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Precipitate   Listen
verb
Precipitate  v. t.  (past & past part. precipitated; pres. part. precipitating)  
1.
To throw headlong; to cast down from a precipice or height. "She and her horse had been precipitated to the pebbled region of the river."
2.
To urge or press on with eager haste or violence; to cause to happen, or come to a crisis, suddenly or too soon; as, precipitate a journey, or a conflict. "Back to his sight precipitates her steps." "If they be daring, it may precipitate their designs, and prove dangerous."
3.
(Chem.) To separate from a solution, or other medium, in the form of a precipitate; as, water precipitates camphor when in solution with alcohol. "The light vapor of the preceding evening had been precipitated by the cold."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Precipitate" Quotes from Famous Books



... Professor Bischof some years ago. He, having prepared a solution of chloride of gold, added thereto a solution of silicate of potash, whereupon, as he states, the yellow colour of the chloride disappeared, and in half an hour the fluid turned blue, and a gelatinous dark-blue precipitate appeared and adhered to the sides of the vessel. In a few days moss-like forms were seen on the surface of the precipitate, presumably approximating to what we know as dendroidal gold—that is, having the appearance of moss, fern, or twigs. After allowing the precipitate to remain undisturbed ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... to defeat this insidious Socialism which is threatening the country, and take immediate steps to expose and bring it to light. The country may truly be said to be sleeping over a veritable volcano which the next general election may precipitate, unless steps are taken at once to bring this nightmare into the light of day and force it out ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... in a report on the North Esk Bridge: 'A less waterway might have sufficed, but the VALLEYS MAY COME TO BE MELIORATED BY DRAINAGE.' One field drained after another through all that confluence of vales, and we come to a time when they shall precipitate by so much a more copious and transient flood, as the gush of the flowing drain-pipe is superior to ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... precipitate than I have been. All that I propose is to enjoy my vacation and the society of your ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... better than to play himself, and he would do it to perfection; only it would be a comic part, and Godolphin's mind is for the serious drama." Maxwell laughed. "All his artistic instincts are in solution, and it needs something like a chemical agent to precipitate them, or to give them any positive character. He's like ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... des logis) of the dragoons shut up in the barracks at Sainte Menehould, had alone found means to mount his horse, and escape the vigilance of the people. He had learnt from his commanding officer of Drouet's precipitate departure, and, suspecting the cause, he followed him on the road to Varennes, resolved to overtake and kill him; he kept within sight of him, but always at a distance, in order that he might not arouse his suspicions, and with the intention of overtaking and killing him at a favourable ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... in that city. Sixteen days before Franklin's arrival the memorable conflicts of Lexington and Concord had taken place. Probably never were men more astounded, than were the members of the British cabinet, in learning that the British regulars had been defeated, routed and put to precipitate flight by American farmers with their fowling-pieces. In this heroic conflict, whose echoes reverberated around the world, the Americans lost in killed and wounded eighty-three. The British lost two hundred and seventy-three. Franklin wrote to ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... I will be patient! I will endure, though the vulture gnaws incessant at my heart! I will do nothing precipitate. No, no: I must beware of that! But let me prove them treacherous—let them once falter, and go aside from the straight path, and ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... the first time in her restless dissatisfied life. By some strange alchemy she and Paul were able to precipitate and blend the sum total of their content, and the summer was passed in peace. At first they went to a hotel, but fearing the publicity, rented under an assumed name a suite in the second storey of a pretty little house near South Rittenhouse Square. Here in the cheerful morning-room ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... from his pen, Who liues with beasts, though in the shapes of men, And what a poore few are we honest still, And dare to be so, when all the world is ill. I finde this age of our markt with this Fate, That honest men are still precipitate 30 Vnder base villaines, which till th' earth can vent This her last brood, and wholly hath them spent, Shall be so, then in reuolution shall Vertue againe arise by vices fall; But that shall I not see, neither will ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... accurate knowledge. Though a Parisian belle, she had read with attention some of those books which are generally thought too dry or too deep for her sex. Consequently, her benevolence was neither wild in theory nor precipitate ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

