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Approximate   Listen
adjective
Approximate  adj.  
1.
Approaching; proximate; nearly resembling.
2.
Near correctness; nearly exact; not perfectly accurate; as, approximate results or values.
Approximate quantities (Math.), those which are nearly, but not, equal.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Approximate" Quotes from Famous Books



... itself. Not only are birds harder to find (being silent) and harder to recognize in autumn than in spring, but their movements are in themselves more difficult of observation. A few years of note-taking will put one in possession of the approximate dates of arrival of all our common vernal migrants. Every local observer will tell you when to look for each of the familiar birds of his neighborhood; but he will not be half so ready with information as to the time of the same birds' departure. Ask him about a ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... by it the archetype of all attempts at philosophizing, and the standard by which all subjective philosophies are to be judged. In this sense, philosophy is merely the idea of a possible science, which does not exist in concreto, but to which we endeavour in various ways to approximate, until we have discovered the right path to pursue—a path overgrown by the errors and illusions of sense—and the image we have hitherto tried in vain to shape has become a perfect copy of the great prototype. Until that time, we cannot learn philosophy—it ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... having been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned "binnacle deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and "approximate errors," he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... creative genius displayed in those architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made; and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... the fluoro-spectroscope soon told me that lunium emanations were present in large quantities. These rays were not coming to you directly from their source, but one of the windows of the State, War and Navy Building was being used as a reflector. I located the approximate source of the ray by means of an improvised apparatus, and we surrounded the place. Stokowsky was killed while attempting to escape. I guess that is about all there ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... be fired upon. He had gone back to his camp, equipped all his lights with the Benson curve. He was somewhere at the crater-base now. But not where I thought I saw him! The Benson curve-light changed the path of the light-rays traveling from him to me—I could not even approximate his true position! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... it is, to a greater or less extent, with different acids and salts, as well as the dissolving power of the sap of the rootlets of the plant itself, render the exact estimation of the available fertilising constituents wellnigh impossible. An approximate estimate, however, may be obtained by treating the soil with pure water and dilute acid solutions. The treatment of the soil with dilute acid solutions is for the purpose of simulating, as nearly as may be done, the conditions ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... real to Dale, an approximate conception of the truth which he could not doubt; and he thought: "Need I wonder if I have not had the slightest glimpse of His face? It is my doom. Christ is cut off from me. So far as human time counts, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... Rivers, and from the neighboring islands; and they came in a great number of canoes of various sizes,—many of which could carry a hundred men,—which were ordinarily employed in bringing agricultural products to the Charleston market. To get an approximate knowledge of the number, the city government once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted,—and that during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were rather fearful of coming into town; ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... which equalizes supply and demand, not as existing in the particular market, but in the larger sense which I have assigned to the terms. To this price the actual market price will, according to my view, approximate, in proportion to the intelligence and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... years to form a shrine for his thought, or whether his awe forbids him to touch his first unconscious formulation of it, there comes a time when all that he can do has been done, and he realizes that he will never approximate his vision more closely than this. Then, indeed, as high as was his rapture during the moment of revelation, so deep is likely to be his discouragement with his powers of creation, for, however fair he may feel his poem ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... of the point P are hyperbolas whose convexity is turned toward A B. It therefore appears evident to us that the thread of our sun dial carried a knot or bead whose shadow was followed upon the curves. This shadow showed at every hour of the day the approximate date of the day of observation. The sun dial therefore served as a calendar. But how was the position of the bead found? Here we are obliged to enter into new details. Let us project the figure upon a vertical plane (Fig. 3, No. 1) and designate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND,—not half as many as the inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the ruling influence of the nation. This would leave but a small fraction over NINETY THOUSAND, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... ignorant? Take a daily paper in the house. The Italian press has recovered from the effervescence of childish spirits;—you can now approximate to the truth from its reports. There are many good papers now in Italy. Whatever represents the Montanelli ministry is best for you. That gives the lead now. I see good articles copied from ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... is to say the reigns of Henry III and the three Edwards, we have almost as full knowledge of economic as of political conditions, of the life of the mass of the people as of that of courtiers and ecclesiastics. From a time for which 1250 may be taken as an approximate date, written documents began to be so numerous, so varied, and so full of information as to the affairs of private life, that it becomes possible to obtain a comparatively full and clear knowledge of the methods of agriculture, handicraft, and commerce, of the classes ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... resemblance between the normal ear of foetal man and the ear of an adult orang-outang. The other two figures on the lower line are intended to exhibit occasional modifications of the adult human ear, which approximate simian characters somewhat more closely than does the normal type. It will be observed that in their comparatively small lobes these ears resemble those of all the apes; and that while the outer margin of one is not unlike that of the Barbary ape, the outer ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... different from those expressed by Mr. Leaf in 1886. He cannot now give "even an approximate date for the composition of the Catalogue" which, we conceive, must be the latest thing in Homer, if it was composed "for that portion of the whole Cycle which, as worked up in a separate poem, was called the Kypria" for the Kypria is obviously a very late performance, done ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... done at this central station one may approximate the amount of spiritual labor done in a day, and then a week ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... sardines after a meal, and somebody offers them to you first, that is "pigging it." In other words, as nearly as I can make out, "pigging it" does not so much mean doing things in an inadequate fashion as DOING THEM DIFFERENTLY. Therefore, the Englishman in the field likes to approximate as closely as may be his life in town, even if it takes one hundred and fifty men to do it. Which reduces the "pigging it" argument to an attempt at ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... remount was put to the twenty-mile test. But you will say, How, if this is really the case, was it to be avoided? An intelligent anticipation of events should have told those who started their campaign with the advantage of the three months' failure of their predecessors what would be the approximate remount requirements. The British nation would have backed the demands of this intelligent anticipation, not in thousands, but in millions, and by so doing would have saved not thousands but millions. If the original remount depots ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... blossoming period. The leaves, which are the best part of the hay, also remain on better than if the stems are older. If a person does not care to take the trouble to find out whether the new shoots are coming out or not, he can approximate the time to cut fairly well by waiting until a blossom here and there appears, cutting immediately. It would be difficult to tell on paper exactly when alfalfa was properly cured, as that is a matter of individual ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... the district magistrates of the provinces employ in carrying on their trade with the capital and those belonging to some of the richer merchants, together with such as are owned by the natives and mestizos, on an approximate calculation, amount to twelve thousand tons, including ships, brigs, schooners, galleys, barges, etc. For the want of better data, this estimate is founded only on reasonable conjecture, aided by the advice of experienced persons, for although the greatest part of these vessels ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... speculation regarding the approximate condition of Mr. Chugg—would he be wholly or partially incapacitated for his job? Mrs. Dax, flirting a feather-duster in the neighborhood of Miss Carmichael in a futile effort to beguile her into giving a reason ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... through the books of this institution. The accounts of the bank had to agree with the statements of the statistical bureau, and thus all these revelations possessed an absolutely certain basis, and were not merely the results of an approximate valuation. Even if anyone had wished to do so, it would have been simply impracticable to ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... sterling—of which handsome amount 13,059,570 francs, or 522,383l. sterling, being the outlay on the Central Administration and the prefectures, must be added to the 1,200,000 francs, or 48,000l. sterling, of the Presidential salary and allowances, in order to give us a basis for a fair approximate comparison of the cost to republican France of her executive President and prefects with the cost to monarchical Great Britain of her executive Sovereign, lords-lieutenant, and Viceroy of Ireland. Stated in round numbers, the result appears to be that for their republican ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... who may intend passing their vacation in Switzerland, and who care about mountains, that if they will first qualify themselves to take angles of position and elevation with correctness, and to draw outlines with approximate fidelity, there are a series of problems of the highest interest to be worked out on the southern edge of the Swiss plain, in the study of the relations of its molasse beds to the rocks which are characteristically developed in the chain of the Stockhorn, Beatenberg, Pilate, Mythen above ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... purposes of reference. In the second, the date is given as accurately as it could be ascertained, Roman numerals being used to designate the months. Unfortunately, of some earthquakes only the year is known; of others, the year and month. Of one (No. 32) the approximate hour has been recorded, but not the day of the month; while of another (No. 38) the hour has been preserved for posterity, but whether the phenomenon occurred during February or March, the records leave ...
— Catalogue of Violent and Destructive Earthquakes in the Philippines - With an Appendix: Earthquakes in the Marianas Islands 1599-1909 • Miguel Saderra Maso

... Occasionally adults were hidden among the spines of the burs and were inadvertently enclosed in the bags; therefore, all nuts in bags containing female adults that might have continued ovipositing were discarded. The data in Table 1 show the approximate time prior to which ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... unable to distinguish between monkish fraud and simple truth, have considered the whole series of topographical evidence as one tissue of imposture, and have left the Holy Land worse Christians than when they entered it. Credulity and skepticism are extremes too often found to approximate; and the man, accordingly, who suddenly relinquishes the one, is almost sure to adopt ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... existed in that inhospitable land, that thread of water was at its silent work: through countless years it flooded and fell, depositing a rich legacy of soil upon the barren sand until the delta was created; and man, at so remote a period that we have no clue to an approximate date, occupied the fertile soil thus born of the river Nile, and that corner of savage Africa, rescued from its barrenness, became Egypt, and took the first rank in the ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... of the victims has been grossly over-estimated, let him read the following entry made in the records of the Parliament of Bordeaux, and recently brought to light; he will learn from this not only the approximate number of the slain as given by the chief agent in the bloody work, but the anxiety which the latter felt that he should receive due credit for his share in the great undertaking of the destruction of the French Protestants: ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... of the Society shall be held at the end of October, or at an approximate date to be ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... aspects is, then, a perfect educator for those who do not wish to build on the flimsy foundation of approximate truth. ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... until an impression was made which was never effaced. Of late years not a few Americans have arisen to tell the people something of the truth about British rule in India—of its uprightness, its beneficence, its tolerance,—but it will be a generation yet before the people as a whole has any approximate conception of the facts. ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... distinctly injurious. From 55 deg. to 65 deg. is the extreme range, and the happy medium should, if possible, be maintained. Give air on every suitable occasion, and as the time for transferring to the open ground approaches, endeavour to approximate nearly to the outside temperature. The plants will then scarcely feel ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... uterus. Owing to the uncertainty in the results of either of the above methods of prevention, the later editions of books which teach conception control now advocate the use of both methods at the same time in order to approximate more closely ...
