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Defective   /dɪfˈɛktɪv/   Listen
Defective

adjective
1.
Having a defect.  Synonym: faulty.
2.
Markedly subnormal in structure or function or intelligence or behavior.
3.
Not working properly.  Synonym: bad.  "A defective appliance"



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"Defective" Quotes from Famous Books



... very often personal. To imagine that the same mode of procedure, or "method," is applicable to all voices, is as unreasonable as to expect that the same medicament will apply to all maladies. In imparting a correct emission of voice, science has not infrequently to efface the results of a previous defective use, inherent or acquired, of the vocal organ. Hence, although the object to be attained is in every case the same, the modus operandi will vary infinitely. Nor should these most important branches of Classification and Production be entrusted—as ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... duties on the cotton. This application being placed in the hands of the Treasury agent, I was requested to call in two hours. I did so, and was then put off two hours longer. Thus I spent two whole days in frequent visits to that official. His memory was most defective, as I was obliged to introduce myself on each occasion, and tell him the object ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... editions has its advantages and disadvantages. The colored edition of 1887, having been worked over by hand, in lithography, is defective in various places, both as regards the black of the figures and glyphs, and in the colors. Coloring exists on the original codex which was not reproduced at all in the edition, and the colors given ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was rather over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles per hour. Its machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... thought it a story concerted between Glumdalclitch and her father, who had taught me a set of words to make me sell at a better price. Upon this imagination, he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers: no otherwise defective than by a foreign accent, and an imperfect knowledge in the language, with some rustic phrases which I had learned at the farmer's house, and did not suit the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... there is a doctor who undertakes to cure deformed people,— and humpbacked, lame, and otherwise defective folk go there. Besides these, there were many ladies and others boarding there, for the benefit of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of her profile. She was not at all like the heroine of the chapel. He saw the dinted nose of the De Stancys outlined with Holbein shadowlessness against the blue-green of the distant wood. It was not the De Stancy face with all its original specialities: it was, so to speak, a defective reprint of that face: for the nose tried hard to turn up and deal utter confusion ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... person who, probably from a defective sense of humour, was unable to see any fun in it at all. Aunt Charlotte would have given her very ears for Austin, but her affection was of a somewhat irritable sort, and generally took the form of scolding. She was not a stupid woman by any means, but there was one ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... thus small to leave the body of the colonists as strong a reserve force as possible to meet any surprise attack on the part of the Indians. Colonel Higginson, in his Book of American Explorers, gives a cut of this meeting of Massasoit and his pineses with Standish and his guard of honor, but it is defective in that the guard seems to have advanced to the hill ("Strawberry," or later "Watson's") to meet the sachem, instead of only to "the brook;" and more especially in that there are but two officers with the "six musketeers," where there ought to be three, viz. Standish, in command, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... speeches to the jury, could they have been preserved as they were delivered, would have been invaluable specimens of dialectics for the use of students. I heard the late William Maxwell say, that it was vain and even fatal to attempt before a jury to find the defective links in the chain of Mr. Tazewell's arguments, for the process would become too refined for their comprehension; and that his own mode of argument in such cases was to let the reasoning of Tazewell pass, and press with all his force some plain views of the ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... little use of other translations; but I must acknowledge a debt to Lord Brougham's version of the Speeches on the Chersonese and on the Crown, which, though often defective from the point of view of scholarship and based on faulty texts, are (together with his notes) very inspiring. I have also, at one time or another, consulted most of the standard German, French, and English editions of Demosthenes. I cannot now distinguish how much I owe to each; but I am conscious ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes

... deeply interesting character, and their influence will long survive the animosity they occasioned. The completion of Maconochie's report was exceedingly rapid, or it was very early commenced. He had resided but three months, when he felt authorised to pronounce the existing system of management defective, far less in application than in principle. The course ascribed to Maconochie was that of a prejudiced spy, seeking evidence for a case pre-judged: that which he claimed, was the task of a philosopher, scanning facts patent to every eye—even more striking when first ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... a falling off was there!" My memory was impaired, and in reading I was conscious of a confusion of mind which prevented my clearly comprehending the full meaning of what I read. Some organ appeared to be defective. My judgment too was weakened, and I was frequently guilty of the most absurd actions, which at the time I considered wise and prudent. THe strong common sense which I had at one time boasted of, deserted me. I lived ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... a rigorous criticism of Tickell's translation, and had marked a copy, which I have seen, in all places that appeared defective. But while he was thus meditating defence or revenge, his adversary sunk before him without a blow; the voice of the public was not long divided, and the preference universally given to Pope's performance. He was convinced, by adding one circumstance to another, that the other ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... having its leaves starched and ironed out, and that Peg[a]sus (so he called him) hardly looked right with his mane and tail in curl-papers. These and other such opinions I did not long strive to eradicate, attributing them rather to a defective education and senses untuned by too long familiarity with purely natural objects, than to a perverted moral sense. I was the more inclined to this leniency since sufficient evidence was not to seek, that his verses, as wanting as they certainly were in classic polish and point, had somehow ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... great aversion to writing about such things; if children are not trained at home to be upright and full of integrity, it can't be that books can rectify that loss. You may reply that home-training is defective in thousands of cases; yes, that is true, but I have a feeling that truth and honesty must spring from a soil early prepared for them, and that a young person who is in the habit of falsehood is not a Christian and needs to go back to first principles. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... Peter, evidently believing that he suffered martyrdom elsewhere in the east, and does not allude to his having been at Rome. If, therefore, the very foundations of the pretensions of these august Pontiffs are defective, what can we think of the rest of their claims? However, when I have been some time at Wittemburg, I hope to ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston

... Unitarians was ostensibly repealed by the 53 George III., c. 160. But Lord Eldon in 1817 doubted whether it was ever repealed at all; and so late as 1867 Chief Baron Kelly and Lord Bramwell, in the Court of Exchequer, held that a lecture on "The Character and Teachings of Christ: the former defective, the latter misleading" was an offence against the statute. It is not so clear, therefore, that Unitarians are out of danger; especially as the judges have held that this Act was special, without in any way affecting the ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... lives because of dishonest work, carelessness, criminal blundering in railroad construction? Think of the tragedies caused by lies packed in car-wheels, locomotives, steamboat boilers, and engines; lies in defective rails, ties, or switches; lies in dishonest labor put into manufactured material by workmen who said it was good enough for the meager wages they got! Because people were not conscientious in their work there were flaws in the steel, which ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... desire to sing. It could hardly be called a song; it was more in the nature of a recitative without any rhythm, delivered rapidly but distinctly in a croaking and unsteady voice; and if Babalatchi considered it a song, then it was a song with a purpose and, perhaps for that reason, artistically defective. It had all the imperfections of unskilful improvisation and its subject was gruesome. It told a tale of shipwreck and of thirst, and of one brother killing another for the sake of a gourd of water. A repulsive story which might have had a purpose but possessed no moral whatever. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... of the same events, nor the interest which might have been derived from a complete amalgamation of the materials into a consistent work of imagination. Considered also as a reproduction of ancient men and manners it is strikingly defective. With many fine strokes of the pencil, where the author confines himself to the literal fact, his portraits, as a whole, are overcharged with Bulwerism. His imagination is not a mirror. It can reflect nothing without vitiating it. He does not possess the power of passing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... post-Mycenaean. It is quite possible that certain notable differences between the poems and the monuments" (of Mycenae) "in burial, for instance, and in women's dress may be due to changes which arose within the Mycenaean age itself, in that later part of it of which our knowledge is defective—almost as defective as it is of the subsequent 'Dipylon' period. On the whole, the resemblance to the typical Mycenaean culture is more striking than the difference." [Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... care in keeping the stomach right must therefore be clear to all. The least appearance of indigestion, or mal-assimilation of food should be watched as carefully as the first approach of an invading army. Many means advocated for meeting such attacks, but all have heretofore been more or less defective. There can be little doubt, however, that for the purpose of regulating the stomach, toning it up to proper action, keeping its nerves in a normal condition and purifying the blood, Warner's Tippecanoe The Best, excels ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... and luxuriance of the hair, when languid or defective, the only natural and perfectly safe method that can be adopted is to promote the healthy action of the scalp by increasing the vigor of the circulation of the blood through its minute channels. For this purpose nothing is so simple and effective as gentle excitation of the skin by frequent continued ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... lost. A duplicate set was for years required to be sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. These were also passed into the custody of the Librarian of Congress; but this collection had been carelessly preserved and the files of the McGuffey Readers at Washington are now quite defective for the earliest issues. The Library seems to have no copy of any number of the first edition except possibly the Second and Fourth. The copy of the Second was deposited December 12, 1836. The Fourth bears date of July, 1837. All the other early ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail

... the repairs, and he had his hands full. Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion: the lamps leaked, so did the decks; door-knobs came off in the hand, mouldings parted company with the panels, the pump declined to suck, and the defective bathroom came near to swamp the ship. Wicks insisted that all the nails were long ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the rust. "You shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy," he would say. "I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... just that linked unity of its narrative, which has procured for the Priestly Code the title of the "mainstock," shows that it presents us with a more developed form of the myths; while the Jehovist, just because of the defective connection (in form) of his "fragments," which long caused him to be regarded as a mere filler-up of the fundamental work, must be judged to stand nearer to ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... foot beat a lively tattoo on the rug. "I don't know what you mean by a 'note,'" she commented, with majestic indignation. "I have not lived in South Denboro, and perhaps my understanding of English is defective. But marriages among cultivated people, society people, intelligent, ambitious people are, or should be, the result of thought ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... belief had carried some men immeasurably further in the help of their fellows, than he had yet gone. Indeed he might, I think, have found instances of men of faith spending their lives for their fellows, whose defective theology or diseased humility would not allow them to hope their own salvation. Inquiry might have given him ground for fearing that with the love of the imagined God, the love of the indubitable man would decay and vanish. But such as Faber was, he was both loved and honored ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... sobering influence of the mixture could successfully assert itself. For the present, she had only to return to the other room. The waiter presented himself, asking if there was anything he could do for her. Familiar with the defective side of her husband's character, he understood what it meant when she pointed to the bedroom door. "The old story, ma'am," he said, with an air of respectful sympathy. "Can I get you a cup ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... This defective organization was accompanied by a morbid sensibility almost amounting to disease. She had not been born deaf and dumb; but had lost her hearing in a fit of sickness, and with it the power of distinct articulation. Her life ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... help," she said, gaily. "Mr. Mallery, do come to the rescue. My French is defective or the translation ...
— Three People • Pansy

... within the last few years, and I may again make the challenge which I made yesterday. Let us have a reason why these are not potent to influence our action. Let us be told wherein the object of this argument is defective. Let us be shown why it is, if these things are rights, natural or conventional, that those who have interests are not ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... but pleasing. If the lady stoops, or is at all round-shouldered, the shawl will have the effect of a window that has been cracked by a stone—it will look starred—it will not be smooth and even, but will present the appearance of lines radiating from the defective shoulders. For grace there is nothing like a scarf shawl, but only a few can, or ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... beneficial to each other. For which Reason even an extravagant Man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a false Generosity, is often more beloved and esteemed than a Person of a much more finished Character, who is defective in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... was convinced. In all the time that he could spare from his pimples, Horace rehearsed a martyr's air designed to convey to Mr. Croker that though he would suffer in silence he was none the less suffering. It being precisely Mr. Croker's business to rap out grouches as an expert mechanician taps defective cogs, it happened the day after Peter's meeting with the girl that the worst hopes ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin

... since they formed feed for camels, or caused their death. My companions were of course equally occupied. Besides the map I was able to make of the country, I set great store by my photographs. Of these I took over two hundred; owing, however, to defective plates, or rather films, many were failures, and nearly all that could be printed and reproduced are to be seen ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... shop sat inside behind a low counter, reading a book by the light of a defective oil-lamp, the smoke of which had smeared the rafters in a large, irregular circle. He was a little, wizened man, with a pair of horn spectacles, which he pushed high upon his brow ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... had seen another Miss Adister duetting with a young Irishman and an O'Donnell, with lamentable results to that union of voices, and he permitted himself to be a little astonished at his respected client's defective memory or indifference to the admonition of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... accusations from Rupert Filgee, and that he himself had acted from a conscientious sense of duty towards the man. But a conscientious sense of duty to inflict pain upon a fellow-mortal for his own good does not always bring perfect serenity to the inflicter—possibly because, in the defective machinery of human compensation, pain is the only quality that is apt to appear in the illustration. Mr. Ford felt uncomfortable, and being so, was naturally vexed at the innocent cause. Why should ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... on higher education. Such a lark! Some of them strongly approve, and others object, and I agree with each in turn, until the poor dears are so bamboozled they don't know what to do. They think I am an amiably-disposed young person, but defective in brains, and poor aunt Jim gets quite low in her mind, for she wants me to impress them, and branch off into Latin and Greek as if they came more naturally to me than English. I wish they did! It takes the conceit out of one to go ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Public inspection of standards and of foods. The determination and testing of standards of weights and measures has long been a function of government. English laws of the Middle Ages forbade false measures and the sale of defective goods, and provided for the inspection of markets in the cities. Usually, the self-interest of the purchaser is the best means of ensuring the quality of goods; but personal inspection by each buyer frequently is difficult and time-consuming, requiring special and unusual knowledge of the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... hardly, if at all, comparative with those of another, and I have therefore selected only such as were taken at the same date and hour with others taken at the Calcutta Observatory, or as can easily be reduced; which thus afford a standard (however defective in many respects) for a comparison. I need hardly remind my reader that the vapour-charged wind of Sikkim is the southerly one, which blows over Calcutta; that in its passage northwards to Sikkim in the summer months, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... poet, it is his business to work for the elevation and purification of the public mind, rather than for his own popularity! while if he be not a poet, no sacrifice of self-respect will make amends for a defective faculty, nor ought ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... Heavenly Bodies," on the "Index," the wiser plan was adopted of paying no attention to it. Occasionally, however, the subject was broached by some incautious novitiate, and then the custom was to treat the Copernican Theory as a mere hypothesis, and its author as a mental defective. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... defective all over the province. The teachers were almost as ignorant and illiterate as the people who went to learn—and perhaps more so; while the Escola Normal (Normal School) for women was almost altogether unattended. The public works were uncared for—there was not a single new ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... stills is defective; they are too deep, and do not present enough of surface for their contents. They require a violent fire to bring them to ebullition; the liquor at bottom burns before it is warm at ...
— The Art of Making Whiskey • Anthony Boucherie

... his far greater younger brother. His was the absolutely finite intellect of the tactician as opposed to the strategist, who, seeing his objective, was capable of dealing with circumstances as they immediately arose; but, partly no doubt from defective education, but principally from the lack of intellectual appreciation of the problems of the time in which he lived, could never rise to the heights which were scaled by Khizr, better known by the title conferred upon ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... mother was at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to take her not very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were all on the landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got away in a boat with two inches of green wood on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no boat flag, two defective rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and two boys—one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of the Tonga schoolmaster, and a sailor lad—to pull us. All this was our first taste of the tender mercies of Taylor (the sesquipedalian half-caste ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... look forward with unseeing eyes. I did so long to have them rest and refresh themselves. During the whole of that eventful night my cheeks were wet, my heart aching sadly. Before daylight we were off. Railroads at that time were very defective and very rough. Ah, how terrible was the suffering of those wounded men as they were jolted and shaken from side to side! for haste was necessary to escape the enemy. About noon the train came to a full stop, nor moved again for many, many hours,—hours fraught with ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... more pointed, more energetic, and more elegant, it certainly must impress the reader more deeply. The dramatic, therefore, while it is calculated to affect more the spectator, is inferior to the narrative in the closet. The picturesque is more defective than either of the two former. It has only power to describe the action of an instant, and {107}this without the assistance of reflection, observation, and sentiment, which they derive ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... young man cut his father for two reasons: secular power (an abomination to good Moslems) and defective title to the Caliphate. The latter is a trouble to Turkey in the present day and with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... legislation should be as perfect as possible, defining every power intended to be conferred, every crime intended to be made punishable, and prescribing the punishment to be inflicted. In addition to some particular cases spoken of more at length, the whole criminal code is now lamentably defective. Some offenses are imperfectly described and others are entirely omitted, so that flagrant crimes may be committed with impunity. The scale of punishment is not in all cases graduated according to the degree and nature ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... nonsensical. What deceives the professors is the traditional prolixity of philosophers. Because the average philosophical writer, when he essays to expose his ideas, makes such inordinate drafts upon the parts of speech that the dictionary is almost emptied these defective observers jump to the conclusion that his intrinsic notions are of corresponding weight. This is not unseldom quite untrue. What makes philosophy so garrulous is not the profundity of philosophers, but their lack of art; they are like ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... bought at almost any hardware shop, although a large portion of the traps ordinarily sold are defective. They should be selected with care, and the springs always tested [Page 138] before purchase. Besides the temper of the spring, there are also other necessary qualities in a steel trap, which we subjoin in order that the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... consequence given to the tower upon which the spire rests, are of a character peculiar to itself. The whole has a charming effect. But severe criticism compels one to admit that the body of the church is defective in fine taste and unity of parts. The style is not only florid Gothic, but it is luxuriant, even to rankness, if I may so speak. The parts are capriciously put together: filled, and even crammed, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... in learning to bring into action powers which already exist in us, but which we have never tried to use, and therefore have not developed, simply because we have always taken it for granted that we are by nature defective in some of the most important faculties necessary to ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... old when his mother moved into the melancholy appartement in the rue Mazarin; and the winning ways of a lad of that age went far to confirm the maternal beliefs. Joseph, three years younger, was like his father, but only on the defective side. In the first place, his thick black hair was always in disorder, no matter what pains were taken with it; while Philippe's, notwithstanding his vivacity, was invariably neat. Then, by some mysterious ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... article can perhaps be better purchased at St Petersburg, than anywhere else. I expect to receive shortly a minute account of all the exports and imports of Riga, with their prices current, &c. Being no merchant, my account of these things it is to be expected will be defective, but this being made a part of my duty, I shall endeavor to execute it in the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... photographs accompanying his pamphlet. They are now, I believe, in the possession of Prof. O. C. Marsh. The sketches given herewith are copied from De Zeltner's photographs and are probably somewhat defective in details of drawing. The piece illustrated in Fig. 213 is not described by the author, but is evidently a handsome vessel and is decorated in a very simple manner. A band of devices symbolizing the body of an animal encircles the middle portion ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... carriage and operating levers connected with brake blocks pressing on every pair of wheels. The guard strained the main chain by means of a wheel gear in his van. This system was, however, radically defective, since, if any one branch chain was shorter than the rest, it alone would get the strain. Furthermore, it is obvious that the snapping of the main chain would render the whole arrangement powerless. Accordingly, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... more adapted for formal processions like the marches in the Prophete and Aida. Besides this, there is the conventional acting of the majority of the singers, the dull lifelessness of the choruses, the defective acoustics, and the exaggerated utterance and gestures of the actors, demanded by the great dimensions of the place—all of which is a serious obstacle to the conception of a living and simple art. But ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... undergone a total alteration.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} Notwithstanding these impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have, consequently, put down names at random, according to their own inaccurate ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... itself or method, if it be faulty, consider I pray you that of Columella, Nihil perfectum, aut a singulari consummatum industria, no man can observe all, much is defective no doubt, may be justly taxed, altered, and avoided in Galen, Aristotle, those great masters. Boni venatoris ([148]one holds) plures feras capere, non omnes; he is a good huntsman can catch some, not all: I have done my endeavour. Besides, I dwell not in this study, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... between the ruling powers in Natal and the military chiefs at the spot. Prince Kraft has said, 'Both strategy and tactics may have to yield to politics '; but the political necessity should be very grave and very clear when it is the blood of soldiers which has to pay for it. Whether it arose from our defective intelligence, or from that caste feeling which makes it hard for the professional soldier to recognise (in spite of deplorable past experiences) a serious adversary in the mounted farmer, it is ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the noblest work of God." Havard, from sorrow rest beneath this stone; An honest man—beloved as soon as known; Howe'er defective in the mimic art, In real life he justly played his part! The noblest character he acted well, And heaven applauded when ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... preparing for such an eventuality. With as little publicity as possible the Department completed and commissioned ships that were already under construction; it hastened the repair of vessels which were in any way defective; it ordered target practice and fleet manoeuvres; and it prepared plans for the conduct of a naval war. Commanders of squadrons were instructed to keep in service men whose terms of enlistment were about to expire; supplies of ammunition were ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... without giving occasion to a single complaint. On subsequent inquiries, through a circuitous channel, unnecessary to be detailed here at length, on the part of the manufacturer of the cheese, it was found, that as the supplies of anotta had been defective and of inferior quality, recourse had been had to the expedient of colouring the commodity with vermilion. Even this admixture could not be considered deleterious. But on further application being made to the druggist who sold the ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum

