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Preliminary   /prɪlˈɪmənˌɛri/  /prilˈɪmənˌɛri/   Listen
Preliminary

noun
(pl. preliminaries)
1.
A minor match preceding the main event.  Synonym: prelim.
2.
Something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows.  Synonyms: overture, prelude.  "Drinks were the overture to dinner"



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"Preliminary" Quotes from Famous Books



... include the study of ancient and modern costumes, zoology, and of vegetable and geological forms. For this purpose books should not be so much relied on as lectures in gardens, museums, and during student excursions. Of course the architectural pupils should be required to answer at a preliminary examination in mathematics, and should receive special instruction in the building materials, action of climate, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... previously put in the situation prescribed by the treaty of Utrecht, confirmed by that of Aix-la-Chapelle. The French ministry, instead of complying with this condition, produced an evasive draft of a preliminary convention, and this was answered by a counter-proposal. At length the ambassador of France demanded, as preliminary conditions, that Great Britain would renounce all claim to the south coast of the river St. Laurence, and the lakes that discharge themselves into that river; cede ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... West: "For my own views: I have not offered, and do not now offer, them as orders; and while I am glad to have them respectfully considered, I would blame you to follow them contrary to your own clear judgment, unless I should put them in the form of orders.... With this preliminary, I state my general idea of this war to be that we have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail unless we can find some way of making our advantage an overmatch for his; and that ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... beginners with a good general education; whilst, severally, they offer to more advanced students the opportunity of doing this or that kind of specific research. In such a well-organized university, then, how would our budding anthropologist proceed to form a preliminary acquaintance with the four corners of his subject? What departments must he attend in turn? Let us draw him up a curriculum, praying meanwhile that the multiplicity of the demands made upon him will not take away his breath altogether. Man is a many-sided ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... is closely linked with the progress of geology; and it would be easy to prove that many millions of piastres have been rashly expended in South America from complete ignorance of the nature of the formations, and the position of the rocks, in directing the preliminary researches. At the present time it is not precious metals solely which should fix the attention of new mining companies; the multiplication of steam-engines renders it indispensable, wherever wood is not abundant ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... have a little difficulty, but not much—it was rather of a preliminary character. The fact is, I came here more than a week ago on a kind of tour. I heard of Dalton Hall, and understood enough of Sir Lionel's affairs to know that you were his niece; and as there had been an old difficulty, I thought I couldn't ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... A part of the preliminary work done in connection with the development of Crisco, described in these pages, consisted of the study of the older cooking fats. The objectionable features of each were considered. The good was weighed against the bad. The strength and weakness of ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... ground above the old mouth of the Yazoo, the gunboats occupying the sweep of river around them for a length of eight miles. Heavy rains had set in, making the ground almost impassable and causing the water to rise. After various preliminary operations the troops assaulted the works on the hills in front on the 29th, but the attack failed entirely. Sherman considered the works too strong to justify its renewal at the same point, but determined to hold his ground and make a night assault with 10,000 men higher up the river, upon ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... to those who were desirous of being instructed in animal magnetism. [Dupotet's Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism, page 23.] Other physicians united with M. de Foissac in calling for an inquiry; and ultimately the Academy nominated a preliminary committee of five of its members, namely, Messrs Adelon, Burdin, Marc, Pariset, and Husson, to investigate the alleged facts, and to report whether the Academy, without any compromise of its dignity, could appoint ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... the same formalities as in all deeds. First the purchaser approached the vendor and there was an interchange of ideas, often through a third party, prolonged over a considerable space of time. When etiquette had been satisfied and all the preliminary haggling was over, the parties agreed upon a scribe, who was made acquainted with the terms of the sale, already verbally agreed upon, and he set down in the imperishable clay the legal instrument which should bind the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... 736. During the preliminary instruction, attacks and defenses will be executed from guard until proficiency is attained, after which they may be executed from any position in which the rifle is ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... immediately after breakfast, I proceeded southward, and, descending to the beach, indulged in a swim as a preliminary. Then, returning to the top of the cliff, I continued my way southward until I reached a point overlooking the harbour entrance, from which I struck inland toward one of the ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... feature in connection with next summer's display must now be considered, and the preliminary arrangements carried out as far as possible during the present month; it consists in the formation of new shapes of beds, and a general reconstruction of design. But, as we have previously intimated, it is most undesirable to have a small garden chopped up into a number of beds, as then the greater ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... Preliminary exercise should be taken daily for a week or two in anticipation of starting practise. Long swims are advisable at this early date, but should be abandoned while preparing for a contest, as one ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton

... what God intended to do and thereby secure their full consent to enter into the plan. Then, too, it was necessary to have a very thorough organization so that the expedition could proceed in an orderly way. (2) There were various preliminary appeals to Pharaoh with the consequent added burdens ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... classification is a necessary condition of the working of the mental implement, but that it is a departure from the objective truth of things, that classification is very serviceable for the practical purposes of life but a very doubtful preliminary to those fine penetrations the philosophical purpose, in its more arrogant moods, demands. All the peculiarities of my way of ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... the squire, taking from his pocket a paper which he at once crushed into a ball, and then as promptly smoothed out again as a preliminary to handing it to the youth. With difficulty, for the writing was bad, and the paper old and dirty, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... to talk religion to you, and I have begun by telling you I am not this and not that, it seems to me that for mere clearness' sake, for the sake of that round and whole image of thought which I want to present to you, you must let me run through a preliminary confession of faith—as short and simple as I can make it. You must let me describe certain views of the universe and of man's place in it, which make the framework, as it were, into which I shall ask you to fit the picture of Jesus ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to his thin chestnut hair; eyes of different colors, and compressed lips. Not having been courted by the nobility, he turned his attention to the middle classes, and then in the suit against Victurnien d'Esgrignon, charged with forgery, he immediately took part in the prosecution. That a preliminary trial might be avoided he kept away from Alencon, but a judgment which acquitted Victurnien was rendered during his absence. M. du Ronceret, in Machiavelli fashion, manoeuvred to gain for his son Fabien the hand of a wealthy ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... approved ancient laws which had been made by the devout and pious kings of England, his ancestors, and chiefly by King Edward; and we are told that the people then departed in good humor." Kelham's Preliminary Discourse to the Laws of William the Conqueror. See, also, 1 Hale's History of the Common ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... a great advantage for the true philologist that a great deal of preliminary work has been done in his science, so that he may take possession of this inheritance if he is strong enough for it—I refer to the valuation of the entire Hellenic mode of thinking. So long as philologists worked ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... excellent workmanship. I have on my table as I write a fragment of a 10-inch shell which I picked up here. It is rent in deep fissures, which would prove, according to competent authority, that the explosive materials used are good. 'The Austrians fired away all their bad shells during preliminary actions,' was the comment of a young staff officer who is in the habit of recording the efficiency of enemy shells. But it is quantity as well as quality which the enemy ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... Sandy, for the fiftieth time, would examine it and laugh at the kangaroo-skin straps that Dave had tacked to it, and the scraps of brown paper that were plastered over the ribs of it to keep the wind in; and, cocking his left leg over the pommel of his saddle, he would sound a full blast on it as a preliminary. Then he would strike up "The Rocky Road to Dublin", or "The Wind Among the Barley,", or some other beautiful air, and grind away untiringly until it got dark—until mother came and asked him if he would n't come in and have supper. Of course, ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... when the adenoids of children in a school on the "East Side" in New York City were removed without the preliminary of convincing the parents as to the advantages of the operation was merely a demand for the "right to knowledge," which is never overlooked with impunity. Reluctance to permit operation on a young child, and the natural shrinking ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... mutiny broke out in the garrison, and the Grand Master and his Council, seeing the hopelessness of the situation, sent for an armistice preliminary to surrender. The armistice was concluded on the 11th, and on the 12th Napoleon entered Valetta, full of amazement at the might of the fortress he had so easily captured. On the 12th the capitulation was drawn up, of ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen

... finest singer of its gifted family. His faint tseep call-note gives no indication of his vocal powers that some bleak morning in early March suddenly send a thrill of pleasure through you. It is the most welcome "glad surprise" of all the spring. Without a preliminary twitter or throat-clearing of any sort, the full, rich, luscious tones, with just a tinge of plaintiveness in them, are poured forth with spontaneous abandon. Such a song at such a time is enough to summon anybody ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... director sternly. "Search Mr Anson's rooms preliminary to his being charged and taken into custody. Mr West, go in front with the superintendent to show the way. I do not wish to make a procession, to create excitement and make us ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... in making a random cast on the surface of a strange language. You cannot tell what will come up. It is like an experiment in witchcraft. We should not have been at all surprised, I must confess, if our preliminary incantation had brought forth a cow or a ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... haunted March, as I have said, and he had tried to find somebody who would write him the book, the indispensable preliminary to his getting to work. Failing here, he had audaciously made up his mind to write it himself. It was not his first attempt to do, in the mere light of nature, a thing commonly supposed to be impossible except at the end of painful instruction. He had once experimented at painting ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... a meal that Saturday morning, our last for a very long time as it happened. Oil being of such importance to us we tried to use the blubber stove, but after several preliminary spasms it came to pieces in our hands, some solder having melted; and a very good thing too, I thought, for it was more dangerous than useful. We finished cooking our meal on the primus. Two bits of the cooker having been blown away we had to balance it on the primus as best we could. We then ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... preliminary to a long argument carried on without temper. Harry listened attentively, but as soon as it was over and Whitridge and Fowler had gone, he tumbled into his ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... work does not permit an examination of Chaucer's writings in detail, but the position we have taken will be best illustrated by his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. Of the others, a few preliminary words only need be said. Like most writers in an early literary period, Chaucer began with translations, which were extended into paraphrases or versions, and thus his "'prentice hand" gained the practice and skill with which ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... I've got a nice place three miles out, and I've got a daughter that is not to be beat, in New York or out of it. Then this evening we'll get together some of the fellows that I handle around here, and take up some of the preliminary business." ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... long illness. Upon his recovery he married his nurse and as promptly deserted her, providing a modest support for the child. She had grown to womanhood in a cheap boarding school, attaining thereby a superficial education but sufficient to enable her to pass the preliminary examinations necessary to begin her studies in the medical college which was an outcast among its kind and known among the profession as a "diploma mill." She selected it because the course was easy and the tuition light, though its equipment ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... o'clock, and Patty found herself escorted by Miss Rowe to a small empty classroom, where she was to undergo an entrance examination. All the other new girls, including Jean, had already taken this examination at home, the papers having been sent to them by post; but owing to a mistake, this preliminary had been omitted in Patty's case, and she must now give some proof of her attainments before she could be placed in any form. It was an anxious morning for her. She wrote on steadily, but it was difficult to do herself justice, as the history ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... wanting to send a scout or two in the dark to make preliminary observations. Why not take the lightning off the outer fences, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... some of our divisions had engaged the enemy in local combats, the most important of which was Seicheprey by the 26th on April 20, in the Toul sector, but none had taken part in action as a unit. The 1st Division, which had passed through the preliminary stages of training, had gone to the trenches for its first period of instruction at the end of October, and by March 21, when the German offensive in Picardy began, we had four divisions with experience in the trenches, all of which ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... and who was a serjeant in the guards; that I knew it was so very easy for him to get him a commission, that I should not think he had any honour or goodness in the world if he neglected it. I declared this step must be a preliminary to any good opinion he must ever hope for of mine. I then professed the greatest friendship to that lady (in which I am convinced you will think me serious), and assured him he would give me one of the highest pleasures in letting me be the instrument of doing her such ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... where Jacqueline had rejoined her parents, who had returned from Italy. She sent him a commission. Would he buy her a riding-whip? Bermuda was renowned for its horsewhips, and her father had decided that she must go regularly to the riding-school. They seemed anxious now to give her, as preliminary to her introduction into society, not only such pleasures as horseback exercise, but intellectual enjoyment also. She had been taken to the Institute to hear M. Legouve, and what was better still, in December her stepmother would give a little party every ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... was to play against Catherine. Catherine for the last two years had been South's choice to play in the School Tournament, and although she had been beaten by Nelly Smith of West last year, it was pretty generally conceded that she would win in the preliminary House Tournament and ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... has been said in the preliminary observations in respect of the relation between the executive and the legislative authority, it will be at once understood how much this clause implies, according