— Conception Control and Its Effects on the Individual and the Nation • Florence E. Barrett

... be seen walking together. The vigil and the early morning of St. John's day, although a Christian festival, still retain a certain savor of paganism and primitive naturalism. This may be because of the approximate concurrence of this festival and the summer solstice. In any case, the scene to-night was of a purely mundane character, without any religious mixture whatever. All was love and gallantry. In our old romances and legends the Moor always carries ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular, we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we cannot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... in a description by the chief constable the features of Mr. Bowles: but it seemed to approximate more closely to Dare in spite of himself. 'I'll make a sketch of the only one who had no business there, and show it to you,' he presently said. 'I should like this ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... within his view; he may be in the midst of the ocean, or gradually nearing the land; the curvature of the globe baffles the search of his telescope; but if he have a correct chronometer, and can make an astronomical observation, he may readily ascertain his longitude, and know his approximate position—how far he is from home, as well as from his intended destination. He is even enabled, at some special place, to send down his grappling-irons into the sea, and pick up an electrical cable for examination ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... have seen working had no dividers, square, measure, or any instrument of precision. As before stated, I have seen scissors used as compasses, but as a rule they find approximate centers with the eye, and cut all shapes and engrave all figures by the unaided guidance of this unreliable organ. Often they cut out their designs in paper first and from them mark off patterns on the metal. Even in the matter of cutting patterns ...
— Navajo Silversmiths • Washington Matthews

... Fundy, Massachusetts Bay, Long Island Sound, and others. The unmistakable traces of glacial action upon all the islands along the coast of New England, sometimes lying at a very considerable distance from the mainland, give an approximate, though a minimum, measure of the former extent of the glacial drift seaward, and the subsequent advance of the ocean upon the land. Like those of the harbor of Para, all these islands have the same geological structure as the continent, and were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... was both a man of letters and a man of fashion, is generally credited with the introduction into English society of the cigarette; but it is difficult to suggest even an approximate date. Writing from Boulogne to W.H. Wills in September 1854, Dickens says, "I have nearly exhausted the cigarettes I brought here," and proceeds to give directions for some to be sent to him from London. This is the earliest reference I have found ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... masonry. The Dam is 4800 feet long and 300 feet wide and 10 feet above high water. In high water it will flow over the top of the Dam, but in low water the ditches or canals will take all the water out of the River, the approximate cost is three million. There will be a tunnel under the River at Yuma just below the Bridge, to bring the water into Arizona which is thickly ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... cited, there is a description of the most remarkable and destructive among the 355 hurricanes that have swept over the West Indies from 1492 to 1899. Not a single island has escaped the tempest's ravages. I have endeavored in vain to make an approximate computation of the human life and property destroyed by these visitations of Providence. Such a computation is impossible when we read of entire towns destroyed not once but 6, 8, and 10 times; of crops swept away by the tempest's fury, and the subsequent starvation of untold thousands; of ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... territory acquired from Texas; and by the appropriation of all the territory obtained from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, both north and south of that line, it may be stated with approximate accuracy that the North had monopolized to herself more than three fourths of all that had been added to the domain of the United States since the Declaration of Independence. This inequality, which began, as has been shown, in the more generous than wise confidence of the South, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... can approximate The worth of sympathy with woe; - Although I think I ought to state He did his ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... require about twenty-five per cent. of the profits as royalty. Another method used by some inventors is to ascertain the price at which the article can be retailed, and figure the royalty at between one-twentieth and one-tenth of the retail price. Either of the above should give the approximate figure to ask for exclusive royalty contracts. For non-exclusive rights the patentee should ask about one-half ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee

... polygonal as they become approximate or crowded, hoary canescent, sessile; peridium rather thick, persistent, circumscissile in dehiscence, covered without by minute whitish calcareous (?) scales, within punctate by the imprint of ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... emerges as his final attitude is to describe it as that of the perfectly natural man confronting the universe. Of course, there is no such "perfectly natural man," but he is a legitimate lay-figure, and we all approximate to him at times. The natural man, in his unsophisticated hours, takes the Universe at its surface value, neither rejecting the delicate compensations, nor mitigating the cruelty of the grotesque farce. The natural man accepts what is given. ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... marines, made on the 23rd June an attack upon the military school, a strong position commanding the settlements. A great deal of bayonet-fighting took place in clearing the villages on the way, but the position itself was easily taken and the settlement relieved. The approximate total of the forces of all nations at Tientsin after this reinforcement was 4500, of whom ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... has no connection at all by walking arm-in-arm with an Imperial aide-de-camp; another's may be that of possessing a hand able to chip corners off aces and deuces of diamonds; another's may be that of yearning to set things straight—in other words, to approximate his personality to that of a stationmaster or a director of posts. In short, almost every man has his hobby or his leaning; yet Manilov had none such, for at home he spoke little, and spent the greater part of his time in meditation—though ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... knowing each other. It was hardly more than a commonplace to Maggie: just a tall, white-haired gardener respectfully offering her roses. And it was hardly more to Joe Ellison: just a tribute evoked by his hungry interest in every well-seeming girl of the approximate age ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... a group of mesas, now it has become a city of grotesque monuments. Those who have seen the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs can imagine it multiplied many times in size, grotesqueness, complexity, and area; such a vision will approximate the Colorado National Monument. The two regions have other relations in common, for as the Garden of the Gods flanks the Rockies' eastern slopes and looks eastward to the great plains, so does the Colorado National Monument flank the Rockies' western desert. Both ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... to facts. Our investigations of the murdered man's room this afternoon gave us several clues, not the least important of which is that we are enabled to fix the actual time of the murder with some degree of accuracy. It is always useful, in a case of murder, to be able to establish the approximate time at which it was committed. In this case, the murder was certainly committed between the hours of 11 p.m. and 11.30 p.m., and, in all probability, ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... the record of the ships that had been sighted going east, and of those that had made their numbers as they passed. The Phantom was not among the latter, nor did the rig or approximate tonnage, as guessed, of any of the others, at ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... become unfit for the service and be discharged, and that provision be also made for filling the places of regimental and company officers who may die or resign. By such provisions the volunteer corps may be constantly kept full or may approximate the maximum number authorized and called into service in the ...
— 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

... installation in houses and offices became so great that the Government had to obtain a special grant of money in order to carry out the necessary work. According to the latest returns there are somewhere about 350 telephone offices open to the public, while the approximate number of messages transmitted is about 150,000,000. The time is not far distant when, as I think will also be the case in this country, the telephone will be deemed to be an indispensable adjunct of almost every house ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... the night before, but was still vague as to just how the thing looked. Of what it was he seemed to have no doubt. It was the specter of either the captain or Vail; he excluded the woman, because she was shorter. As I stood outside, he measured on me the approximate height of the apparition—somewhere about five feet eight. He could see Burns's shirt, he admitted, but the thing had been ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... appended to this chapter. If you know the first day of your last menstruation, you will see at a glance when the confinement may be expected. There may be a difference of a few days—either before or after the expected date—but for practical approximate purposes the ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... accepted by the Church at large? Is there any reason to think that the inertia which inheres in all large bodies, and to a singularly marked degree in our own Communion, could be overcome? The General Convention can give an approximate answer to these questions; it cannot settle them decisively, for it is a body which mirrors only to a certain extent the real mind and temper of the constituencies represented in it. One thing is certain, that only by allowing fullest possible play to ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... parts: for 'tis almost empty at Full Sea, but full at Low water. This may happen from the Channel by which it is supplied, which may come from the bottom of a Sea very remote from those parts, and where the Tides are much differing from those of the approximate shores. A Fourth, lies in Westmorland, near the River Leder; Qui instar Euripi saepius in die reciprocantibus undis fluit & refluit, which ebbs and flows many times a day. This may proceed from its being supplyed from many Channels, coming from several parts of the Sea, lying sufficiently ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... point, he finished the resetting quickly and tried again. This time the name read correctly but it slanted down the card and was blurred and inky. Bobby fussed for a long time to get the line straight. Experiment seemed only to approximate. One end persisted in rising too high or sinking too low. The problem was absorbing and all the time Bobby was thinking busily along, to him, original lines. At last, by means of a strip of paper and ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... and a table have been arranged for the use of the cooking classes, most of the suggested work can be carried out with the school equipment. Where there is no equipment in the school and school conditions do not approximate home conditions, it may be possible to secure permission to give the lesson after school hours in the home of one of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... followed by its extinction. We must accordingly be on the alert for all possible theories of extinction; and these theories themselves will fall under the universal principle of the survival of the fittest until we approximate or actually hit upon ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... I had nothing to tell me the directions, not even a tree the bark or moss of which might have vouchsafed information. Suddenly I had an inspiration. Yes, the fog was coming from the northeast! So, by observing the drift of the droplets I could find at least an approximate meridian line. I went to the headlight, and an observation immediately confirmed my conjecture. I was now convinced that I was on that wild land where two months ago I had watched the goldfinches disporting themselves in the evening sun. But so as not to turn back to the south, I struck ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... with ordinary drawing instruments make them exceedingly convenient, and they should be more widely known than they are. Their application to