... him to very noble things, that is, provided his powers could have been kept from the eatings and cripplings of debauchery; still, any approach to that great Divinity of the Drama was out of the question for him. For, judging from his life and works, the moral part of genius was constitutionally defective in him; and, with this so defective, the intellectual part cannot be truly itself; and his work must needs be comparatively weak in those points of our being which it touches, because it does not touch them all: for the whole must be moved at once, else there can ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... took the appointment of the reporter from the court and gave it to the Governor. He was an inferior lawyer, and, of course, had very little practice. The appointment, therefore, to which a fair salary was attached, was eagerly sought by him. His reports, however, were so defective that an effort was made by the judges to get the law repealed and have the appointment restored to the court. This led to a bitter feeling on his part towards the judges, and in a conversation with Mr. Fairfax he gave vent to it in violent language. Mr. Fairfax ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... this instance out of Mr. Locke another out of the learned Dr. More, who cites it from Cardan, in relation to another animal which providence has left defective, but at the same time has shewn its wisdom in the formation of that organ in which it seems chiefly to have failed. What is more obvious and ordinary than a mole? and yet what more palpable argument of providence than she? The members of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... masters had been more moderate in their greed we would have been content to struggle for yet another period, hoping that in time we might again have justice and equality before the law. But even so we would have had a defective Government, defective in machinery and defective in its constitution and laws. To have righted it, a century of public education would have been necessary. The present opportunity has been bought at fearful cost. If we use it lightly, those who fell upon the field of Elma will have died in vain, ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... April 5, after attending divine service at St. Paul's church, I found him alone. Of a schoolmaster[506] of his acquaintance, a native of Scotland, he said, 'He has a great deal of good about him; but he is also very defective in some respects. His inner part is good, but his outer part is mighty aukward. You in Scotland do not attain that nice critical skill in languages, which we get in our schools in England. I would not put a boy to him, whom I intended for a man of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... total weight, including that of the pilot, of 600 lbs. The machine was designed to lift when it had attained a velocity of 50 feet per second, the motor fitted giving 22 horse-power. On trial, however, the longitudinal equilibrium was found to be defective, and a further design was got out, the third machine being completed in 1907. In this the wood slats were held in four parallel container frames, the weight of the machine, excluding the pilot, being 500 lbs. A motor similar to that ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one could tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and defective. "Man and boy," said honest Jarl, "I have lived ever since I can remember." And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it is so hard to die, ere the world ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... the barren fronds requires distinct analysis. Are they barren from mere deficiency in supplies, such as may result from many circumstances; or are the antheriform ramenta deficient? They are barren from defective growth. I am aware how readily objection may be taken to these views, some will say these young ramenta are nothing but young scales as the older ones evidently are scales; but this amounts to nothing, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... same advantage over flowery language as a simple and artistic room has over a room filled with gaudy, inharmonious embellishments. One is effective, the other defective. And yet to express ideas simply and correctly, with a regard for polish and poise, one must have a good ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... excuse an anecdote which may encourage some workers who may have found their mathematics defective through want of use? James Gregory's nephew David had a heap of MS. notes by Newton. These descended to a Miss Gregory, of Edinburgh, who handed them to the present writer, when an undergraduate at Cambridge, to examine. After perusal, he lent them to his kindest of friends, J. ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... I am aware that it is sometimes defective. Measured by the Tennysonian standard it is often needlessly rugged and eccentric. But a poet whose bark carries so heavy a cargo of thought may be forgiven if occasionally it scrapes the bottom. Moreover, the Norwegian tongue has never, as a medium of poetry, been polished and refined ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... uncertain glow from the great candelabra, covered with dust, like the white marble itself, and evidently placed there many years before, revealed faded decorations and a ceiling, water-stained as from a defective roof. Between the windows, with flowery gilt details, an ancient mirror extended from floor to ceiling. A musty smell pervaded the apartment, for Mynheer, the Patroon, had lived so closely to himself that he had shut out both air and sunlight ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... anaemic people, who crave innutritious articles of diet, and eat soft stones, slate, chalk, blue clay, and soft coal. Such perversions of the appetite are manifested only when there is either a diminution in the volume of blood, deficient alimentation, defective assimilation, or a general depravity of the nutritive functions. Morbid conditions generate vitiating tendencies and ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... that they were defective, and far from being practical, in many respects. They were imposing, and looked well on paper, but he knew that when completed the buildings would be very ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... motion. But this last condition will be sought vainly in the quadrilles, &c., which have for so many years banished the truly beautiful country dances native to England. Those whose taste and sensibility were so defective as to substitute for the beautiful in dancing the merely difficult, were sure, in the end, to transfer the depravations of this art from the opera house to the floors of private ball rooms. The tendencies even then were in that direction; but as yet they ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... correctly used, i.e., that these markings are really canals and that Mars is actually inhabited. The consensus of opinion among the most celebrated astronomers is contrary to this view. Most astronomers agree that these canals may not exist as drawn—that they are to great extent due to defective vision. There is no conclusive proof of man-made work on Mars, nor of the existence of conscious life of any kind. It may be there but conclusive proof of ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... content to restrict his family to normal size; when the public schools are made efficient enough to show their evident worth to parents and to attract the children themselves, and a strict truant system takes care that the law is really obeyed; when the sick and defective and aged among the poor are cared for at public expense as a matter of course, there will be no need for children to work to help support the family; and we must endeavor, by the arousal of public opinion and by nationwide legislation, to keep children out of the factories, the shops, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... soon as I had got to the stage where I could sit up and laugh, intermittently dabbing my eyes with a wad of handkerchief, we began a review of Johnnie's case. The boy has a morbid heredity, and may be slightly defective, says Sandy. We must deal with the fact as we would with any other disease. Even normal boys are often cruel. A child's moral sense is ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... men, approaching Yudhishthira said,—'From this day, O son of Kunti, do thou begin thy sacrifice. The time for it has come. The moment for commencing the rite is at hand. The priests are urging thee. Let the sacrifice be performed in such a way that no limb may become defective. In consequence of the very large quantity of gold that is required for this sacrifice, it has come to be called the sacrifice of profuse gold. Do thou also, O great king, make the Dakshina of this sacrifice three times of what is enjoined. Let the merit of thy sacrifice increase threefold. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Teddy, as she had called him for a good many years. He was a frequent visitor, despite the fact that Mrs. Lancaster suffered him only because everybody else seemed to like him. He was fair, tall, and lanky, and so pleasant of countenance that it would not be worth while enumerating his defective features. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... G. T. HOARE has called attention to the defective state of the art of perspective. His remarks, however, are too narrow. The fact is, that any two parallel straight lines appear to converge at one or both ends, and one or both lines assume a curvilinear shape. For a notable example, the vertical section of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various