... being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilis descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I have no sympathy—at least no pity—for him who descends. He is that monstrum ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... want to bag half of us and throw the rest into immediate rebellion. It's his play not to force the issue until after the election, Bucky. He controls all the election machinery and will have himself declared reelected, the old scamp, notwithstanding that he's the most unpopular man in the State. To precipitate trouble now would be just foolishness, he argues. So he'll just capture our arms, and after the election give me and my friends quiet hell. Nothing public, you know—just unfortunate assassinations ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... the young fellow was more cautious. He found he had no novice to deal with, and the Brahmin was not at all anxious to precipitate matters. By a splendid feint, after some pretty sparring for a grip, the youngster again succeeded in getting a hold on the Brahmin, and wheeling round quick as lightning, got behind Roopnarain, and ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... It heaved tumultuously. "I could do anything for you, Herminia," he cried, "and indeed, I do sympathize with you. But give me, at least, till to-morrow to think this thing over. It is a momentous question; don't let us be precipitate." ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... of these houses are made of split bamboo, which offers but a precarious footing to the unsuspecting traveller, as holes are numerous, and a slip through would precipitate one forty feet below. In front of the house runs a bamboo verandah about twenty feet broad, where domestic operations, such as cooking, padi grinding, &c., are carried on. The roof of dried palm-leaves is a high sloping one, ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... betook himself to his dressing-room, to put on his state robes for the great court feast, the Duchess of Richmond returned to her own apartments, trembling and quivering with rage. She traversed these with precipitate haste, and entered her boudoir, where Earl ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... pressing his advantage, for her precipitate departure would rob him of the expected effect of Casimir Wieniawski's disclosures. "If I find you en ami defamille, at Delhi, so that you can confidentially approach Sir Hugh Johnstone, the ci-devant Hugh Fraser, your task will be soon set for you, and your reward ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... deep emotion, "if I suffered myself to be guided by the impulse of my heart, I would yield to wishes at once so noble and disinterested. I cannot, however, suffer my affection, absorbing and inexpressible as it is, to precipitate your ruin. I speak not of myself, nor of what I may suffer. When we reflect, however, my beloved girl, upon the state of the country, and of the law, as it operates against the liberty and property of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... lunacy," and as far as has been hitherto ascertained, does not revel in the luxury of a lucid interval. But these vicissitudes of intellectual obscurity and lustre have no real existence;—they are not the offsprings of observation and experience, but the abortions of hypothesis and precipitate deduction. Lunatics, from the excitation of various causes, become at times more violent or desponding, and these exacerbations are often succeeded by tranquillity and cheerfulness, they are more tractable, and less impelled to urge the subjects of their prevailing delusions: ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam

... centrifugally thrown off from it. Our insignificant earth is a single planet of our solar system; its entire individual life is a product of the sunlight. After the glowing sphere of the earth has cooled down to a certain degree, drops of fluid water precipitate themselves on the hardened crust of its surface—the first preliminary condition of organic life. Carbon atoms begin their organism-engendering activity, and unite with the other elements into plasma-combinations capable of growing. ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel

... Scone, 2 m. distant, the kings of Scotland were crowned; and the murder of James I., the Gowrie conspiracy, and the battle of Tippermuir are but a few of its many historical associations. "The Five Articles of Perth," adopted by a General Assembly held there in 1618, did much to precipitate the conflict between the Royal power and the Scottish Church; they enjoined kneeling at the Lord's Supper, observance of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost, confirmation, and the private ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... to St. Augustine. He has found a principle of slavery, which is neither natural inequality, nor war, nor agreement, but sin. Slavery is no more a transitory fact which we accept provisionally, so as not to precipitate a social revolution: it is an institution which has become natural as a result of the corruption of our nature. (3) It must not be said that slavery, resulting from sin, is destroyed by Christ who destroyed ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... Moreover, it is an experience which doesn't come to every girl." She looked at her friend quizzically. "What are you going to do about Colin? I rather think you should have an answer ready; the circumstances are apt to make him rather precipitate." ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... sharply. It seemed to precipitate all the old worry in the solution that but a moment ago was so clear. He came back hesitatingly from the window and threw himself down before the desk again, unable to restrain something he vaguely named his ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... feature of Highland scenery, in its wildest and most striking aspects. There are stern summits, enveloped in cloud, and stretching heavenwards; huge broad crests, heathy and verdant, or torn by fissures and broken by the storms; deep ravines, jagged, precipitate, and darksome; and valleys sweetly reposing amidst the sublimity of the awful solitude. There are dark craggy mountains around the Grey-Mare's-Tail, echoing to the roar of its stupendous cataract; and romantic and beautiful green hills, and inaccessible heights, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... his captive, but the Hillers were so close to him that Charles dare not run, and he remained close to Frank for protection, while the rest of the Rangers beat a precipitate retreat. ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon

... for it must be said that the conquering Captain had never felt so full of pity to any girl or woman to whom he fancied he had done damage, as to Emilia. He enjoyed a most thorough belief that she was growing up to perplex him with her love, and he had not consequently attempted to precipitate the measure; but her flight had prematurely perplexed him. In grave debate with the ends of his moustache for a term, he concluded by accusing Merthyr Powys; and with a little feeling of spite not unknown to masculine ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the stout girl, who had just entered. At the beginning of the game, Jerry, Constance and Irma had hurried to the gallery to watch it. Seasoned fans, they had observed the playing with critical eyes that saw much. The instant the first half was over, they had descended to their friends with precipitate haste. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... of a grave and complicated question. And our ambassador in Paris, Lord Lyons, whose calm judgment and friendly counsels M. Ollivier acknowledges unreservedly, exerted himself throughout this critical time to deprecate precipitate words ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... the jaws of the bear. On the other hand, we could not remain as we were, for in a few seconds we should be drifted over the falls; and how high these were we knew not. We had never heard of them: they might be fifty feet—they might be a hundred! High enough, they were, no doubt, to precipitate us ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... flight from Junction Station was precipitate. Two trains escaped shortly before our occupation, one of which was believed to have contained Von Kressenstein himself. Nevertheless our captures of rolling stock and material were considerable. The enemy's army had now been broken ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... soil to consolidate their strength and direct it, a revolutionary effort of the Irish people could end only in disaster. But the government had reasons of their own for wishing to set an Irish rebellion afoot at this time, and they took measures to precipitate the rising. The arrest of the delegates at the house of Oliver Bond in Dublin, and the capture of Lord Edward Fitzgerald contributed to this end; but these things the country might have peacably endured if no more dreadful trial had been put upon ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... optimistic. And if this is so, I owe it to none but myself. You speak of insults. Permit me to say that I regard your patronage as an insult. I have done nothing, I imagine, to deserve it. I crack my head to divine what I have done to deserve it. You hear some silly talk about a rehearsal and you precipitate ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... "Why be so precipitate, Mr. Conway?" Don Mike objected, almost fiercely. "You always were the most easy-going, tender-hearted old scout imaginable, and that's why you've never been able to afford a new automobile. Now, I have a proposition to submit to you, Mr. Conway, and inasmuch as it conflicts radically with Mr. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... ardour, for the time being at least, for before the operation of reloading the guns had been completed, the splash and roll of oars in their rowlocks could be heard in fast diminishing cadence, conveying to our experienced ears the fact that our enemies were beating a precipitate retreat. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... him to come in he would have consented, and we might have talked it out. We each thought a great deal more than we said, but after all, maybe it was well as it stood. What could he ever be to me more than an old friend—twice my age—and maybe I was too precipitate and presumptuous. How did I know he thought of me in any other light than the child he had always known me? I stood up with this impediment thrown voluntarily in the way, and took off my street apparel. In a quarter of ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... the first two test-liquors, if he sees a yellow coloration or precipitate, he knows that he has either arsenic or tin or cadmium. He then adds some strong ammonia, after boiling the liquid till the smell of rotten eggs has disappeared. If the powder dissolves, and the colour goes, he is quite sure he ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... forts should not be reinforced. Buchanan would give them no promise, but he equally refused the entreaties of Scott and his own principal ministers that he should reinforce the forts, because he declared that this would precipitate a conflict. Towards the end of the year Major Anderson, not having men enough to hold all the forts if, as he expected, they were attacked, withdrew his whole force to Fort Sumter, which he thought the most defensible, dismantling the principal other fort. The Governor of South Carolina protested ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... inefficiency of the forces which Charles Albert led across the Ticino in March 1848 remained the main reason why Radetsky was able to get back Lombardy and Venetia for his master. This Cavour knew, and he was anxious not to precipitate matters till La Marmora, to whom he privately gave carte blanche, could say that his work was done. He began treating Austria with more consideration than she had received from Massimo d'Azeglio, ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... incredible rapidity, picking up the stragglers, and, as they gave no quarter, were levelling them with the ground. The greater numbers of the army were already out of danger, the flight having been so precipitate. We got upon a rising ground, where we turned round and made a general halt. The scene was, indeed, tremendous. Never was so total a rout—a more thorough discomfiture of an army. The adjacent country was ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so precipitate, so marked. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... a son of Mr. Carpenter, two sons of Mr. Brown[16] [73] (all small children) and one woman—the others belonging to the house, were in the field at work. The Indians then dispoiled the house and taking off some horses, commenced a precipitate ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... Prince Ferdinand and the combined army of English and Hanoverians from their entrenchments at Hohenower. On two several days Broglie made a fierce attack upon his posts, chiefly directing his murderous fire against that commanded by Lord Granby; but on the second day the French gave way, and made a precipitate retreat, leaving behind them several pieces of cannon, with five thousand of their comrades sleeping the sleep of death. Their non-success produced mutual recriminations between Broglie and Soubise, who had never perfectly agreed, and they resolved to separate: Broglie crossed the Weser, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Transley. Transley had a manner of direct and forceful action. These were his first words to her. Linder would not have dared be so precipitate. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... in the house of those who longed to see me the victim of it; and my imagination being more than usually alert, I even found myself fancying the secret triumph with which Guy Pollard would hail an incautious slip on my part, that would precipitate me from the top to the bottom of this treacherous staircase. That he was somewhere between me and the front door, I felt certain. The deadly quiet behind and before me seemed to assure me of this; and, ashamed as I was of the impulse that moved ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... of the valley, intensely disgusted with the boasting and swaggering that had characterized the arrival of the "Laurel Brigade" in that section, baptized the action (known to us as Tom's Brook) the "Woodstock Races," and never tired of poking fun at General Rosser about his precipitate and inglorious flight. (When Rosser arrived from Richmond with his brigade he was proclaimed as the savior of the Valley, and his men came ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... considering how to project with a spray something upon the advancing fog which will bring it to earth in the form of an innocuous compound. Spray that something over the parapet, and if you can spray it far enough and wide enough you may precipitate the deadly green and brown mists into chlorides or bromides which will be as harmless as bleaching-powder and not ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... establishment being a protection to the loyal population, it seemed more likely, judging by what had occurred in other States, that it would serve as a temptation to the secession mob that was evidently gathering head for mischief, and that the desire to take it would precipitate the outbreak. The Unionists felt their danger; the rebels saw their opportunity. Already the latter were boasting that they would in a short time occupy this post, and not a few of the prominent Union citizens of the town were warned by secession leaders ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... wit and unvarying good-humor of this nobleman formed a striking contrast to the harsh and precipitate policy, which it was his lot, during twelve stormy years, to enforce:—and, if his career was as headlong as the torrent near its fall, it may also be said to have been as shining and as smooth. These attractive qualities secured to him a considerable share of personal ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... all, highest evolvement of all, came the absorption of revolver-lore under the instruction of experts who made but pastime of picking a jack-rabbit in its flight, or bringing a kite, soaring high in air, tumbling precipitate to earth. A wild life it was and a rough, but fascinating nevertheless in its demonstration of the overwhelming superiority of man, the animal, in nerve and endurance over every ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... familiar with independence of decision, or the courageous feeling of pleasure in willing—they are doubtful of the "freedom of the will" even in their dreams Our present-day Europe, the scene of a senseless, precipitate attempt at a radical blending of classes, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its heights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which springs impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with gloomy aspect, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... glance at the world around them should have induced reflection. The experience of other countries was not encouraging. Hayti, where the blacks had long been masters of the soil, was still a pandemonium; and in Jamaica and South Africa the precipitate action of zealous but unpractical philanthropists had wrought incalculable mischief. Even Lincoln himself, redemption by purchase being impracticable, saw no other way out of the difficulty than the wholesale deportation of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... in which it is stored and to allow it to flow back by way of the vanning apparatus, thus providing not only for catching the grains of gold by the concentrating machine, but also for the dissolving of the fine impalpable gold dust, or natural precipitate, by the action of the ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... house; Fairthorn sunk upon the ground, and resigned himself for some minutes to unmanly lamentations. Suddenly he started up; a thought came into his brain—a hope into his breast. He made a caper—launched himself into a precipitate zig-zag—gained the hall-door-plunged into his own mysterious hiding-place—and in less than an hour re-emerged, a letter in his hand, with which he had just time to catch the postman, as that functionary was striding off from the back yard with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... what suspicions might not be awakened. Nay, the matter was worse, more perilous and more lightly balanced; for, setting himself aside, none the less was a brawl that brought up Basterga's name, a thing to be shunned. The least thing might precipitate the scholar's arrest; his arrest must lead to the loss of the remedium, if it existed; and the loss of the remedium to the loss of that which Messer Blondel had come to value the more dearly the more he sacrificed to ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... operating within them. For it is by conflict, as we have now learnt, that the higher emerges from the lower, and nature herself, it would almost seem, does not direct but looks on, as her world emerges in painful toil from chaos. We do not find her with precipitate zeal intervening to arrest at a given point the ferment of creation; stretching her hand when she sees the gleam of the halcyon or the rose to bid the process cease that would destroy them; and sacrificing to the completeness of those ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... anxious about the fate of my remarks, which I have quite forgot, and which, I dare say, were very foolish. To me it is of little importance whether the King's conduct were right or wrong; but it is of great importance that those whom I love should not think me a precipitate, silly, shallow sciolist in politics, and suppose that every frivolous word that falls from my pen is a dogma which I mean to advance as indisputable; and all this only because I write to them without reserve; only ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... few scattering shots; but they were taken at such disadvantage, that they immediately began a precipitate retreat down the ravine. ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... depth, that are clothed with trees, and lie on either side of the narrow pathway descending to the river over eight successive ridges of hills. At one spot termed the Cockscomb, the traveller stands insulated as it were on a small slip, where a false step might precipitate him into the glen. From this place Mr. Back took an interesting and accurate sketch, to allow time for which, we encamped early, having come ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... was not, therefore, amazing that he should have been admitted to her presence. She was alone save for her lady-in-waiting, Madame de Lannoi, who was, we are told, aged, prudent and virtuous. Conceive, therefore, the outraged feelings of this lady upon seeing the English duke precipitate himself wildly into the room, and on his knees at the royal bedside seize the coverlet and ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... abandoned cannon, still warm and smoking. There lay a deserted flag, bearing the Latin inscription "Aut vincere aut mori,"—Victory or death,—flung down in the precipitate flight. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... incidental to the game, to repeat the authenticated statement that the son of Okbar was killed by King Pepin's son through the jealousy and irritation of the latter at being constantly beaten at chess, or that William the Conqueror in early days had to beat a precipitate retreat from France through assaulting the King's son over the chess board, and a somewhat similar misadventure in early days to Henry I, and John's unseemly fracas. It is related that an English knight ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... Moors who guarded the passes were slain in the ascent, and on the top the Moorish commander met him with all his men, but Don Christopher running at him with his lance thrust him through the body. The shot of the Portuguese soon constrained the Moors to make a precipitate flight, after losing a great number of men, and the mountain was completely reduced. Great numbers of horses and mules were found in this place, which was inhabited by about 800 Jews in six or seven villages, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... the Persians threatened it from Asia. But the walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks proved invincible, and, quarrels breaking out between the Slavs and the Avars, both had to save themselves in ignominious and precipitate retreat. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway, Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon, Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee. Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river Mountains, Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska; And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras, Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert, Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean, Like the great ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... was in my hand—but, wait, Methought, awhile! 'Tis early toasting With paeans too precipitate A baby scarce an outline boasting: One week at least of life must flit For me to match it with its brothers— I'll wager, like most infants, it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various