the present problem is shown in Figure 253, which represents a quadrant of an ellipse, the approximate arcs C D, E, E F, F A having been determined by trial and error. In order to space this off, for the positions of the teeth, a tangent is drawn at D, upon which is constructed the rectification of D C, which is D G, and also that of D E in the opposite direction, that is, D H, by the process ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... at right angles. Then from points on the baseline six miles and multiples thereof from the meridian, lines are run due north. And parallels to the base-line are run at distances of six miles. The approximate squares thus formed are called townships. The rows of townships running north and south are called ranges. Townships are numbered north and south from the base-line; ranges east and west from the meridian. The diagram on page 341 ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... was something strange, almost exalted, in the look that accompanied the words. Saxham added: "If you could give me an approximate date as regards the finding of that—needle in the haystack of South Africa, it would—facilitate my departure ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... Staff, all unconscious of his honourable peril, was standing in the middle of the floor of the inner room (his lodgings comprised two) and likewise in the approximate geographical centre of a chaotic assemblage of assorted wearing ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... determination of annual parallax. By indirect means, however, we can obtain some idea of their distance. All that we want to know for the purpose is the rate of the sun's motion; its direction we may consider as given with approximate accuracy by Airy's investigation. Now, spectroscopic measurements of stellar movements of approach and recession will eventually afford ample materials from which to deduce the solar, velocity; though they are as yet not accurate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... border region with Yemen resist demarcation of boundary; Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been negotiating a long-contested maritime boundary with Iran; because the treaties have not been made public, the exact alignment of the boundary with the UAE is still unknown and labeled approximate ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... that they were doing well, but there was a general disinclination to state even the approximate amount of their daily winnings. The hunters found, however, that the general belief was that some of those who had claims in the centre of the valley, where of course the gold would settle the thickest, were making from ten to twenty ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... of the weather rendered these operations difficult and dangerous; yet I think the observations may be depended upon within 30 seconds, as will appear by their approximate results in calculating the horizontal refraction, for it must be considered that an error of 30 seconds in the refraction in altitude would make a difference of several minutes in the ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... moment to the extent to which the faculty may be exercised, a diviner is able to fix the breadth of these streams, the position where their current is strongest, and to give a fairly approximate estimate of what their supply may be. Without doubt water can be found by an expert at great depths from the surface (the greatest depth water was got in any of my sites, that I know of, is 950 feet at Sandy ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield

... and unbearable, sick with violent unrelieving storms; then on until April, chill, quiescent, drinking its scant rain and scanter snows; from April to the hot season again, blossoming, radiant, and seductive. These months are only approximate; later or earlier the rain-laden wind may drift up the water gate of the Colorado from the Gulf, and the land sets its seasons ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... needful in society. There are those, who so appear, as "thoughtless of gracefulness, to be yet grace itself." This is the native endowment of some; but all may approximate toward it. Propriety is a rich ornament of female speech. Modesty is a cardinal point in good taste. But let it be sincere. In the early ages of Rome, the women, in general, wore veils in public. Latterly ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... judgment, they are at least not the hackneyed prejudices of the past—if they lead to false conclusions, they at least furnish a new point of view, from which, taken with other widely differing views, the judicious reader may establish a parallax that will enable him to approximate the truth. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... collection of reconnaissance reports is work of a highly skilled nature, or ought to be. Spying out the land is much more than a search of railways, roads, and the terrain generally. The experienced observer must know the German area over which he works rather better than he knows Salisbury Plain. The approximate position of railway junctions and stations, aerodromes, factories, and depots should be familiar to him, so that he can without difficulty spot any new feature. Also he must be something of a sleuth, particularly when using smoke as a clue. In the early morning a thin layer of smoke above ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... nature of the distant interior. This chart was, of course, erroneous in many particulars, since I had to judge the length of the reaches of the river, and the extent of its angles, but I corrected it on the scale of the miles of latitude we made during the day, which brought out an approximate truth at all events. The hurried nature of our journey would not allow me to do more; and it will be remembered that my observations were all siderial, by reason that the sextant would not embrace the sun in his almost vertical position at noon. Admitting, however, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... at one time may soon acquire a value of twenty times that amount. The comparative value of skins is, therefore, constantly varying more or less; but the annexed table (page 283) will be found useful for general reference, and for approximate figures, will probably answer every purpose ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... and 1839, when there were many railway acts applied for, traffic-taking became a lucrative calling. It was necessary that some approximate estimate should be made as to the income which the lines might be expected to yield. Arithmeticians, who calculated traffic receipts, were to be found to prove what