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Circumference   Listen
noun
Circumference  n.  
1.
The line that goes round or encompasses a circular figure; a periphery.
2.
A circle; anything circular. "His ponderous shield... Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon."
3.
The external surface of a sphere, or of any orbicular body.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Circumference" Quotes from Famous Books



... Minor for recognition by the Roman bishop). In all probability, Asia Minor, along with Rome, was the spiritual centre of Christendom from about 60-200: but we have but few means for describing how this centre was brought to bear on the circumference. What we do know belongs more to the history of the Church than to the special history ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... flower-pot and stand, she bought herself. You put that in a parlour window,' said Traddles, falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater admiration, 'with a plant in it, and—and there you are! This little round table with the marble top (it's two feet ten in circumference), I bought. You want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and—and there you are again!' said Traddles. 'It's an admirable piece of workmanship—firm ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... to me. You have several reasons for hating me. My house is the enemy of yours. I am to all intents and purposes an American; you can consider me as such. I have that indifference for religious superstition and intolerance for religion's thraldom which all minds larger of circumference than a napkin-ring must come to in time. I have endangered the life of your brother, and I have opposed and shall oppose him in his political aspirations; he has my unequivocal contempt. Nevertheless, I tell you here that I should marry you ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... around them. Instantly three hundred Indians sprang up from their ambush. Captain Church "casting his eyes to the side of the hill above him, the hill seemed to move, being covered with Indians, with their bright guns glistening in the sun, and running in a circumference, with a design to surround them." Captain Church and his men slowly retreated toward the shore, where alone they could prevent themselves from being surrounded. The Indians, outnumbering them fifteen to one, closely pressed ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... for they must have found in that way about eight thousand reals of eight to the peso, although somewhat oxidized by the sea-water. From the top of the little elevation, an islet was discovered, of not more than one legua in circumference. They went thither in successive trips of the small boat, and found three Lequian Indians, who had been there for months. They were the only survivors of ten who had left their country. On this island, the Spaniards ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... but that his treasure would not shine without its help. And then would he reckon over the coins in the bag, toss up the bar and catch it as it came down, sift the gold dust through his fingers, look at the funny image of his own face as reflected in the burnished circumference of the cup, and whisper to himself, "O Midas, rich King Midas, what a happy man art thou!" But it was laughable to see how the image of his face kept grinning at him out of the polished surface of the cup. It seemed to be aware of his foolish behavior, and to have a naughty ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of natural science. The country people saw his study full of books and other strange things which gave to his successes a coloring of magic. Without passing strictly for a sorcerer, Antoine Beauvouloir impressed the populace through a circumference of a hundred miles with respect akin to terror, and (what was far more really dangerous for himself) he held in his power many secrets of life and death which concerned the noble families of that region. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was celebrated for his skill in confinements ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... been my privilege to have heard all the great orators of America who have become singularly famed about the world's circumference. I know what was the majesty of Webster; I know what it was to melt under the magnetism of Henry Clay; I have seen eloquence in the iron logic of Calhoun; but O'Connell was Webster, Clay, and Calhoun in one. Before the courts, logic; at ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... the Castlereagh about 4 p.m., and although its channel could not have been less than 130 yards in breadth, there was apparently not a drop of water in it. Its bed consisted of pure sand and reeds; amid the latter, we found a small pond of 15 yards circumference, after a long search. There is a considerable dip in the country towards the river, at about two miles from it; and the intervening brush was full of kangaroo, which, I fancy, had congregated to a spot where ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... be able to support the car in the air. It will make possible a machine that will be able to fly in reverse and so come to a quick stop. It will steer us or it will supply us with electrical power, for we merely have to put a series of small metal bars about the circumference of the generator, and get ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was suspended to show that it was strictly 'tabu.' Inside the house were three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and about ten or twelve feet in circumference at the bottom, and for about four feet from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at the top. These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree, sewn quite close together so that no light and little or no air could enter. On one side ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... of the spirit, as it has been called, that ardent and special apprehension of half-truths, in the enthusiastic, and as it were "prophetic" advocacy of which, devotion to truth, in the case of the young—apprehending but one point at a time in the great circumference—most usually embodies itself, is levelled down, safely enough, afterwards, as in history so in the individual, by the weakness and mere weariness, as well as by the maturer wisdom, of our nature. And though truth indeed, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... plate boxes filled with concrete. The form of the dome has one inconvenience, viz., the embrasure in it is necessarily very oblique, and offers quite an elongated ellipse to blows, and the edges of the bevel upon a portion of the circumference are not strong enough. In order to close the embrasure as tightly as possible, the gun is surrounded with a ring provided with trunnions that enter the sides of the embrasure. The motion of the piece necessary ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... rock. This rock, with the castle that crowns the summit of it, rears its lofty head now in the very centre of the town, with deep valleys all around it. This rock, or rather rocky hill,—for it is nearly a mile in circumference,—is very steep on all sides but one. On that side there is a gradual slope, a mile or more in length, leading down to the level country. A great many centuries ago the military chieftains of those days built the castle on the hill. About ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott

... three-fourths of the outer wall of the shell remained. At one end was the long spike-like base which served as a handle, and at the other the flat conical apex, with its very pronounced spiral line or ridge expanding from the center to the circumference, as seen in Fig. 475 a. This vessel was often copied in clay, as many good examples now in our museums testify. The notable feature is that the shell has been copied literally, the spiral appearing in its proper place. A specimen is illustrated in Fig. 475 b which, although ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes

... flourish on the island of Ste. Croix, which is about half a league in circumference. The rays of the sun parched the sand so that the gardens were entirely unproductive, and there was a complete dearth of water. At the commencement there was a fair quantity of wood, but when the buildings were finished there was scarcely any left; the inhabitants, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... the people upon it were created principally for her pleasure. The Americas to give her chocolate, the Indian isles to sweeten it for her, the ocean tides to bring her feathers and finery. She is her own centre and circumference, like her mother." ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... astronomically determined by the Jesuit missionaries, and is marked on our maps of Mongolia. Pozdneiev, who visited the place in 1877, obligingly informs me that the square earthen wall surrounding the monastery of Erdenidsu, and measuring about an English mile in circumference, may well be the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been expanded by coral dredging; North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina) are manmade islands formed from coral dredging; the egg-shaped reef is 34 km in circumference; closed to the public; a former US nuclear weapons test site; site of now-closed Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS); most facilities dismantled and cleanup complete in 2004; ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... abrupt and precipitous above their heads. It was larger in its circumference and with much larger space on its summit than those other volcanic rocks in and close to the town; but then at the same time it was higher from the ground, and quite as inaccessible, except by the single path which ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope

... machine consists of two colossal iron rolls, each of 15 feet diameter, and 6-1/2 feet length, geared into each other so as to revolve horizontally in opposite directions and with equal velocity. These rolls are hollow, their circumference consists of stout iron plate perforated with numerous small holes, and is supported by iron bars which connect the ends of the roll, having intervals between them of about one inch. Each roll is covered ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... one right; so that it was impossible to tell from which side the provocation came, and the only part of the entire business that was clear to the eyes of all was the inevitable, the fatal law which at a given moment hurls nation against nation. Then Paris was convulsed from center to circumference; he remembered that burning summer's night, the tossing, struggling human tide that filled the boulevards, the bands of men brandishing torches before the Hotel de Ville, and yelling: "On to Berlin! on to Berlin!" and he seemed to hear the strains of the Marseillaise, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... moderate rate of walking, about an hour and a half, so that the oasis may be about five miles in circumference. What a scene of hideous desolation did the environs present—nor tree, nor herb, nor living creature! Talk of the Poles, there is less life here! On the west, the groups of sand-hills, which stretch ten days' journey, were all ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... call appears Above the waves: a Tyrian robe he wears, And in his hands a crooked trumpet bears. The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire, And give the waves the signal to retire. The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar, Obey the summons, and forsake the shore. A thin circumference of land appears, And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears, And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds: The streams, but just contained within their bounds, By slow degrees into their channels crawl, And earth increases as the waters fall: ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... mystic cause for rejoicing. The real cause could not possibly be that one was now able to telegraph "Good morning, Mr. Smith," or "Good morning, Mr. Brown," twenty times a minute around the earth's circumference, or that one could adulterate humanity's mind with newspaper gossip from the four quarters ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in the possession of Dr. Mead; he was crowned by Augustus. Well, but about writing-what do you think I write with? Nay, with a pen; there was never a one to be found in the whole circumference but one, and that was in the possession of the governor, and had been used time out of mind to write the parole with : I was forced to send to borrow it. It was sent me under the conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss, with desire to return it when I should ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... which forms the skin. As soon as food enters the stomach, its nerves are excited to perform their proper function of stimulating the muscles. A muscular (called the peristaltic) motion immediately commences, by which the stomach propels its contents around the whole of its circumference, once ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... was going on, I stood in a circle, of which I was the centre, and the admiral and the captains formed the circumference; what little air there was their bodies intercepted, so that I was not only in a stew, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the vicars of Southwell, ann. 1262, had in its circumference the words "Commune sigillum Vicariorum Suuell."