... not stop with this. It ordered the arrest of the authors of the play and also of the chief actors who took part in its performance. Nashe saved himself by precipitate flight, but his lodgings were searched and his private papers were turned over to the authorities. Robert Shaw and Gabriel Spencer, as leaders of the troupe, and Ben Jonson, as one of the "inferior players" who had a part in writing the play,[259] were thrown ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... an inland-cliff precipitate; From tiny caves peeped many a soot-black poll; In each a mother-martin sat elate, And of the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... contain'd, By him alone can be explain'd Who could this useful tale invent. In the first place, herein is meant, That they are often most your foes Who from your fost'ring hand arose. Next, that the harden'd villain's fate Is not from wrath precipitate, But rather at a destined hour. Lastly, we're charg'd with all our pow'r, To keep ourselves, by care intense, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... seeming to be brusk and arbitrary," said the lieutenant smiling, "but I can't permit you to go back. For our own sake, as well as yours. You might precipitate a general engagement, and while we're not running away from anything like that, we are not looking for it just now. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... greater quantity) when the barm is well Incorporated with the Liquor, in the same manner as you do Beer or Ale, and so let it work in the Barrel as long as it will; then stop it up close for a few days more, that so it may clear it self well, and separate and precipitate the dregs. Then draw the clear into bottles. This will make it less windy, but also a little less quick, though more wholesome. You may also boil a little handful of tops of Rosemary in the Liquor, which giveth ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... eighteen and were under the command of Captain Alexander P. Peete. They had been directed to reserve their fire until within thirty paces, but one of their number fired on the insurgents when within about one hundred yards. Half of the whites beat a precipitate retreat when Nat Turner ordered his men to fire and rush on them. The few remaining white men stood their ground until Turner approached within fifty yards, when they too followed the example of their comrades, fired and retreated with several wounded. Turner pursued and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... portion" of the revenues to be used in its own defence and in the defence of neighbouring States. In other words, it favoured the establishment of a New England confederacy. Thus, after ten years, the crisis had come which Pickering, the storm petrel, desired to precipitate in the days when Hamilton declined to listen and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... and drizzle and slush. His fear of his sister and of his friends seemed base and cowardly. And the more he looked at this vision of the night, this revelation of peace and love and light, the more he was determined to possess it. You will call him precipitate. But when all a man's nobility is on one side and all his meanness on the other, why hesitate? Besides, John Harlow had done more thinking in that half hour than most men do in ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... France, who was thought at this time, Walpole says, to be the ablest man in the Gallican Church, and was pronounced by Hume to be the only man in France capable of restoring the greatness of the kingdom. When he obtained the opportunity he signally falsified Hume's prognostication, and did much to precipitate the Revolution by his incapacity. Smith must no doubt have met him occasionally during his protracted sojourn at Toulouse, though we have no evidence that he did, and the Archbishop was rather notorious for his absence ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... sings. Browning is simply a great demagogue, with an impediment in his speech. Or rather, to speak more strictly, Browning is a man whose excitement for the glory of the obvious is so great that his speech becomes disjointed and precipitate: he becomes eccentric through his advocacy of the ordinary, and goes mad ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... aged crone, suddenly emerged cursing from her hovel to expostulate with me for unwittingly stealing her peas and young carrots. They were cleared out immediately after our arrival. The flight of the remainder had been evidently precipitate. Not only had beds, tables, and all bulkier pieces of furniture been abandoned, but knives, forks, crockery and many little china ornaments. The village had been reoccupied after a stubborn fight in October, 1914, and the enemy pushed well beyond its uttermost limits. ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... presence of an Englishman, at Dunbar, would not be so readily explained. His messenger especially enjoined on me not to send any communication in writing, even by the most trustworthy hand; since an accident might precipitate matters, and drive him to take up arms, before we were in a position to give him aid. Therefore, in the first place, I wish you to journey to Dunbar, to see the earl, and deliver to him the message I ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... adventurous explorers could not repress a shudder as they glanced aloft at these huge masses and thought of the consequences to themselves which would ensue should a projecting corner just then yield and suffer its parent rock to come crashing down to the bottom. Their first impulse was to beat a precipitate retreat; their second, to go forward; for at only a few yards' distance before them the rift closed altogether, except at the very bottom, where a low cavern-like fissure dimly appeared. A hasty consultation passed between them, resulting in ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... principles of authority and sympathy influence almost all our opinions; but must have a peculiar influence, when we judge of our own worth and character. Such judgments are always attended with passion [Book I, Part