value of the trade. So far from being worth ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner

... sunny June day, and a girl was pacing up and down a sheltered path in an old-fashioned garden. She walked slowly along the narrow graveled walk, now and then glancing at the carefully trimmed flowers of an elaborate ribbon border at her right, and stopping for an instant to note the promise of fruit on some well-laden peach and pear-trees. The hot sun was pouring down almost vertical rays on her uncovered head, but she was either impervious ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... There was no formal organization. Those writers who were zealously interested in the rehabilitation of the Provencal speech and connected themselves with Mistral and his friends were the Felibres. Not until 1876 was there a Felibrige with a formal constitution and an elaborate organization. ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... after a few adventures, over into an elaborate practical joke in which Pankraz himself is burlesqued by his contemporaries. Timme carries his poignancy and keenness of satire over into bluntness of burlesque blows in a large part of these closing scenes. Pankraz loses the sympathy of the ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... coloured silk, the cover of a favourite volume. In the British Museum one is preserved of a later date—the work of our Queen Elizabeth. In the sixteenth century small ornaments, capable of being conjoined into a variety of elaborate patterns, were first used for stamping the covers with gilding; the leather was stained of various tints, and a beauty imparted to volumes which has not been surpassed by ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... not explosive in his manifestations of mirth, but his laughter, in reply to this statement, was almost uproarious. And the State Department was as good as its word. It immediately forgot all the elaborate "notes" and "protests" which it had been addressing to Great Britain. It became more inexorable than Great Britain had ever been in keeping foodstuffs out of neutral countries that were contiguous to Germany. Up to the time the United States entered the war, Germany, in spite ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... loftiness involves, necessarily, timeless and changeless Being; so that we can turn to Him, and feel Him to be 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.' No words are needed, and no human words are anything but tawdry attempts to elaborate, which only result in weakening, these two great thoughts. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... name of this horde of barbarism is, as we were afterwards informed, in their native patois, Scullers, and from the circumstance of their appearing peculiar to the river and its banks, the Professor of Natural History, whom we carried with us, after an elaborate investigation, declared them to be, peculiar to the soil, members of the animal kingdom, of a species between the alligator ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various

... rather elaborate dollies, intended to be worked with amalgamating tables, but the usual prototype of the quartz mill is set up, more or less, as follows: A tree stump, from 9 in. to a foot diameter, is levelled off smoothly at ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... illustrious one, who is this Death? What is the measure of his energy, strength and prowess? O foremost of intelligent persons, I desire to hear all this truly.' Hearing these words of his, the boon giving lord, Narada, recited the following elaborate history, destructive of grief on account of a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... covered with canvas and decorated with ivy and flowers gathered fresh from the fields. An account of the structure may be found in the records of the Office of the Revels. Perhaps, however, the most elaborate and substantial of these "banqueting houses" was that erected in 1581, to entertain the ambassadors from France who came to treat of a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duc d'Anjou. The structure is thus described ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... first part of the book are few and simple, the design of the author being to illustrate rather than to define; to lead the child to see, rather than to burden his mind with fine-spun statements that serve only to confuse. In an elaborate work for advanced students the method of treatment would, ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman

... just before him was in full use as a snare, stretching across the arch of the window, with radiating threads as its ribs. Somerset had plenty of time, and he counted their number—fifteen. He remained so silent that the owner of this elaborate structure soon forgot the disturbance which had resulted in the breaking of his diagonal ties, and crept out from the corner to mend them. In watching the process, Somerset noticed that on the stonework behind the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... vessel. The term "fore-and-aft" is derived from the forward part and the after part of the ship. Fore-and-aft sails, then, are such as are spread upon yards which point fore and aft, not across the ship. We conceive this elaborate explanation to be necessary for some readers, and, therefore, don't apologise for making it. A ship whose sails are spread across the hull is said to be square-rigged. Sometimes, however, a sloop carries one ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... Constantine, resuming its old Grecian name of Byzantium, there succeeded a theatre less diffusive, a population more concentrated, a character of action more determinate and jealous, a style of courtly ceremonial more elaborate as well as more haughtily repulsive, and universally a system of interests, as much more definite and selfish, as might naturally be looked for in a nation now every where surrounded by new thrones gloomy with malice, and swelling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... equal to the occasion. He came to a standstill by the table, executed an elaborate bow in Lady Bassett's direction, then turned briskly ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... the cases of Upper and Lower Forts Garry. Fort Garry was, as we have seen, well on the way to completion by the time of the French outbreak in connection with Larocque. And Governor Christie was authorized to go on and construct a still more elaborate fort at the Forks to replace the wooden Fort Garry built shortly after the union of the Companies. Thus, a large Fort with numerous buildings, suitable for trade and residence, was begun in 1835, and around it a substantial ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... inhabit it? Already in the eager active eighteenth century this obvious idea had struck in the germ a large number of zoologists and botanists, and in the hands of Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin it took form as a distinct and elaborate system of organic evolution. Buffon had been the first to hint at the truth; but Buffon was an eminently respectable nobleman in the dubious days of the tottering monarchy, and he did not care personally for the Bastille, viewed as a place of permanent residence. In Louis Quinze's France, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... of the Queen is mounted in an elaborate and massive chased gold frame, surmounted by the royal crown; is a half-length, fourteen inches long and ten wide, done in enamel, by Tilb, a London artist, and is the largest miniature of the ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... the doctrinal from the historical or illustrative elements of an argument or exposition, the abstract became an analysis very serviceable for ready reference,"[1] This assumes, as Hamilton said, that the book to be operated on is your own, and perhaps is rather too elaborate a counsel of perfection for most of us. Again, some great men—Gibbon was one, and Daniel Webster was another, and the great Lord Strafford was a third—always before reading a book made a short, rough ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... the message was a long elaborate argument upon the significance of the war to the working classes. His aim was to show that the whole trend of the Confederate movement was toward a conclusion which would "place capital on an equal footing with, if not ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... and take them. It was further alleged—and much of the correspondence is addressed to this point—that they were taken, contrary to the law of nations, within three miles or cannon-shot of the Ionian Islands, and therefore within the British waters. Very elaborate arguments are given in the correspondence to prove that position, and a great deal of indignation is expressed; and satisfaction was also demanded on account of the abuse of the English flag. An elaborate argument is prepared and sent ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... the dwarf, making an elaborate bow. "It is not as good as the supper we enjoyed together in the village inn, but Francois has not had much experience in the character of host. Later on he will doubtless ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... they had settled themselves with elaborate impudence on the back seat, the singing began. Just as they were singing the last verse, every individual voice wavered and all but died out in astonishment to see William Bacon come in—an unheard-of thing! ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... grand aim, but it was manifestly unsatisfactory. The high hopes it had raised were followed by mingled disappointment and distrust. The secret of the unsatisfactoriness of Spencer is to be found in his method, which is an elaborate and plausible attempt to explain the evolution of the universe by referring the complex to the simple, the more highly organized to the less organized. His principle of Evolution never freed itself from bondage ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... taking me apart, the curate told me, with honeyed words, that in the profession to which I had devoted myself my thoughts ought to dwell upon the best means of being agreeable to God, and not on pleasing the world by my fine appearance. He condemned my elaborate curls, and the exquisite perfume of my pomatum. He said that the devil had got hold of me by the hair, that I would be excommunicated if I continued to take such care of it, and concluded by quoting for my benefit these words from an oecumenical ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... want to be found out, either by Nelly or the Farrells; and she took elaborate steps to prevent it. She wrote first a long letter to Howson giving her reasons for refusing to believe in his tentative identification of the man at X—— as George Sarratt, and begging him not to write to her sister. 'That would be indeed cruel. She can just get along now, and every ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... esteemed and cultivated at the centres of Greek life. Among the Molic peoples of the Isles, in particular, it had been carried to a high pitch of perfection, and its forms had become the subject of assiduous study. Its technique was exact, complex, extremely elaborate, minutely regulated; yet the essential fires of sincerity, spontaneity, imagination and passion were flaming with undiminished heat behind the fixed forms and restricted measures. The very metropolis of this lyric realm ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman

... postwar world was well expressed in 1946 by George S. Pettee, a noted author on national security. He wrote in The Future of American Secret Intelligence (Infantry Journal Press, 1946, page 46) that world leadership in peace requires even more elaborate intelligence than in war. "The conduct of peace involves all countries, all human activities - not just the ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Shortly afterward she saw the ladies emerge from the French Church of Notre Dame, and cross the square to meet him. Miss Cuthbert was delighted with the church. Although a Protestant, she admired it as an architectural art-work, the elaborate adornment, too, of the interior pleased her, and accorded with her womanly tastes. Mrs. Clarkson had seen both inside and outside so often that neither had now any more effect on her; indeed, not only was her heart steeled to the refining ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... she began, seating herself with elaborate caution with her back to the light. 'We hardly hoped to find you at home, Miss Garston. My cousin Giles informed us how much engaged you were. We have been so interested in what Mr. Cunliffe told us about it. It is such a romantic scheme, and, as I am a very romantic person, you ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... legislation which provided for the inspection and regulation of every vessel operated by machinery if the same was not subject to inspection under the laws of the United States. It was conceded that there was "elaborate" federal legislation in the field, but it was asserted that the Washington statute filled a gap. "The principle is thoroughly established," said Chief Justice Hughes for the Court, "that the exercise by the State of its police power, which would ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... king for themselves they drew up as against themselves for their tenants. Based too as it professed to be on Henry's Charter it was far from being a mere copy of what had gone before. The vague expressions of the old Charter were now exchanged for precise and elaborate provisions. The bonds of unwritten custom which the older grant did little more than recognize had proved too weak to hold the Angevins; and the baronage set them aside for the restraints of written ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... back legs about when he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is purely due to the nervous excitement produced by the act of singing. The same phenomenon can be observed in many singers and public speakers. I do not think myself that we need seek for a more elaborate hypothesis. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, of course, says that "the stridulation or song in the Acridiidae is produced by friction of the hind legs against portions of the wings or wing-covers," but that is just the sort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various



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