—Vid. Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, North Muskham, ed. 1796, vol. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... away, on the circumference of being, as it were; and he at the centre, safe and warm, was ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... of new experiences. When one is told that Brutus assassinated Caesar, or that the length of the year is three hundred sixty-five and one fourth days, or that the ratio of the diameter of the circle to its circumference is 3.1415. . . one receives what is indeed knowledge for others, but for him it is a stimulus to knowing. His acquisition of knowledge depends upon his ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... long desires, and that nothing lasting is obtained but what is obtained by toil. When men have accustomed themselves to foresee from afar what is likely to befall in the world and to feed upon hopes, they can hardly confine their minds within the precise circumference of life, and they are ready to break the boundary and cast their looks beyond. I do not doubt that, by training the members of a community to think of their future condition in this world, they would be gradually and unconsciously brought nearer to religious convictions. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... little toward the head of the animal—cuts off the hair which covers the hide in the middle of the flanks, at an equal distance between the back and hip, for the space of thirteen or fourteen centimetres in circumference (the French centimetre is rather more than thirty-nine one hundredths of an inch); a convex bistoury is placed, opened, between his teeth, the edge out, the joints to the left; then, with both hands, he seizes ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... to say that he was swallowed by a big boa-constrictor one hundred and sixty feet long, and twelve feet in circumference," replied the captain of the Blanchita, as seriously as though there had been such ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... arose, and pushed back all benches, stools, and chairs, so as to enlarge the circumference of the ring, and the six girls who were to run stepped out upon the green. The youngest son of the house of Jaquelin checked them off in ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... Louis Chatelain, welcomes his visitors. The French Fine Arts have built a charming house with gardens and pergolas for the custodian of the ruins, and have found in M. Chatelain an archaeologist so absorbed in his task that, as soon as conditions permit, every inch of soil in the circumference of the city will be made to yield up ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... little sticks and splinters to a tiny fire, now almost burned out, near the circumference of ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... "ringing the wild horse." This requires a large party of horsemen, well mounted. They extend themselves in each direction, at a certain distance apart, and gradually form a ring of two or three miles in circumference, so as to surround the game. This must be done with extreme care, for the wild horse is the most readily alarmed inhabitant of the prairie, and can scent a hunter a great ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... are 4 metres 20 thick, 46 metres in circumference at the base, and 30 metres high. These last two measurements show a difference of only two metres from those of the vanished Tour du Louvre. Before this chapter closes I shall be able to explain how it is that you are ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... game and public morals. By administering the laws which he assists in making, he disposes, at his pleasure, of the land and its live stock, including all the two-legged varieties, with and without feathers, in a circumference of several miles round Steeltrap Lodge. He has enclosed commons and woodlands; abolished cottage gardens; taken the village cricket- ground into his own park, out of pure regard to the sanctity of Sunday; shut up footpaths and alehouses (all but those ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... had previously cut and welded the tire, reducing its circumference, and when it was hot enough, he and Sandy, each with a pair of tongs, lifted it from the red-hot circle of fire. It was pressed and hammered down on the blazing rim of the wheel, and instantly Sandy and Macdonald, with two pails of water that stood handy, poured the cold liquid around the red-hot ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... tells us of the Arabic "Examination of planets and of time, starting from the centre of the world, called Arim, from which place to the four ends of the earth the distance is equal, viz., ninety degrees, answering to the fourth part of the world's circumference. It is tedious and unending to attempt to place all the countries of the world and to fix all the marks of time. So the meridian is taken as the measure of the latter and Arim of the former, and ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... of the atmosphere, but not so brilliant as the sun itself. This circle was about half as broad as the apparent size of the sun, through which it seemed to pass, while on each side of the sun, at about the distance of a sixth of the circumference of the ring, which likewise traversed them, were situated two mock suns, resembling the real sun in everything but brightness, and on the opposite side of the circle two other mock suns were placed, distant from each other about ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... loaded with gray limestones chiselled round; and to my inquiry what the stones were for, I was told they were bullets twelve spans in circumference, and that the charge of powder used would cast them ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... experienced.