III. Sect. 10.]; and nothing tends more to disturb our understanding, and precipitate us into any opinions, however unreasonable, than their connexion with passion; which diffuses itself over the imagination, and gives an additional force to every related idea. To which we may add, that being conscious of great partiality in our own favour, we are peculiarly ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... return for the labor of husbandry, and this involves an original expenditure which it will usually require large capital to bear. In this climate the sun, like a mighty pump, is daily raising the water which the currents of cold air from the mountains, or from the sea, precipitate in the form of genial showers during the period of your growing crops; and the granite of the mountains slowly, but steadily disintegrating, gives up its fertilizing property to be scattered by unseen hands over plain and over valley. With care and with skill in its use I can see no end to ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... I must save our money for the next year, then we will have an architect give our modifications the sanction of his approval. We must not be too precipitate with alterations; living in the old house as it is a year, will settle just what we desire. In the meantime we can find plenty to do in ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... to the impression that not least among the forces which led the Emperor on that fateful first of August to declare war against Russia was the presence and the importunity of the Crown Prince. What kind of man was it, then, whom the invisible powers of evil were employing to precipitate this insensate struggle? ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... the cornet at the fore—an unexpected signal, that compelled absent officers and men to repair on board. Steam was raised, and immediately after a departure made, when all hands being called, the nature of the precipitate movement became apparent. Captain Winslow, in a brief address, announced the welcome intelligence of the reception of a telegram from his Excellency, Mr. Dayton, Minister Resident at Paris, to the effect that the notorious Alabama had arrived the ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... country-house—there was thunder in that story too—up to the last wild delirious interview; either Lotte was no good at all, or else Werther should have remained alive after that; either he knew his woman too well, or else he was precipitate. But an idiot like that is hopeless; and yet, he wasn't an idiot—I make reparation, and will offer eighteen pounds of best wax at his tomb. Poor devil! he was only the weakest—or, at least, a very ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mission in life it appears to be to go about the world creating crises in the lives of other people. When there is thunder in the air they precipitate the thunderbolt. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... workmen in every direction and carts and camions loaded with cases making their way with difficulty through the mud. Occasionally a light case or bale would fall off, and quantities of small boys who seemed always on the spot would precipitate themselves, tumbling over each other to pick up what fell, and there would be protestations and explanations in every language under the sun. It was a motley, picturesque crowd—the costumes and uniforms making so much colour in the midst of the very ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... after a long separation, the first effusive greetings at an end, they remain silent as if they had nothing to tell each other, whereas it is the very abundance of things, their precipitate struggle for utterance that prevents their coming forth. The two former partners had reached that stage; but Jansoulet held the banker's arm very tight, fearing that he might escape him, might resist the kindly impulses that he had ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... the United States may easily become involved in war with any one of the Great Powers, no matter how pacific or benevolent her intentions may be. There are at least three Powers with which a trivial incident might precipitate a conflict at almost any time; while the possibilities of friction which might develop into open hostilities with some one of the lesser states are almost innumerable. It is beside the question to say that the United States need have no fear of the result: indeed that very fact contributes ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... interposed Miss Maggie, in a haste so precipitate that it looked almost like alarm, "run into the pantry and see what you can find in the cooky jar." The last of her sentence was addressed to Benny's flying heels as they disappeared through ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... seeing or sending to Mrs. Rivers. If she should receive me with coldness—why should I have exposed myself to the chance of such a reception? It would have been better to have waited for Rivers's arrival; I have been too precipitate; my warmth of temper has misled me: what had I to do to seek his family? I would give the world to retract my message, though it was only to let her know I was arrived; that her son was well, and that she might every ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... hours did I sit beside him on that bank—at night—with none to help me—restraining him by all means I could devise from renewed attempts to precipitate himself into the river. At last I succeeded in bringing him back to the carriage. For the rest of the journey he was quiet; but he was imbecile—his reason had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... After Bourbon's precipitate retreat, the position of Francis I. was a good one. He had triumphed over conspiracy and invasion; the conspiracy had not been catching, and the invasion had failed on