... soldiers with shovel and hoe filled in the trenches and raked the long, winding street clean of all litter; soldiers with trowel and mortar were perched on shot-torn houses, mending chimneys and slated roofs so that their officers might enjoy immunity from rain and wind and defective flues. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... As demanding method or skill, the adaptation of tools to materials with constantly increasing perfection, they involve the element of technique indispensable to artistic production. From the standpoint of product, or the work of art, they are naturally defective, though even in this respect when they comprise genuine appreciation they often have a rudimentary charm. As experiences they have both an artistic and an esthetic quality. When they emerge into activities ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... disclosed to be untenable; but the scientific attitude from which that hypothesis proceeded was never afterward relinquished. It was a bold attempt at the application of the objective method, and was only defective in its restriction to cosmology, and its exclusion of biology, which was still left to the subjective method, as I ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... jumped and danced in a frenzy of grief. Tongiguaq had lost three children; two had been drowned, and a new-born baby, three months before, was born maimed. According to the custom of the people, a fatherless defective child is doomed to death. So rigorous is their struggle to survive, so limited the means of existence, that a tribe cannot bear the burden of a single unnecessary life. So in keeping with this Lycurgean law, worked out by instinct after the stern experience of ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... come over the silent Howdahs in these five years. The traces of poverty became more and more rare, and want was less often their guest at table. In the garden, where were pretty flower-beds, the pease and asparagus stood in long rows, and the defective fence had long since been replaced by a new one. The cattle were augmented every year by two or three valuable milking cows, and the milk-cart which drove into the town every morning brought home many a groschen on ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... an air of depth and of conscious helpfulness, "the most difficult thing on earth—and, I may remark, the most important—is realization of one's sphere, and one's place in that sphere. And our way of instructing the young in such realization is defective, defective to a degree at present. Queerly enough I am just reading Tagore on 'Realization.' You ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... the fine arts informs us what has been, and the theory teaches what ought to be accomplished by them. But without some intermediate and connecting link, both would remain independent and separate from one and other, and each by itself, inadequate and defective. This connecting link is furnished by criticism, which both elucidates the history of the arts, and makes the theory fruitful. The comparing together, and judging of the existing productions of the human mind, necessarily throws ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... individually acquit them or punish them by fine or even by the forfeiture of life and property. Another of these ultras formally lodged with Pompeius a charge of corruption and treason against Lucius Afranius for his defective defence of Spain. Among these deep-dyed republicans their political theory assumed almost the character of a confession of religious faith; they accordingly hated their own more lukewarm partisans and Pompeius with his personal adherents, if possible, still more than their open opponents, and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... best I could, and hit upon the idea of translating back into German the new scene to Tannhauser, written to a French text for the performance in Paris. Cornelius had first to copy it from the original score for me, as this was in a very defective condition. I accepted his copy without inquiring further about the original left in his hands, and we shall see the result of this ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... personally participated in the guilty deed, he was not active against it, he did not apparently seem to restrain the repetitions of it, he was paralyzed in energy. It was his will which was defective, not his intellect; he did not commit the offense, but he did not stop it, and try to conciliate the wrath of the Gods by sacrifices, by what we now call repentance. Hence, while he does not perish, he is still unfinished, incomplete, with a limit to be removed. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... at the Southern State rights advocates, who were so eager for the old flag and an appropriation, and he reminded them that whatever might be thought of the dogma of State sovereignty, "the great old river is regardless of State lines, of the existence of Louisiana, and, whenever there is a defective levee in Arkansas, over it goes into Louisiana, spreading devastation in its course." Mr. Robinson insisted that "Congress has no right to spend $4,000,000 out of the public treasury immediately without ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... speed, to save brakes; upon the use of the retarded spark and the slipped clutch in climbing. His bug was beside the Gomez in the line-up at the Park gate, when the United States Army came to seal one's firearms, and to inquire on which mountain one intended to be killed by defective brakes. He was just behind her all the climb up to Mammoth ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... Thumb downwards: a mute ennui, an inexorable obstinacy; a certain streak of natural gloom which no illumination can abolish. Veracity of all kinds is great in them; sullen passive courage plenty of it; active courage rarer; articulate intellect defective: hence a strange stiff perversity of conduct visible among them, often marring what wisdom they have;—it is the royal stamp of Fate put upon these men. What are called fateful or fated men; such as are often seen on the top places of the world, making an indifferent figure there. Something ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... also made many omissions, not only of one, but of several paragraphs at a time, frequently passing over the remarks of the several speakers. It appears to have been his object to copy chiefly the argumentative part of the manuscript. This defective transcription had belonged to Mr William Veitch, as appears from his name written on the cover and first page, with the addition "minister at Peebles, 1691." In the copy transcribed for the press, the octavo manuscript has been followed. The quarto, however, along with Lightfoot, has been found ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... considerations. He turned, and walked abruptly from the office into the store. There the clerk placed on the counter the bottle, filled and wrapped. In a petty gust of rage, like a jet of steam escaping from a defective boiler, he swept the bottle to the floor, where he ground the splintering fragments of glass, the torn and stained paper, into an ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... benefits to every Revolutionary soldier who aided in establishing our liberties, and who is unable to maintain himself in comfort. These relics of the War of Independence have strong claims upon their country's gratitude and bounty. The law is defective in not embracing within its provisions all those who were during the last war disabled from supporting themselves by manual labor. Such an amendment would add but little to the amount of pensions, and is called for by the sympathies ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!" ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... at the human side, we may learn that the soul which is fully consecrated always receives the blessing of GOD. Where that blessing is not enjoyed, there is always something unreal or defective in the consecration. It may be that we have separated ourselves to carry out our own will, or thought, or plan of service, instead of surrendering ourselves and our will, to learn and to do His will. But it is real consecration to GOD that puts us into the ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor

... had listened to the buzzard's harangue, with their eyes, not with their ears. Down in their hearts there still rang the piteous words. The man-made machine was breaking down; its mechanism out of "gear"; the law that governed it defective. The God-law, the law of mercy, was being ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... deeper color than the sapwood. The butt is superior to the top wood, and the manner in which the wood was sawed and dried will affect its quality. Knots, splits, checks, and discoloration due to incipient decay are defects worth considering. Wood that looks lusterless is usually defective, because the lack of luster is generally due to disease. Woods that are hard wear best. Hardness can be determined readily by striking the wood with a hammer and noting the sound produced. A clear, ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... the position from all the causes elsewhere assigned, which render metre the proper form of poetry, and poetry imperfect and defective without metre. Metre, therefore, having been connected with poetry most often and by a peculiar fitness, whatever else is combined with metre must, though it be not itself essentially poetic, have nevertheless some property in common ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... and this must be the case with him. From two years old this remarkable power of sound over him has been noticed. He has been blind from birth; and it would seem here, as often observed before, that, by a compensative law of our being, in proportion as one sense is defective, the expenditure of vital energy thus saved is absorbed by some other sense. Probably all our sensations are the result of vibrations; and the pulsations of light that usually enter and give all their exquisite pleasure through the eye-ball are in his case ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... tube being so constructed that it prevents the inhaling of the outside air or gas. One helmet is good for five hours of the strongest gas. Each Tommy carries two of them slung around his shoulder in a waterproof canvas bag. He must wear this bag at all times, even while sleeping. To change a defective helmet, you take out the new one, hold your breath, pull the old one off, placing the new one over your head, tucking in the loose ends under the collar of ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... John's Ernest, but a professional—flashed round the front of the car and opened the door with obsequious haste. For Thomas Batchgrew had to be appeased. Already a delay of twenty minutes—due to a defective tire and to the inexcusable absence of the spanner with which the spare wheel was manipulated—had aroused ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... definition of the retinal image of the carbons. A long list of indictments might indeed be brought against the eye—its opacity, its want of symmetry, its lack of achromatism, its partial blindness. All these taken together caused Helmholt to say that, if any optician sent him an instrument so defective, he would be justified in sending it back with the severest censure. But the eye is not to be judged from the standpoint of theory. It is not perfect, but is on its way to perfection. As a practical instrument, and taking the adjustments by which its defects are neutralized into account, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... the old life must go on interminably...In her nervous pacings she paused before the blotched looking-glass that hung in a corner of the office under a steel engraving of Daniel Webster. Even that defective surface could not disfigure her, and she drew fresh hope from the sight of her beauty. Her few weeks of ill-health had given her cheeks a subtler curve and deepened the shadows beneath her eyes, and she was handsomer than before her marriage. No, Van Degen was not lost to her even! From narrowed ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... frauds; and these became more frequent in proportion as the laws governing the property of parties while the marriage relation existed between them, and as executions against landed property etc. were defective. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... in other writers, especially Statius, Martial, and Tacitus, we have three biographies of him: (1) a short and defective life, probably by Suetonius, and showing his well-known hatred of the Annaei; (2) one by Vacca, a commentator on Lucan, who lived probably in the sixth century, complete and favourable; (3) one in Codex Vossianus ii. The last two are in part derived from ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton

... ill, and suppose that the house was badly built, the walls so constructed that they drew and retained moisture, the roof broken and leaky, the drains defective, the doors and windows ill-fitting and the rooms badly shaped and draughty. If you were asked to name, in a word, the cause of the ill-health of the people who lived there you would say—the house. All the tinkering ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... Labor must fault itself further, on the ground of its lack of power of combination and of its defective methods in combination. It has been by combination that the middle class has arisen, and by it that capital has so wonderfully increased. The story of the Middle Ages, familiar to us all, is the story of the rise of the industrial class by combination in guilds. Labor's numbers, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... Chaucer, of the many seemingly defective verses, (Dryden in saying thousands may have exaggerated the number even in Speght,) by far the greater part will be found recoverable to measure by that restitution of the Mute E which we since, too exclusively perhaps, connect with the name of Tyrwhitt. The confidence felt in his text, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... relied upon the Journal for the individual list of the votes. In this respect the Journal is defective, and does not give the names of the States voting. My minutes show that the vote was taken by States with ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... the language is rich, stately, involved, and as remote from the "real language" of Westmoreland shepherds, as is the epic blank verse of Milton. On the other hand, in those of his poems which were consciously written in illustration of his theory, the affectation of simplicity, coupled with a defective sense of humor, sometimes led him to the selection of vulgar and trivial themes, and the use of language which is bald, childish, or even ludicrous. His simplicity is too often the simplicity of Mother Goose rather than of Chaucer. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... fear.' That statement is false and absurd. You may regard fear as unmanly and unworthy: you may repress the manifestations of it; but the state of mind which (in beings not properly monstrous or defective) follows the perception of being in danger, is fear. As surely as the perception of light is sight, so surely is the perception of danger fear. And for a man to say that his soul is incapable of fear, is ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... to worry me—and the worst is yet to come," replied Helen. Then she told Bo how complicated and bewildering was the management of a big ranch—when the owner was ill, testy, defective in memory, and hard as steel—when he had hoards of gold and notes, but could not or would not remember his obligations—when the neighbor ranchers had just claims—when cowboys and sheep-herders were discontented, and wrangled among themselves—when ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... together with seven hundred pounds sterling raised by subscription, showed how highly the public appreciated her conduct. The Forfarshire steamer, of three hundred tons, had sailed the previous evening from Hull, bound for Dundee; but her boilers becoming defective, the engines could no longer work, and at three o'clock the following morning she struck on the Longstone, the outermost of the Farne Islands, between which the master was endeavouring to run the vessel. The mate, with seven ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... duties: but that peace beginning to be established he had sacrificed his argument for the sake of public tranquillity. Now, however, that it may be useful to the development of the King he brings it forth again. The direct address to James is full of that curious self-deception or defective insight which is so common among those who have the training of a pupil of great importance in the world. The boy had grown beyond the age of personal chastisement; he had reached that in which the precocious facility of comprehension, which is so strongly fostered by the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... Dekker had an eventful career. He went to the Dutch Indies at the age of twenty-one, and there spent some seventeen years in official life, gradually rising to the position of Assistant Resident of Lebac. While occupying that office his eyes were opened to the defective System of government existing in the Colonies, and the abuses to which the natives were subjected. He tried to interest the higher officials on behalf of the subject races, but as all his endeavours proved unavailing he became disheartened, and, resigning his post, returned to Holland with the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... would read {Krotona} (Croton or Cortona in Etruria), partly on the authority of Dionysius: see Stein's note. Two of the best MSS. are defective in this part ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... the cupola-roof became so much damaged, that in 1717 it was necessary to remove the light to the apartment below, till the light-room and upper works were restored. But the new light being so defective that it could not be seen at sea at a greater distance than six miles, many accidents and complaints arose, when it was determined to construct the light-room of iron instead of stone. By this means the light passed ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton

... among the passengers. It is advisable, therefore, to give a sufficient calorimeter in all low pressure boilers, and a sufficient height of chimney to enable the chimney to operate without a steam jet; but it is useful to know that a steam jet is a resource in the case of a defective boiler, or where the boiler has to ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... necessity of any such test as the oil; while I am not prepared to acknowledge or deny the statement, it is well known that much poor pipe is tar-coated and sold in the market as good, and when coated it is almost impossible to detect any but very defective work. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... satisfactory.... It is not in accordance with the traditions of British history, it is not in accordance with the traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race, to make any change in their institutions until these institutions have been proved insufficient or defective in some way.... The British Empire to-day is composed of nations, all bearing allegiance to ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... some people are unable to masticate nuts properly on account of defective teeth, and to insure the proper assimilation even if not properly chewed, the writer some forty years ago conceived the idea of converting the nuts by crushing and grinding into a paste, in other words, chewing the nuts ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... estimation is a possible process, they always consider emotions, intentions, and actions in the light of their background. We do not demand a moral life of the brutes; we do not look for it in the intellectually defective and the emotionally insane; nor do we expect a savage caught in the bush to harbor the same emotions, or to have the same ethical outlook, as the missionary with whom we may confront him. The concepts of moral responsibility, of desert, of guilt, are emptied of all significance, when we ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... also sailed badly, her foremast being so defective that it could carry but little sail. In the early part of February, having run to about the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude, they got out of the track of the trade winds, and once more were able to steer a direct course. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... of managing the mineral lands of the United States is believed to be radically defective. More than 1,000,000 acres of the public lands, supposed to contain lead and other minerals, have been reserved from sale, and numerous leases upon them have been granted to individuals upon a stipulated rent. The system of granting leases ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... of this effect, or this defect,— 'For this effect defective comes by cause,'- Is what I have not leisure to inspect; But this I must say in my own applause, Of all the Muses that I recollect, Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws In some things, mine 's beyond all contradiction The most sincere that ever ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... looked Mr Maguire full in the face at the beginning, I do not think it would so much have mattered to her; but she had seen first the back of his head, and then his profile, and had unfortunately formed a strong opinion as to his almost perfect beauty. When, therefore, the defective eye was disclosed to her, her feelings were moved in a more than ordinary manner. How was it that a man graced with such a head, with such a mouth and chin and forehead, nay, with such a left eye, could be cursed with such a right eye! She was still thinking of this when the frisky movement ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... standing as the plenipotentiaries of the other powers present, and efforts were even made to exclude him from some of the more important discussions in consequence, not on the ground of inferior rank but of defective powers. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... attempts, I was obliged to give up all hopes of deciphering the most important of my notes, those which I had made from the information of the French missionary. Most of what I had trusted so securely to my memory was defective in some slight circumstances, which rendered the whole useless. My materials for my quarto shrunk into a very small compass. I flattered myself, however, that the elegance of my composition, and the moral and political reflections with ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Nine-tenths of these wonderful Osnomian things, I am assured by competent authorities, are scientifically impossible, and I think that the other one-tenth exists only in your own imagination. Seaton was lucky in that the airplane bomb was defective and exploded prematurely; and your space-ship got hot because of your injudicious speed through the atmosphere. We shall have everything settled by the ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... these contrast sharply with the glass-like ground. It is obvious that the pursuers of these butterflies must be very sharp-sighted, for otherwise the agreement between the species could never have been pushed so far. The less the enemies see and observe, the more defective must the imitation be, and if they had been blind, no visible resemblance between the species which required ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... deeply religious nature might well indicate this career; but he early failed in it and gave it up. His first attempt to preach ended in mortification, and it is not difficult to perceive why. His education must have been defective, for, to the end of his long life, he spoke a jargon of German or French, sometimes mixing the two; a kind of language which none but his intimates could comprehend. His articulation was defective; his countenance was so ugly as to be forbidding; and, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... contrast which they present to Deuteronomy—a contrast between the Man and the System, between Experience and Dogma, between the Actual and the Ideal. And, as we now see, it was the System and the Dogma that were defective and the Man and his Experience of life that started, if not for himself yet for a later generation, pondering his experience, the solution of those problems, which against the deuteronomic teaching he raised in brave agony ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... thanks to games on the lawn attached to our house. In the whole range of athletics nothing gave him so much pleasure and satisfaction as Rugby football. Too massive in build to be a swift runner, and unable owing to his defective vision to give or take "passes" with quick precision, he was not suited to the three-quarter line; but as a forward he made a reputation second to none of his contemporaries in public-school football. He played for the College 1st XV in three successive ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... Inspector likewise decided how many lean berries in a plump sample would disqualify it for "plump" classification and how many mature or defective berries among sound wheat, would disqualify it from being classed as "sound." With a single concocted sample as a basis of judgment Partridge considered that the grading of the lower grades often was very unjust to the producer, especially to the owners of plump frosted wheat; the process of concocting ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... they would freely die. Polygamy was permitted only to him, but not always practised by him. The Spaniards were so surprised at the readiness with which the natives gave them everything, both food and ornaments, that they declared them to be defective in the sense of property, and to have everything in common. This was a mistake: each man had his little possessions; stealing was punished with death, as the crime that did the greatest violence to the natural order; and crimes against domestic purity were severely punished, till the people ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... Archambaud to find the Giant's servant and have him feed their vehicle, rub its legs down with liniment, and examine the hooves for defective shoes. ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer

... will in which he was instituted in order to screen some legal defect in its execution, or accept an inheritance to which he was instituted merely by word of mouth, or take any testamentary benefit under a document defective in point of law. And there are numerous rescripts of the Emperors Severus and Antoninus to the same purpose: 'for though,' they say, 'the laws do not bind us, yet we live ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... suspected helps to aid Some form defective, or decay'd; This beauty, without falsehood fair, Needs nought to clothe it but ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... been defective. She looked through him and said with great firmness, "Nothing like that, old pippin." Again he was taken with a violent fit of shivering. He could not meet her eyes. He was turning away when she seized him by the wrist. Her grip was amazingly forceful. He doubted if he could break away even with ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... appears most decidedly where the historical material was undramatic, as in the middle part of Antony and Cleopatra. It was made possible by the absence of scenery, and doubtless Shakespeare used it because it was the easiest way out of a difficulty. But, considered abstractedly, it is a defective method, and, even as used by Shakespeare, it sometimes reminds us of the merely narrative arrangement common in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... dwellings in a town so that currents of air shall be able to flow on all sides with as little impediment as possible, by which means the air will be continually liable to renewal by purer air. The dwellings which have been constructed in the place of the very defective dwellings condemned by the medical officers of health in various parts of London specially illustrate the importance of this question of the circulation of air. These dwellings replace those in which the normal mortality was as much as 33, 44, and 50 per 1,000. But these improved dwellings ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... of what is not yet possessed. Hence it was not necessary that in Christ, Who is the author of grace, there should be any defects such as faith and hope imply; but whatever perfection is in faith and hope was in Christ most perfectly; as in fire there are not all the modes of heat which are defective by the subject's defect, but whatever belongs to the perfection ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... Hungary ought not to have an effect which would be reproachful, even if the danger was our own. It ought not so far to engross our faculties as to hinder us from attending to every other object. The man who runs into a greater evil to avoid a less, evidently shows that he is defective either in prudence or in courage; that either he wants the natural power of distinguishing, or that his dread of an approaching, or his impatience of a present ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... the brig's cargo has been lost, I regret to say, but a good deal of it has been washed ashore and saved in a damaged state. The captain says that defective compasses were the cause of the disaster. There is not time to give you a more particular account, as it is close upon post-time. Miss Annie sends you her kindest love, and bids me say she is none the worse of what she has passed through.—I ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Defective" :   imperfect, defectiveness, defective pleading, malfunctioning, bad, nonfunctional, abnormal, unnatural, faulty



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