—There appeared hardly a ray of hope that my friend Bracket could return, seeing the boat was lost. Our provisions nearly gone; our mouths parched extremely with thirst; our strength wasted; our spirits broken, and our hopes imprisoned within the circumference of this desolate island in the midst of an unfrequented ocean; all these things gave to the scene around us the hue of death. In the midst of this dreadful despondence, a sail hove in sight bearing the white flag! Our hopes were raised, of course—but no sooner raised than darkened, by ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... a circular hole about 2 ft. 9 in. deep and, say 12 ft. in diameter. An outer and inner wall are then constructed of slabs 2 ft. 6 in. in height to ground level, the outer wall being thus 30 ft. and the inner 15 ft. in circumference. The circular space between is floored with smooth hardwood slabs or boards, and the whole made secure and water-tight. In the middle of the inner enclosure a stout post is planted, to stand a few inches above the wall, and the surrounding ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... introduced. Placed in the middle of the terrace between a sashed-door opening from the house and the central flight of steps, a huge animal of the same species supported on his head and fore-paws a sun-dial of large circumference, inscribed with more diagrams than Edward's mathematics enabled him ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... of his brain compares favorably with what is known of other intellectual giants, as the following measurements will demonstrate. The actual circumference of the head around the base of the brain was twenty-four inches. The measurement from ear to ear over the top of the head fifteen and a half inches, while the forehead measures from ear to ear over ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... les capitaineries royales et autres," (1789) passim.—De Lomenie, "Beaumarchais et son emps," I. 125. Beaumarchais having purchased the office of lieutenant-general of the chase in the bailiwicks of the Louvre warren (twelve to fifteen leagues in circumference. approx. 60 km. SR.) tries delinquents under this title. July 15th, 1766, he sentences Ragondet, a farmer to a fine of one hundred livres together with the demolition of the walls around an enclosure, also of his shed ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... take up the business when I let go!" he murmured happily. "Oh, Matt, I'm so blamed sorry for you; but it's just got to be done. If you're going to build up the Blue Star Navigation Company after the Panama Canal is opened for business, you've got to know shipping; and to know it from center to circumference. It isn't sufficient that you be master of sail and steam, any ocean, any tonnage. You've got to learn the business from the rules as promulgated by little old Alden P. Ricks, the slave driver. There's hope for you, sonny. You have ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... will cover a great many years; they are in fact no more than the years between youth and middle age. But though the wheel may not travel very far in the action as we see it, there must be no doubt of the great size of the wheel; it must seem to turn in a large circumference, though only a part of its journey is to be watched. The revolution of life, marked by the rising and sinking of a certain generation—such is the story; and the years that Tolstoy treats, fifteen or so, may be quite enough to show the sweep of the curve. At five-and-twenty a ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... great achiever! the marvellous magician! Look at him! A head hardly six feet above the ground out of which he was taken. His "dome of thought and palace of the soul" scarce twenty-two inches in circumference; and within it, a little, gray, oval mass of "convoluted albumen and fibre, of some four pounds' weight," and there sits the intelligence which has worked all these wonders! An intelligence, say, six thousand years old next century. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... and on the bastions and buttresses of the castle, and their shadows lay in massy blackness on the illuminated walls: on the other, it shone upon the woods, streaming far within among the open trunks, or resting on the closer foliage. The circumference of darkness bounded the scene on all sides: and in the centre raged the war; shields, helmets, and bucklers gleaming and glittering as they rang and clashed against each other; plumes confusedly ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... splendors of Thy face irradiate the celestial region and felicitate the saints. There are the most exuberant profusions of Thy grace, and the sempiternal efflux of Thy glory. God is an abyss of light, a circle whose center is everywhere and His circumference nowhere. Hell is the dark world made up of spiritual sulphur and other ignited ingredients, disunited and unharmonized, and without that pure balsamic oil that flows from the heart ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... prepared paper, on quite the same principle on which in vision the crystalline lens conveys them to the retina. In the centre of the field in both cases there is much distinctness, while all around its circumference the images are indistinct and dim. We have but to fix the eye on some object directly in front of us, and then attempt, without removing it, to ascertain the forms of objects at some distance on both sides, in order to convince ourselves that the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... Zurich school (Bleuler, Jung) had planned the association method in order to penetrate into the patient's subconsciousness. The value of this method is chiefly a theoretical experimental one; it leads to an orientation of large circumference, but necessarily superficial in regard to the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... Captain Wallis, who called it King George's Island; but it is better known by the name of Tahiti. It is of volcanic formation, and consists of two peninsulas joined by a neck of low land, about two miles across. The whole island is about thirty miles in circumference. The smaller portion, called Tairaboo, is the most fertile; but as Tahiti proper has the best harbour, it is the most frequented, and ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... eldest son of a prince, who, besides being the premier noble of the empire, possessed, in his own country, a very pretty park of two or three hundred miles in circumference, in the boundaries of which the imperial mandate was not current, but hid its diminished head before the supremacy of a subject worshipped under the title of John the Twenty-fourth. M. de Whiskerburg was a young man, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... arches of the most massive masonry, and between the great piers built to sustain the arches, until they reached the arena. There was a broad gravel walk passing across the arena from end to end, and another leading around the circumference of it. The rest of the surface was covered with grass, smooth ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott

... it is only by degrees that the transformation spreads through our being. The renewing process follows upon the bestowment of the new life, and works from its deep inward centre outwards and upwards to the circumference and surface of our being, on condition of our own constant diligence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... night. "Life is too easy here." The light from the porch lanterns cast a feeble glow out beyond the porte-cochere and down the drive. As she stared across the circle, the figure of a woman suddenly cut a diametric line through it, and lost itself in the wall of blackness that formed the circumference. Lady Evelyn started and stared unbelievingly into the darkness, striving to ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... diameter, standing in a basin; through the centre of the upper stone there was an opening through which the wheat was poured, and upon two sides were erect wooden handles, by which the women turned the stone round and round, and back and forth, and the meal escaped into the pan at the circumference. I said to our dragoman: "We have not had a bit of good bread in Egypt. We have been stopping at hotels where they think they must give the Americans and Englishmen white bread. Now, I wish you would bring me some bread made from that flour to-morrow ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... came, contemporaries, to add their labour and their lives to the building of this little outpost of Empire. It was the frankest transfer, without thought of return; they were there to spend and be spent within the circumference of the spot they had chosen, with no ambition beyond. In the course of nature, even their bones and their memories would enter into the fabric. The new country filled their eyes; the new town was their opportunity, its destiny their fate. They ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... had taken care of that. She was watchful for the small impressions she could make in behalf of her particular friends. She carried about with her a little social circumference in which all was preeminently ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... and learned heathen (said Luther) have described God, that he is as a circle, the point whereof in the midst is every where; but the circumference, which on the outside goeth round about, is no where: herewith they would shew that God is all, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... ancient and sacred history was built by the Cushites, or Ethiopians. They surrounded it with walls which, according to Rollin, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and fifty feet in height and four hundred and eighty furlongs in circumference. And even this stupendous work they shortly after eclipsed by another, of which Diodorus says, "Never did any city come up to the greatness and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... most extravagant and fantastical. What passion is there so unmeaning and irrational as avarice itself? The Dutch went mad for tulips, and —— —— for love! To return to what was said a little way back, a question might be started, whether as thought relates to the whole circumference of things and interests, and business is confined to a very small part of them, viz. to a knowledge of a man's own affairs and the making of his own fortune, whether a talent for the latter will not generally exist in proportion to the narrowness ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... so called from its variety of color in different persons, and upon which alone the color of the eye depends. The iris is a circular membrane situated just behind the cornea, and is attached to one of the coats at its circumference. In its center is a small round hole, called the pupil; and sometimes spoken of familiarly as the sight of the eye, as no light can enter the eye except through it. The iris possesses the power of dilating ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... Mandans, remarks: "This Medicine Stone is the great oracle of the Mandans, and, whatever it announces, is received with the most implicit confidence. Every spring, and on some occasions during the summer, a deputation visits the sacred spot, where there is a thick porous stone, twenty feet in circumference, with a smooth surface. Having reached the place, the ceremony of smoking to it is performed by the deputies, who alternately take a, whiff themselves, and then present the pipe to the stone; after this, they retire to the adjoining wood for ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... itself, it was caused by blazing bits of tow fastened to the circumference of the big wire hoops. And thus through the blazing circles Joe Strong slid down the slanting wire on his head. At the lower end of the wire, where it was fast to a stake in the ground, he caught hold of the cable in his gloved hands and so slowed his speed. Then he leaped to his ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... interesting relics in the Servian capital is an old Roman well, dug from the brow of the fortress hill to below the level of the Danube, for furnishing water to the city when cut off from the river by a besieging army. It is an enormous affair, a tubular brick wall about forty feet in circumference and two hundred and fifty feet deep, outside of which a stone stairway, winding round and round the shaft, leads from top to bottom. Openings through the wall, six feet high and three wide, occur at regular intervals all the way down, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... turned loose pirates to plunder your unarmed ships. The truth is, when you robbed us of our part of the navy, we built and bought a few vessels, hoisted the flag of our country, and swept the seas, in defiance of your navy, around the whole circumference of the globe. You say we have expelled Union families by thousands. The truth is, not a single family has been expelled from the Confederate States, that I am aware of; but, on the contrary, the moderation of our Government toward traitors has been a fruitful theme