promoters of railways required to satisfy ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... century, if I may judge from a vocabulary of that date in Wright's collection, acquired a much larger choice of fish, and some of the names approximate more nearly to those in modern use. We meet with the sturgeon, the whiting, the roach, the miller's thumb, the thomback, the codling, the perch, the gudgeon, the turbot, the pike, the tench, and the haddock. It is ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... matter of frequent, occurrence. It would be hard to form an approximate estimate, but, from the opinions expressed by several warrior chiefs and headmen, I believe that it occurs not infrequently. No explanation as to its cause was obtained. The fetus is usually buried without any ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... in the abdominal walls, advantage will be gained by putting in a certain number of stitches so deeply as to include the whole thickness of the muscles, and in the intervals between these deep ones to insert others less deeply, so as accurately to approximate the edges of the skin. This will both facilitate union and also render the occurrence of hernia less probable. This latter accident did occur in a case, otherwise successful, in which Mr. Kirby ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... rounded latitude and longitude figures for the purpose of finding the approximate geographic center of an entity and is based on the Gazetteer of Conventional Names, Third Edition, August 1988, US Board on Geographic Names and on ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... with Elizabeth, Jerome Fandor determined the approximate size of this list of addresses. He tore from his note-book a ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... actual determination of Tahoe's outlet through the Truckee River was made is not definitely known, but its approximate location was well enough established in 1853 to enable the official map-maker of the new State of California to depict it with reasonable accuracy, and, for some reason, to name it Lake Bigler, after John Bigler, the third Governor ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... that," quickly rejoined Lieutenant Procope. "Those minor planets all are known to rotate in a narrow zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; in their perihelia they cannot approximate the sun as we have done; we shall ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... four hundred and ten visitors passing these two entrances; and supposing the number of persons coming by the other ten entrances to be not more than those recorded at these two, we shall have three millions as the approximate number of visitors." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... which passes, when the Nicol is in its position of minimum transmission, is of a gorgeous blue, the whiter light of the cloud being extinguished. When the cloud-texture has become sufficiently coarse to approximate to that of ordinary clouds, the rotation of the Nicol ceases to have any sensible effect on the light discharged at right angles ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate word. I will furnish some circumstantial evidence in support of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale called Deerslayer. He uses "verbal," for "oral"; "precision," for "facility"; "phenomena," for "marvels"; "necessary," ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to the fates, the evolvers of the endless thread—to the stern necessity of progression. 'Idea' itself it cannot become, but it may in long and graduated process, become an image, an ANALOGON, an anti-type of IDEA. And this [Greek: eidolon] may approximate to a perfect likeness. 'Quod est simile, nequit esse idem'. Thus, in the lower animals, we see this process of emancipation commence with the intermediate link, or that which forms the transition from properties to faculties, namely, with sensation. Then the faculties ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... Darrell was standing. Here they stood, silently listening, while Darrell, unconscious of their presence, went rapidly through the specimens, classifying the different ores, stating the conditions which had contributed to their individual characteristics, giving the approximate value of each and the mode of treatment required for its reduction; all after the manner of a student rehearsing to ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... in the absence of Irish Customs the estimates of true Irish revenue can only be approximate. On the expenditure side, too, there are grave matters of consideration. For instance, should the vote for Irish Constabulary be regarded as a local or Imperial charge? Or Irish judges, or even Irish poverty? It was the definite ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... "Approximate position of troops under General Hammersley this morning. Two battalions 33rd Brigade sea to S.E. corner of Salt Lake: will be moved forward shortly to connect if possible with Anzac troops. Two battalions 33rd holding Yilghin Burnu. Position on Hill 500 yards East Yilghin Burnu not yet ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... distributed. Under these conditions the catalogue prices should by this time reflect fairly accurately the relative rarity of the main varieties of each stamp at least; and it is this relative rarity that we are after in order to approximate the original supplies of the main varieties. The result is certainly of more than mere interest, the agreement being such that we are tempted to lay down the following propositions in regard to the perforated stamps ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... consequences of Rapid Dominance must be conducted. On one hand, if this force capability can be achieved and Shock and Awe administered to affect an adversary's will, can a form of political deterrence be created? In the most approximate sense, and we emphasize approximate, the analogy with nuclear deterrence might be drawn. An adversary may be persuaded or deterred from taking action in the first instance. On the other hand, this capacity may be seen as politically unusable and allies ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... and perhaps, even, different large and difficult-to-obtain "props," they simply provide the staff writer with the synopsis of the story purchased from you, and tell him to go ahead and prepare the continuity, knowing as he does, and keeping in mind while at work, to just what approximate expense the company is prepared to go, just what sets are available or can be built, what necessary locations can be reached within a reasonable time, and what players—especially if they must be distinctive types—are ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... apparent velocity (i.e., the proper motion) is so great that the star in 1000 years moves 3 deg., or as much as 6 times the diameter of the moon. For this star, as well as for its nearest neighbours in the table, observations differing only by a year are sufficient for an approximate determination of the value of the proper motion, for which in other cases many tens of ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier

... I said, intellectualism's edge is broken; it can only approximate to reality, and its logic is inapplicable to our inner life, which spurns its vetoes and mocks at its impossibilities. Every bit of us at every moment is part and parcel of a wider self, it quivers along various radii like the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... Abanfokru, I found myself amongst the extensive concessions of the French, who have taken the alluvial grounds for washing and working. M. Bonnat's map gives the approximate positions and dimensions; and the several sites are laid down by M. Dahse. I shall have more to say about this section on ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... to present us with a series of forms in which the number of the digits becomes reduced; the bones of the fore-arm and leg gradually take on the equine condition; and the form and arrangement of the teeth successively approximate to those which ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... occur at random. Fixing type localities of the two subspecies at the places of origin of certain specimens which in color fit the original descriptions is meaningless because selected specimens or series from almost any place in the geographic range of the species would qualify as approximate ...
— The Subspecies of the Mexican Red-bellied Squirrel, Sciurus aureogaster • Keith R. Kelson

... and are not transmuted into any artistic convention, are terribly stubborn and difficult to deal with; and hence there are for the dramatist many resultant limitations in time and space. These limitations in some sort approximate towards those of painting: the dramatic author is tied down, not indeed to a moment, but to the duration of each scene or act; he is confined to the stage, almost as the painter is confined within his frame. But the great restriction is this, that a dramatic author must deal with his ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... knave played on the bungling amateur of manuscripts, whose credulity exceeded his purse. But even among the learned, much ill-blood was inflamed; he who had been most successful in acquiring manuscripts was envied by the less fortunate, and the glory of possessing a manuscript of Cicero seemed to approximate to that of being its author. It is curious to observe that in these vast importations into Italy of manuscripts from Asia, John Aurispa, who brought many hundreds of Greek manuscripts, laments that he had chosen more profane than sacred writers; which circumstance he tells us was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Philip Sidney; eyes of which I have said enough; a nose more delicate than symmetrical; a mouth rather thin-lipped, but well curved; a chin rather small, I confess;—but did any one ever from the most elaborated description acquire even an approximate idea of the face intended? Her person was lithe and graceful; she had good hands and feet; and the fairness of her skin gave her brown hair a duskier ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... style may be of use for the purpose of reference, but it must be borne in mind that they are more or less approximate, as each style merged by slow ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... witch, was, nevertheless, deepened tenfold by the coincidence between the two circumstances. The swift and mettlesome dogs pushed her hard, and succeeded in turning her several times, when it was observed that she made a point to manage her running so as to approximate to the haunted house—a fact which was not unobserved by Barney, who ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... do so, as I know of no estate where a regular and continuous system of manuring has been carried out. But in North Coorg, and very close to the Mysore Border, the continuous practice on Mr. Mangles's Coovercolley Estate of 500 acres gives a fairly approximate idea of what can keep an estate in a well-fed condition. There the practice has been to put down every third year from 7 to 10 cwt. of bone-meal an acre, and one-third of a bushel of cattle manure, and, besides this, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... has more than doubled, while the value of the products has increased over fourfold. Looking over the whole field of manufacturing industries, it is stated that the estimated capital employed throughout out the country in 1880, namely $2,790,000,000, does not really approximate to the total amount. According to the census of that year, moreover, over two and a half millions of persons were engaged in manufacturing; while about seven and a half millions were employed in agriculture, and nearly two millions in trade ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... spot," said my uncle, "it might be difficult, since during the three days of that awful tempest I could keep no account either of the quickness of our pace, or of the direction in which the raft was going. Still, we will endeavor to approximate to the truth. We shall not, I believe, be ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... pleasant task of writing out these reminiscences, I engaged, you will remember, to amplify the record of one week; judging that a rigidly faithful analysis of that sample would disclose the approximate percentage of happiness, virtue, &c., in Life. But whilst writing the annotations on Sept. 9th (which, by the way, gratuitously overlap on the following day), I saw an alpine difficulty looming ahead. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... problem. This man gives up the endeavour to solve the question by reflection and thought, and as he says, 'goes into the sanctuary of God,' gets into communion with his Father in heaven, and by reason of that communion reaches a conclusion which is, at all events, an approximate solution of his difficulty, viz. the belief of a future life, 'Then understood I their end.' The solemn vision of a life beyond the present, which should be the outcome and retribution of this, rises before him from out of his agitated thoughts, like the moon, pale and phantom-like, from a stormy ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... was really an opportunity. Moreover the goods, having become a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, were beginning to approximate to the public taste. And besides, good sound stuff it was, no matter what the pattern. And so the little Woodhouse girls went to school in petties and drawers made of material which James had destined for fair summer dresses: petties and drawers of which the little Woodhouse girls were ashamed, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... orders and titles were not recognized or tolerated. A system of measures was therefore devised, calculated, if not intended, to withdraw power gradually and silently from the States and the mass of the people, and by construction to approximate our Government to the European models, substituting an aristocracy of wealth for that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... a frame—Massachusetts, I believe, actually calls her fundamental law the Frame of Government. We picture political institutions as mechanically constructed contrivances within which the nation's life is contained and compelled to approximate some abstract idea of justice or liberty. These frames have very little elasticity, and we take it as an historical commonplace that sooner or later a revolution must come to burst the frame apart. Then a new ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... not criticize those who devised the new machinery of self-government, but those who did not devise it, and who discouraged the exercise of political imagination in Ireland. It is said of an artist that it was his fantasy first to paint his ideal of womanly beauty, and, when this was done, to approximate it touch by touch to the sitter, and when the sitter cried, "Ah, now it is growing like!" the artist ceased, combining the maximum of ideal beauty possible with the minimum of likeness. Now if we had thought out the ideal structure of Irish government we might have offered it for criticism ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... murk deceived or Lanyard had judged shrewdly. His feet were on an approximate level with the coping round the roof, and he stood about as far from the upper girder to which the rope was hitched as that was ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... work and production, and it is futile to ask how this self-lacerated Europe will be able to find the war expenses laid upon her. According to human reckoning, the conquerors cannot extract even approximate compensation for their losses from the defeated states, and their victory will terminate with a considerable deficit. If that be the case, then my visitor will be right—there will ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... dots, like pearls threaded on an invisible string. These dots are so inconceivably small that many millions of them are needed to make one ultimate physical atom, and while the exact number is not readily ascertainable, several different lines of calculation agree in indicating it as closely approximate to the almost inconceivable total of fourteen thousand millions. Where figures are so huge, direct counting is obviously impossible, but fortunately the different parts of the atom are sufficiently alike to enable us to make an estimate in which the margin of error is not likely to be ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater

... obedience ends, and the duty of resistance begins, could in no case be an easy one; but it was made overwhelmingly difficult by the belief that the Church was—not a compromise of parties to secure a more or less approximate justice in the appropriation of funds, but—a living organism, instinct with Divine power to bless and to curse. To most of the pious Florentines, who had hitherto felt no doubt in their adherence to the Frate, that belief in the Divine potency ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... $100,000,000 or so which he accumulated was an example of inequitable distribution of the products of the world's industry. Stating this in the form of a general principle, we should say: The amount of wealth which any man receives should bear some approximate relation to the benefit which he confers upon ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... General Johnston's advance was such as to bring him first in contact with Sherman's left and Prentiss's right. To preserve even an approximate alignment of a line of battle of two miles front, marching with artillery, through wet forest, over rough, yet soft ground, with regiments in column doubled on the centre, the advance was necessarily slow. The reports show that portions of the ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... comparatively poor. For example, silver in bullion and in ores; copper precipitates or regulus, and copper ores and slags; and "black tin" and tin ores. He is only occasionally called on to assay the intermediate products. It is indispensable that he should have an approximate knowledge of the substance to be determined. With new ores this information is best got by a qualitative testing. Knowing that only certain bodies are present, it is evident that the number of separations can be reduced, and that simple methods can be devised for arriving at the results sought ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... the maps require bringing up to date. The revenue on such lands is assessed at an uniform rate, viz. at 10 annas a bigha, and the leases have been issued so as to expire contemporaneously. A list of service lands of dolois and others, showing the number of plots held by each official and their approximate total area in bighas, is kept in the Deputy Commissioner's Office. Puja lands are plots of lands set apart entirely for the support of the lyngdohs and other persons who perform the pujas of the doloiships. These lands are generally leased out by the ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... may not know it, age has no more to do with that statement than it had to do with the one when I hinted that man reached the ripe state of perfection at the mystic age of thirty-five. These are but approximate figures, and are only for use in general practice. They have no bearing on specific cases, when it is always best to ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... little time for the commander to figure their position, and then it was only approximate. But at length he handed Tom a piece of paper with the latitude and ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... should be given by the teacher by placing before the pupils unlabeled fabrics that they have previously studied and have them give the name, approximate price or grade, weave, ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley



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