to constitutional maxims, of the dependence on the one hand of the Irish executive ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... that hickory cuttings, when taken at a suitable time of year and exposed to conditions suited to other hard wooded plants known to be difficult to root, retained their vitality and passed satisfactorily through the stages preliminary to rooting. While no actual roots were secured, the experiments suggest that the rooting of hickory cuttings is not beyond the possibility ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... reaction under the same treatment. The animal kingdom furnishes three varieties—silk, wool, and the furs, &c., of various animals; the vegetable kingdom also three—flax, hemp, and cotton: all of which require certain preliminary preparations to render them fit for the dyer, which do not come within our province, our space only admitting of a rapid glance at the production of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... was Sophia, and the charms of her young mind rivalled those of her person. Therefore suitors in plenty presented themselves, but only to be rejected by her Chancellor (to whom she left the task of preliminary inspection) until he had reduced the list to three, whom we will call Prince Melchior, Prince Otto, and Prince Caspar. The two former reigned over neighbouring states, but Prince Caspar, I have heard, came from ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... can hit most things I aim at, whereas you are more likely to bore a hole through me as a preliminary. Moreover, you have the dog with you, and even the wisest dog may bark at the wrong moment. You must have both hands at liberty to ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... of its name the bird suddenly ceased its monotonous beak and claw gymnastics for a space, becoming on the instant alertly attentive. There came a preliminary craning of neck and winking of white-parchment-lidded eyes, and then, in shockingly human fashion it proceeded to give voluble utterance to some startling samples of barrack-room profanity. Its shrill invective would have ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... To be sure! Why not! That is very simple!" she exclaimed. She went immediately to the fire with a frying pan and some eggs. She gave the unclean mess a good preliminary beating, and then she placed it on her high and ancient fireplace. As I watched her procedure I was ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... of annoyance mounted to the young master's forehead. Out of the corner of her eye Sissy saw the preliminary twitch of the corners of his lips that served ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... went aboard the Lester Dawes to use the radio and telescreen equipment. By then, two time zones west in Storisende, the Claims Office was opening; he filed preliminary claim to an underground installation with at least two entrances in uninhabited country, and claimed a ten-mile radius around it. By that time, the gang working on top had uncovered a vitrified slab over the hundred-foot circle of the vertical shaft and were cracking it with explosives. According ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... made no sign. But Mr. Wallingford was not the man to let a deliberate purpose fall to the ground. He had come with the intention of objecting to Dewey's presence at the conference, and to insist upon his retiring, as a preliminary to business. ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... that the organs of human sight should be purged by the universal medicine, and that certain glass globes should be chemically prepared with one or other of the four elements, and for one month exposed to the beams of the sun. These preliminary steps being taken, the initiated immediately had a sight of innumerable beings of a luminous substance, but of thin and evanescent structure, that people the elements on all sides of us. Those who inhabited the air were ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... bravado, suggested fresh-baked buns, as a charm to dispel the ghosts. The baker who lived next door always baked on Saturday night. Who would go and fetch the buns? Nobody dared to venture outdoors. It had snowed all evening; the frosted windows prevented a preliminary survey of the silent night. Brr-rr! Nobody would ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... treaty. Duke Ching had laid his plans; but they did not include the presence of Confucius at the altar as Master or the Ceremonies on the side of Lu. There he was, however; and after all, it could hardly make much difference. The preliminary rites went forward. Suddenly, a roll of drums; a rush of 'savages' out of ambush;—there were savage tribes in those parts;—confusion; the Marquis's guard, as the Duke's, is at some little distance; and clearly it is ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... having been selected and a sufficient supply of cartridges slipped into each man's pocket, the hunters ascended to the deck to take a preliminary look round with their binoculars, upon the off-chance that they might catch a glimpse of something that would help them to a decision as to the point to which to direct their steps. And here they discovered that the ladies had preceded them, Lady Olivia, Mlle. Sziszkinski, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... deliver England from this absurdity, and there are others like unto it which still hold their own in the scholastic world. To sweep these away should be the first object of the educational reformer; and, when that preliminary step has been taken, the State will be able to say to every boy who is not mentally deficient: "This, or this, is the path which Nature intended you to tread. Follow it with all your heart. We will back you, and help ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... preliminary sketch for a theory of politics, a preface to thinking. Like all speculation about human affairs, it is the result of a grapple with problems as they appear in the experience of