of denunciation by ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... tall, thirty feet wide near base, ovate, conical, pointed; trunk seven feet in circumference near base and ridged lengthwise, but only four feet at the height of six feet from the ground, where it becomes round or nearly so, then gradually tapering to the top; branches small, very numerous, beginning six feet from the ground, sloping upward from the trunk at an angle of nearly ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... years of determined exploration aided by the most modern appliances, the interior of this supposed continent is entirely unknown and uncharted except in the Ross Sea area, while the fringes of the land are only discovered in perhaps a dozen places on a circumference ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... sensibilities; the sense of grandeur, the sense of space, the sense of natural beauty, and the sense of human pathos; that deep internal faculty we call historic sense; that it cannot be defined. First comes the immense surrounding space—a space measured in each arc of the circumference by sections of at least fifty miles, limited by points of exquisitely picturesque beauty, including distant cloud-like mountain ranges and crystals of sky-blue Apennines, circumscribing landscapes of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... the right bank of the Shelif, seventy-two miles; the southern boundary from the Shelif to the chain of the Little Atlas, twenty-one miles; from the Little Atlas to the Mediterranean, eighteen miles; and sixty miles of the shore of the Mediterranean itself, making in all an entire circumference of about ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... Stella were receiving calls to labor from other States, and finally decided to go to Illinois. Kansas wired the following message to the Central Committee of California: "Kansas is all ablaze with the C.M. from its center to its circumference, and its fires have leaped the borders into Nebraska, Iowa, and ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... between the filaments. I could detect no difference in the two forms in the size of the stigmatic papillae. In the long- styled form alone the stigmatic surfaces of the mature pistils twist round, so as to face the circumference of the flower; but to this point I shall presently return. Differently from what occurs in L. grandiflorum, the long-styled flowers have stamens hardly more than half the length of those in the short-styled. The size of the pollen-grains is rather variable; after ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin

... fruit itself are yellow. It tastes a little like turpentine, but loses this taste more and more the riper it gets. This fruit is of the best description; it is full and juicy, and has a long, broad kernel in the middle. The bread and mango trees grow to a great height and circumference. The leaves of the former are about three feet long, a foot and a-half broad, and deeply serrated; while those of the latter are not much larger than the leaves ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... 30 m. SE. of Ferrara; famous for fish, specially eel-culture in a large lagoon adjoining, 90 in. in circumference. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... nm Territorial sea: 12 nm Disputes: claimed by Mexico Climate: tropical Terrain: coral atoll Natural resources: none Land use: arable land 0%; permanent crops 0%; meadows and pastures 0%; forest and woodland 0%; other (coral) 100% Environment: reef about 8 km in circumference Note: located 1,120 km southwest of Mexico in the North Pacific Ocean; also called Ile ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Socquard manufactured his boiled wine, are sufficient to explain why his name and that of the Cafe de la Paix were popular; but there were other reasons for their renown. Nothing better than wine could be got at Tonsard's and the other taverns in the valley; from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes, in a circumference of twenty miles, the Cafe Socquard was the only place where the guests could play billiards and drink the punch so admirably concocted by the proprietor. There alone could be found a display of foreign wines, fine liqueurs, and brandied fruits. Its name resounded daily throughout the valley, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... was he? Perforce he had lost his bearings. He scanned the whole circumference of the horizon, and saw nothing but the vast dark ocean plain and its immense blue dome—never a yard of land, never a stitch of canvas. He had no means of ascertaining his latitude. During the twelve hours ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... chief astronomical observatory of the world, a century and a half before Tycho Brahe (1576) erected Uranibourg in Denmark. The town was filled with noble buildings,—mosques, tombs, and colleges. Its walls were five miles in circumference[2]. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... a Circle, the center wherof two little Spyrits did hold, with their backs turned towards the circumference of the Circle. ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... south-east side of the Miami of the lakes, and at the foot of the rapids of that stream, was an octagonal enclosure, with eight block houses, picketed with timber, and surrounded by ditches. It was two thousand five hundred yards in circumference, and required, to garrison it with efficiency, about two thousand men. It was constructed under the immediate superintendence of colonel E. D. Wood, of the corps of engineers, one of the most scientific and gallant officers of the late ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... to devise a use for some new implement of description. Every strange word that makes its way into a language spins for itself a web of usage and circumstance, relating itself from whatsoever centre to fresh points in the circumference. No two words ever coincide throughout their whole extent. If sometimes good writers are found adding epithet to epithet for the same quality, and name to name for the same thing, it is because they despair of capturing ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... appearance of flame, but rather of highly luminous mist, brilliant at the core, and softening off and becoming more dim as the circumference of the globe was reached; and it emitted a feeble and unearthly light ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... have halted at length on the south-western borders