all the frontiers. If the king, in security within his kingdom, had confined himself to it, whilst applying himself to the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... its neighbour to the left; the one tendency neutralizes the other and it unites with neither. But, if a crystal of sulphate of soda be dropped into the solution, the molecular indecision ceases. On the crystal the adjacent molecules will immediately precipitate themselves; on these again others will be precipitated, and this act of precipitation will continue from the top of the flask to the bottom, until the solution has, as far as possible, assumed the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... with deep regret and some mortification that I appear to press you. It is of the highest importance to me that the "P.R." should appear without loss of time. I have an impending election in the country, which a single and not improbable event may precipitate. It is a great object with me, that my work should be published before ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... and unavailing remorse on receiving the album to find that every leaf was cut out but one, a mute witness to her "infidelity to her early lover." Small wonder that "her tenderness revived," and "she cursed the hour in which she had formed the precipitate engagement with Jeremiah, and oftentimes she shed over that album tears of heartfelt sorrow and regret." At least so we are told in the pleadings, from which authentic source I draw ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... sound of the electric bell, a precipitate double peal, seemed to uphold this statement. The women faced each other in a moment's suspense, a moment of expectation, such as the advance column may feel at sight of a scout hotfoot from the field of battle. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... spare his fellow-Christians, and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and silk garments. "If the emperor," replied the insolent fanatic, "be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of the Lord will precipitate him from the throne." The reluctant Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... family; but they were absent, and he found Miss Flossy alone. And—well, if Mr. Shipley had been particular, as assuredly he would have been, if Mr. Roberts had not been of the firm of Bostwick, Smythe, Roberts & Co. it might have been embarrassing to have explained the very precipitate result ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... force penetrated in August into Lorraine, an English army disembarked at Calais, and a body of Spaniards descended from the Pyrenees. But at the moment of its realization the discovery of the plot and an order for his arrest foiled Bourbon's designs; and his precipitate flight threw these skilful plans into confusion. Francis remained in his realm. Though the army which he sent over the Alps was driven back from the walls of Milan it still held to Piedmont, while the allied force in northern France ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... set of geese-dancers compelled to make a hurried flight before the hot poker of some irate housekeeper disturbed in her culinary operations, and much in the same way did we four aspirants for naval honours beat a precipitate retreat from the deck of the Torbay as, with a stamp of his foot, our future captain ordered us to be gone and instantly to get cut down and reduced into ordinary proportions by ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... cover is constructed of branches placed parallel, and is slightly smaller than the diameter of the pit. It is balanced on a stick, tied across the middle in such a manner that the slightest weight on any part will cause it to turn over and precipitate the object into the pit whence egress is impossible. Besides this, the walls of the pit are inclined, the widest part being at the bottom, and they gradually slope inward till the level of the ground is reached. When the victim is discovered he is ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... heart,—good as gold,—with upward aspirations, but with slow speech; and, when not sympathized with, he became confused and incoherent, and even dumb. So his only way with his little pink and white empress was immediate and precipitate flight. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... appreciated the danger, for they were gathered around, holding iron bars, Roman candles and pistols; but they had sense enough to know that any interference which would draw his attention from the cage would precipitate the trouble, and none of them could make Leotta appreciate the danger of her position. I went up to him quietly and told him that I thought he had better call the rehearsal off for the night, intending to square accounts with him as soon as Leotta was safely out of the cage; but the drink was ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... would not wilfully raise objections, nor do I desire to appear insensible of the honour of your good opinion;-but there is something in this plan-so very hasty-so unreasonably precipitate:-besides, I shall have no time to hear from Berry Hill;-and believe me, my Lord, I should be for ever miserable, were I, in an affair so important, to act without the ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... imputation of treachery, incapacity, or neglect: it was indifferent to them of which. If they could ascribe to one of those their not being supported from France, they imagined that they should justify their precipitate flight from Scotland, which many of their fastest friends exclaimed against; and that they should varnish over that original capital fault, the drawing the Highlanders together in arms at the time and in the manner in ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke



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