one man. For though a personal vision may at times assume an eloquent and universal language, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... Monastier was just striking nine as I got quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill through the common. As long as I was within sight of the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laughable defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. She ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to explain in detail the facts of the existing distribution of organic beings, we are confronted by several preliminary questions, upon the solution of which will depend our treatment of the phenomena presented to us. Upon the theory of descent which we have adopted, all the different species of a genus, as well as all the genera which compose a family or higher group, have descended from some ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... indifferently until he had obtained sufficient records for his purpose. Now, if the number of fallen lamps at his disposal had been small, say 12 instead of 144, the mean observed direction would probably have differed from the direction given from the seismograph.[13] But, on the other hand, a preliminary survey without any actual measurements would have revealed at once the predominant direction of overthrow, and a fairly accurate result might have been obtained by neglecting discordant directions and taking the mean of those ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... the country, producing serious balance-of-payments problems, stunting GDP growth, and straining government resources. The economy rebounded in 1992, largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers returning from the Gulf, but recovery was uneven. A preliminary agreement with the IMF in early 1999 will provide new loans over the next three years. Sluggish growth, along with debt, poverty, and unemployment are fundamental ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... The preliminary exploration team had established the fact that the planet was more or less Earth-type, that its air was breathable, its temperature agreeably springlike, its mineral composition very similar to Earth's, with only slight traces of unknown elements, that there was plenty of drinkable ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith

... case everything promised well, that Vesey would manage to give something in the nature of a preliminary signal, but the closest scrutiny ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... steps, seem to indicate that Prussia is tired of its impolitic neutrality, and inclined to join the confederacy against France. At the last assembly at our Prince Cambaceres's, a rumour circulated that preliminary articles for an offensive alliance with your country had already been signed by the Prussian Minister, Baron Von Hardenberg, on one side, and by your Minister to the Court of Berlin on the other; according to which you were to take sixty thousand Prussians and twelve thousand Hessians ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... those who aspire to become eminent politically as orators and statesmen, (13) there are some who cannot see why they should not be able to do all that politics demand, at a moment's notice, by inspiration as it were, without any preliminary pains or preparations whatever? And yet it would appear that the latter concerns must be more difficult of achievement than the former, in proportion as there are more competitors in the field but fewer who reach the goal of their ambition, which ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... shoulder-blades in the armchair. "It is the preliminary canter," he announced. "Now we're off, and you watch me getting into ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... hour of six; and long before that time we had deposited our instruments in the Bazaar, as the ball-room is somewhat incongruously called, and were threading the Daedalean mazes of the wards. Life in the wards struck me as being very like living in a passage; but when that preliminary objection was got over, the long corridors looked comfortable enough. They were painted in bright warm colours, and a correspondingly genial temperature was secured by hot-water pipes running the entire length. Comfortable rooms opened out from the wards at frequent intervals, and there was ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... know about that," he said, not content with this impulsive assurance. "She LOOKED like she is." And his remark, considered as a prediction, had begun to seem warranted before Gertrude's return with china preliminary to the next ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... of the necessary preliminary examinations the subject of our participation in the provincial fisheries, as regulated by treaty, will at once be brought to the attention of the British Government, with a view to an early and permanent settlement of the whole question, which was only ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... keeping us down close to the floor and out of view, this preliminary firing was but a waste of ammunition, the heavy balls merely breaking what glass remained, and chugging harmlessly into the walls. We were ready and waiting, extra loaded guns beside each man, our nerves throbbing with the excitement of battle, every trooper posted at some point ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... in question, as was made clear in the preliminary consultation which V. G. Tchertkof held with N. K. Muravyof, the solicitor, consisted in getting fresh signatures from Lyoff Nikolaievich, whose great age made it desirable to make sure, without delay, of ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... The essential preliminary to any useful discussion of passive resistance is the clear recognition of the fact that it is rebellion, and nothing less. To say, or admit, this is not necessarily to condemn it; for there are few persons to-day, I suppose, who would contend that rebellion is never justifiable. All it asserts ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw

... from the Text-book is interesting, as showing the compiler's idea of the place of a life in Europe in the chain of existences, although in this case also the statement is made only about "ancient days." "The Jivatma [soul] was prepared for entrance into each [Indian] caste through a long preliminary stage outside India; then he was born into India and passed into each caste to receive its definite lessons; then was born away from India to practise these lessons; usually returning to India to the highest of them, in the final stages of his evolution." In other ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... and as the teacher was classifying the school, he was called upon in turn and interrogated as to his studies. Of course he had to say he had never been to school, and knew none of his letters. The schoolmistress gave him a seat on one side until she had finished the preliminary examination of the rest of the scholars. She then called him to her and drew on the blackboard the letter A, and told him what it was, and asked him to remember how it looked. He looked at it a moment, and ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... deemed a surrender of the contest. Third, time: on Thursday evening at five o'clock within three miles of Alton on the opposite side of the river, the particular spot to be agreed on by you. Any preliminary details coming within the above rules you are at liberty to make at your discretion, but you are in no case to swerve from these rules or to ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... this vast expanse of swamp, that stretched itself, mile after mile, right athwart the party's course, and its aspect was as dreary and depressing as one could well imagine. All along its margin the soil was soft, boggy and treacherous, to such an extent, indeed, that while making a preliminary investigation of the ground before definitely deciding upon a location for the camp, Dick suddenly sank in to above his knees, and only succeeded in extricating himself with the utmost difficulty, assisted though he was by Earle and some ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... reluctant. He seemed half to suspect me; and yet I made a very clever tale of it. He talked of Henley and his aunt; and he had likewise a dread of Paris. His aunt I find has been maintained by Henley, she being lame and disabled; and as sending him out of the way was a preliminary step absolutely necessary, I gave him a thirty pound bank-note, desired him to go to his aunt and give her ten pounds, and to keep the rest to secure him against any accidents, of which he seemed afraid, in a strange country; with a promise that he should have as much more, if ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... came too late, for as in obedience to order after order, the sloop's course was altered and her sails began to shiver, there was a preliminary shock as if bottom had been lightly touched, then a shiver which seemed to communicate itself upward from the deck through Murray's spine, and the next minute the Seafowl heeled over slightly as she seemed to cut her way ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... read your preliminary number and prospectus, and the first number of your new periodical, the ECONOMIST, and it gives me pleasure to see the appearance of so able an advocate of free trade, the carrying out the principles ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... Preliminary tests made with this craft were uniformly successful. After a skilled operator had been obtained, the boat perfectly discharged the duties required of her. But, as is so often the case, when the time for action came she proved inadequate to the emergency. Let her inventor tell the story ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... paused to settle her sables preliminary to recognizing with an expansive smile an acquaintance who flashed by them in a victoria; after which she adjusted the diamonds in her large, pink ears, and proceeded with unctuous tranquillity. "On this occasion, my dear Philura, you will have the pleasure ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley

... whisper. Then he saw the tottering word "Irene" pencilled on the open page, and broke down himself. It was his first sight of human death, and its unutterable stillness blotted from him all other emotion; all else, then, was but preliminary to this! All love and life, and joy, anxiety, and sorrow, all movement, light and beauty, but a beginning to this terrible white stillness. It made a dreadful mark on him; all seemed suddenly little, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... said of the intention, because Denas had not felt sure that at the last moment she would be able to fulfil her promise. But in the preliminary practice she quite recovered her self-possession, and the long rest had given to her voice a maturity of sweetness and power that made it a delight to exercise it. She thought with a pleasant pride of the solemn joy she was going ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... slid suddenly with a whirring noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his sight. He peered in, and drew forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary lines till it rested on ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... early romanticists. It is due to a complete difference in attitude. Gericault imbued himself with the inspiration of the Louvre. Delacroix is said always to have made a sketch from the old masters or the antique a preliminary to his own daily work. So far from flaunting tradition, they may be said to have, in their own view, restored it; so far from posing as apostles of innovation, they may almost be accused of "harking back"—of steeping themselves ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... nook of old Asia Minor, stood a high mound covered with grainfields. According to tradition it had been the home of Priamus the king of Troy. Schliemann, whose enthusiasm was somewhat greater than his knowledge, wasted no time in preliminary explorations. At once he began to dig. And he dug with such zeal and such speed that his trench went straight through the heart of the city for which he was looking and carried him to the ruins of another buried town which was at least a thousand years ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... Cow, from the privileged insolence which he assumes, seems to have been Lord Scroope's jester. In the preliminary dissertation, the reader will find the border custom of assuming noms de guerre particularly noticed. It is exemplified in the following ballad, where one Armstrong is called the Laird's Jock ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... way to the district in which this awful crime, at nearly midnight the previous night, had been perpetrated. I first called at a respectable house in the immediate neighborhood, in order to get my bearings and necessary preliminary information; then soon I rang the bell of the door where the poor murdered girl had been lodging, but received no response. Some one next door, however, heard and answered, then invited ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... maintained a squadron, carrying not less than eighty guns, in co-operation with the British government, for the suppression of the slave trade. That article continued in active observance nineteen years, when the United States, having a little question of slavery to settle at home, gave the stipulated preliminary notice ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... Monsieur," said Gerfaut, looking at him fixedly; "you also doubtless remember my words; the discovery of this body will give them still more weight. The public prosecutor has already begun his preliminary proceedings; remember that it depends on me how they shall be completed. The deposition which I spoke to you about is in the hands of a safe person, who is fully instructed to make use ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... under a splendid porte-cochere and ushered by numerous flunkies into the presence of the Countess. She received me in a tremendous room with a lofty ceiling, and in a preliminary talk of an hour she took off the first keen edge of her ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... sectarianism for this revival. Polly looked like an angel in pink lawn and rose-wreathed leghorn hat; she couldn't know that Missy gazed upon her with secret adoration as a creature of Romance—one who had been kissed! Missy continued to gaze at Polly during the preliminary songs—tunes rather disappointing, not so beautiful as Missy's own favourite ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... record of the preceding chapter testifies, there was an abundance of time to carry out this or any other preliminary measure. Raymond and Lindsley proceeded to canvass the rebels in regard to the letters. The eighteen runaways were ready to assent to anything, but only about half of the others were willing to give in their allegiance to what they regarded as a mean scheme. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... have patience to do this quietly, for a few minutes, you will see crebillion, papillon, or some other on arrive, at a full canter, from pasture, mounted by honest Jean, in his blue nightcap, with all his habiliments shaking in the wind. The preliminary of splicing and compounding the broken harness having been adjusted, the whip cracks, and you start to the exhilarating cry of "marche donc," at the rate of six, and often seven miles ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... impetuously, without preliminary. "I wonder whether you have any idea what it costs to clear out without a word of farewell. Perhaps you are even thinking that I've forgotten. Or perhaps it matters so little to you that you haven't thought at all. I know you won't tell me, so ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... philosophical and lastly a practical course, both of which lead to the B.D. degree. "The practical course will emphasize the relation of the minister to the problems of modern society, giving special attention to Christian sociology, ethics, and methods of Christian activity. As a preliminary discipline students who take this course will receive in the junior year special instruction in sociology and instruction in elementary law in one of the courses furnished by the University for ...
— The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 13 • Jesse E. Moorland

... Estate." Shall this be the result of your school learning? Others can speak to you from experience, as I cannot, of the glory and happiness of a life spent in the Relief of Man's Estate: I would speak to you of a preliminary stage of work for that relief, of some of the difficulties which beset girls on first leaving school, and owing to which so much noble aspiration and ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... religion as such, then, is not to blame. Yet of the charge that over-zealousness or fanaticism is one of her liabilities we cannot wholly acquit her, so I will next make a remark upon that point. But I will preface it by a preliminary remark which connects itself with ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... Divide, wandering southward, away from familiar country into a new maze of peaks and glaciers, deep canyons and abrupt precipices. Suddenly a gale of wind struck me, blinded me with penetrating snow. In that instant, without preliminary or warning, summer changed to winter, and forced me off the heights. It was impossible to thread my way back over the route I had come; for it twisted in and out, around up-flung crags ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... eggs are laid not in but near the bees' nest; in the early stage the larva is active and has the instinct to seize any hairy object near it, and in this way they are carried by the Anthophora to the nest. Dr. Sharp states that no such preliminary stage is known in the ant's-nest beetles. For an account of Sitaris and Meloe, see Sharp's "Insects," II., page 272.); or whether the larvae pass through an early stage, as with Sitaris or Meloe, or cling to the bodies of the females. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... thought of as a suitable leader in the enterprise, and was sent to Rhode Island (1763) to confer with leading men, Baptist and other. As a result a charter was granted by the legislature in 1764, and after a few years of preliminary work at Warren (where the first degrees ever bestowed by a Baptist institution were conferred in 1769), Providence was chosen as the home of the college (1770). Here, with Manning as president and Hezekiah Smith (1737-1805), his class-mate at Princeton, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... Pre-Raphaelites and their allies. This all took place, it must be remembered, long before 1851. We forget often that if that exhibition has any important place in the art history of Great Britain, it does but prove that much preliminary work had been already accomplished. You cannot exhibit what does not exist; you cannot even call into being "exhibition specimens" at a few months notice, if something of the same sort, worked for ordinary commerce, has not already been ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... practical relations, and becomes a minaret from whose balcony an invisible muezzin calls the Faithful to prayer. "Prayer is better than sleep." But what is this? A shuffle of feet on the pavement, a low hum of voices, a twang of some diabolical instrument, a preliminary hem and cough. Heavens! it cannot ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... All preliminary setting out of your work on canvas is usually done with charcoal, which must of course be fixed with a spray diffuser. For large work, such as a full-length portrait, sticks of charcoal nearly an inch in diameter ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... contrasts strangely in its hopefulness with the desperation of Carlyle's later utterances. Even in presence of the doubt as to man's personal immortality he takes refuge in a high and stoical faith. "I think all sound minds rest on a certain preliminary conviction, namely: that if it be best that conscious personal life shall continue it will continue, and if not best, then it will not; and we, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so." It is this conviction that gives to Emerson's writings their serenity ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... preliminary examination as to his identity and so on, Gurn had been transferred to the Sante prison. At first the prisoner seemed to have terrible difficulty in accustoming himself to the rigours of confinement; he suffered from alternate ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... for the support of life will be found closely related to the question of poverty, it is convenient to throw some preliminary light on the measure of poverty, by figures bearing on the general industrial condition of the wage-earning class. To measure poverty we must first measure wealth. What is the national income, and how is it divided? will naturally ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... of Agriculture of the United States was given a secretaryship in the President's Cabinet in 1889. With this added dignity, new life was given to the department. Under the direction of J. Sterling Morton preliminary work of great importance was done. Upon the appointment of James Wilson as Secretary of Agriculture, the department fairly leaped into a fullness of organization for the investigation of the agricultural problems of the country. From ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... combat. The lists were prepared, a pavilion for the use of the king and those who were to act as judges was erected, and an immense concourse of spectators assembled to witness the contest. All the preliminary ceremonies were performed, as usual in those days in personal combats of this character, except that in this case the combatants were to fight on horseback. They came into the lists with horses magnificently caparisoned. Norfolk's horse was covered ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... had earnestly responded to the appeal of their impoverished brethren on the Rhine in behalf of the sheep scattered abroad. And in 1743, acting through the classis of Amsterdam, they had made such progress toward beginning the preliminary arrangements of the work as to send to the Presbyterian synod of Philadelphia a proposal to combine into one the Presbyterian, or Scotch Reformed, the Dutch Reformed, and the German Reformed churches in America. It had already been proved impossible to draw together ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... difficult and philosophical part of animal morphology which cannot be at all understood without some previous knowledge of the other branches of zoology. And yet comparative anatomy and the history of development are the indispensable preliminary steps to a true scientific comprehension of human anatomy, that most essential foundation of all medical knowledge. Without the vivifying idea of development, mere anatomical knowledge is an empty and lifeless cramming of ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel

... outside stairway leading up from a vacant lot, and the passage connecting the saloon boarded up. Incidentally, Mr. Moffat took occasion to announce that if "any snoozer got drunk and came up them stairs" he would be thrown bodily out of a window. Mr. McNeil, who was observing the preliminary proceedings with deep interest from a pile of lumber opposite, sarcastically intimated that under such circumstances the attendance of club members would be necessarily limited. Mr. Moffat's reply it is manifestly impossible to quote literally. Mrs. Guffy was employed to ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish



Words linked to "Preliminary" :   athletic competition, athletic contest, exploratory, origin, inception, athletics, origination, explorative



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