of a great lake, of which there were several in the Mexican valley. This celebrated valley was situated at a height of about 7,500 feet above the sea, and was oval in form, about 67 leagues in circumference, and surrounded by towering rocks, which seemed to be meant to protect it from invasion. It was in the year 1325 that the Aztecs paused upon the shore of the lake, and saw, as the sun rose, a splendid eagle perched upon a prickly pear which shot out of a crevice ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... sprites, assisted by the more deliberate Teddy and Liz, acted as "the grown-up people" attending as hostesses and host to the requirements of "the children," as they called their father and Mary and Jupp, not omitting Joe the gardener, who, squatting down on the extreme circumference of their little circle, kept up a perpetual grin over the acres of bread and butter he consumed, just as if he were having a real meal and not ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... Spirit, to all appearance, was doomed to a very long imprisonment, but Dic Spot did not foresee the wants and enterprise of the people of Liverpool, who would one day convert the Llanwddyn Valley into a lake fifteen miles in circumference, and release the Spirit from prison by the process of making ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... very simple and powerful one. The decortication is effected with wonderful rapidity, and the canes, opened throughout their entire length and at all points of their circumference, leave the apparatus in a state that allows of no doubt as to what the result of the pressure will be that they have to undergo. There is no tearing, no trituration, no loss of juice, but merely a simple preparation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... Ikan stream twice we arrived at some hot springs, about three or four miles in the winding course we were obliged to take from dusun Tanjong, situated in a low swampy spot, about sixty yards in circumference. This is very hot in every part of it, excepting (which is very extraordinary) one place on its eastern side, where, although a hot spring is bubbling up within one yard of it, the water running from ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... measurement." Somewhat paradoxical, is it not? But let us examine the matter. A "dimension," you know, is "a measure in a straight line, relating to measure," etc. The ordinary dimensions of space are length, breadth, and height, or perhaps length, breadth, height, thickness or circumference. But there is another dimension of "created things" or "measure in a straight line," known to occultists, and to scientists as well, although the latter have not as yet applied the term "dimension" to it—and this new dimension, which, by the ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates

... who, confident in my pacific intentions towards them, came to fetch us, to take us to the village. We proceeded cheerfully on the remainder of the road until we reached the spot where ended the sort of funnel we were walking in. Upon this height there was to be seen a plain, some miles in circumference, surrounded by high mountains. The part that we were in was stopped up by enormous blocks of rocks, lying one on the top of the other. From behind stretched forth an abrupt threatening mountain, without any signs of vegetation—not unlike ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... any one set of nozzles. The idea is to keep the velocity of the steam in each stage as nearly constant as possible. The nozzles in the diaphragms and the intermediates do not, except in the lowest stage, take up the entire circumference, but are proportioned to the progressive expansion of steam as it descends toward ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins

... handle of the reel with the right hand until the thread has been twisted long enough to be wound on the reel, with the hands in the position as shown by Fig. 3. When the threads have been twisted of sufficient length, wind them tight on a long wooden board four inches and seven-eighths in circumference (see Fig. 4), and for the heading of the fringe crochet on each thread 1 sc. (single crochet) with claret-colored worsted. Withdraw the board from the loops, twist these, and on the sc. work a second ...
— Harper's Young People, December 2, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... miserable plight, suffering, I thought, from acute internal inflammation. After dinner we had some very pretty rifle practice, at short distances, with a huge, clumsy weapon. I saw a boy of sixteen put five consecutive bullets into the circumference of a half-crown ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... circumference is termed an arc of a circle or an arc; thus Figure 46 represents an arc. When this arc has breadth it is termed a segment; thus Figures 47 and 48 are segments of a circle. A straight line cutting off an arc is termed the chord of the arc; thus, in ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... of plugged gas pipe. His upraised arm shot forward. There was a shiver of smashed window-panes, then—a void—a red whirl of confusion, the air rent, the ground rocking, himself flung headlong, flung off the spinning circumference of things out into a place of terror and vacancy and darkness. And then after a long time the return of reason, the consciousness that his feet were set upon the road to Los Muertos, and that he was fleeing terror-stricken, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... climbed until the full terrors of the boiling crater of Kilawea burst on her sight. Before her an immense gulf yawned in the shape of the crescent moon, eight miles in circumference and over a thousand feet deep. Down in the smoking hollow, hundreds of feet beneath her, a lake of fiery lava rolled in flaming waves against precipices of rock. This ever-moving lake of molten fire is called: "The House of Everlasting ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... portiere of tapestry, and facing a window. Within the horseshoe curve was a genuine Turkish divan, that is to say, a mattress resting directly upon the floor, a mattress as large as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference and covered with white cashmere, relieved by tufts of black and poppy-red silk arranged in a diamond pattern. The headboard of this immense bed rose several inches above the numerous cushions which still further enriched it by the good taste of their harmonious tints. ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree, which for centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which, at the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight, and now lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... was, for Tom kept his eyes riveted on the gangway), there appeared the tall figure of a lieutenant. Tom thought he was of the medical corps, but he was not certain. He seemed to be looking down at Mr. Conne's little group, with a fierce, piercing stare. He wore horned spectacles of goodly circumference and as Tom's eyes followed the thick, left wing of these, he saw that it embraced an ear which stood out prominently. Both the ear and the piercing eagle gaze set ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... difficult at first to believe that a city so quaint and peculiar still exists intact. It is precisely like looking at a pictured town in an old missal, with its series of square towers, and long curtain wall embracing its entire circumference; its old castle perched on the rock, and its great massive round towers proudly protecting its chief gates upon all sides. There is a strange "old-world" look about everything within these walls also, and we scarcely feel that we have arrived at the ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... parchment the text was illuminated with inimitable Florentine skill and color. A little carelessly, after the manner of people quite accustomed to priceless things, she proceeded now to roll the parchment into its smallest possible circumference, humming exclusively to herself all the while an intricate little air from an ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... 'synonyms' and 'synonymous' applied to words, affirm of them that they cover not merely almost, but altogether, the same extent of meaning, that they are in their signification perfectly identical and coincident; circles, so to speak, with the same centre and the same circumference. The term, however, is not ordinarily so used; it evidently is not so by such as undertake to trace out the distinction between synonyms; for, without venturing to deny that there may be such perfect synonyms, words, that is, with ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... hundred leguas. In some parts its width is more constricted than in others, especially in the middle of the island, where it is so narrow that it is less than thirty leguas from sea to sea, or from one coast to the other. The whole island is more than four hundred leguas in circumference. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... circumference: husks rather thin, firm, green turning to brown, separating completely into 4 sections: nut variable in size, subglobose, white, usually 4-angled: ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame

... to fulfil these requirements that the present maps have been constructed. Each exhibits the aspect of the whole sky at a given day and hour. The circumference of the map represents the natural horizon, the middle of the map representing the part of the sky which lies immediately overhead. If the learner hold one of these maps over his head, so as to look vertically upwards at ...
— Half-Hours with the Stars - A Plain and Easy Guide to the Knowledge of the Constellations • Richard A. Proctor

... Englishman proud of, and pleased with, his own country, which in verdure excels, I believe, every other country. Another deficiency here is the want of large trees, nothing above a shrub being here to be discovered in the circumference of ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... divines of the fourth century on equality. There was one essential and inevitable transformation in politics. Popular governments had existed, and also mixed and federal governments, but there had been no limited government, no State the circumference of whose authority had been defined by a force external to its own. That was the great problem which philosophy had raised, and which no statesmanship had been able to solve. Those who proclaimed the assistance of a higher authority had indeed drawn a metaphysical barrier before ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... the most ancient times. He also discourses of the multitude of men in it, and of the construction of our temple, after the following manner: "There are many strong places and villages [says he] in the country of Judea; but one strong city there is, about fifty furlongs in circumference, which is inhabited by a hundred and twenty thousand men, or thereabouts; they call it Jerusalem. There is about the middle of the city a wall of stone, whose length is five hundred feet, and the breadth a ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been expanded by coral dredging; North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina) are manmade islands formed from coral dredging; the egg-shaped reef is 34 km in circumference Kingman Reef: barren coral atoll with deep interior lagoon; closed to the public Midway Islands: a coral atoll managed as a national wildlife refuge and open to the public for wildlife-related recreation in the form of wildlife observation ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... chum Had wielded, in his just defence, A bowl of vast circumference.—Rebelliad, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... Fathers Fray Martin de Herrada, Fray Geronymo Marin, [23] and their associates. The Spaniards explored the said islands, and colonized some of them for his Majesty, especially that of Manila. This island has a circumference of five hundred leagues. The city of Lucon (also called Manila) was settled there. It is, as it were, the metropolis of the island. In this city the governors who have gone to the Felipinas since their discovery have, as a rule, resided. There ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... sugar-cane; and among a variety of tropical trees, such as the guava, tamarind, plantain, and custard-apple, there was a species of the monkey-bread tree, which struck us as very curious. This tree was about sixty feet high and forty feet in circumference; the bark was smooth, and of a greyish colour, and the boughs were entirely destitute of leaves. This fruit hung thickly at the end of twisted, spongy stalks, from one to two feet long. The fruit is of an oval form, about six inches in length, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... exactness to that now in use among the moderns;—who could scarcely have made a mere guess when they fixed the moon's distance from its primary planet at fifty-nine semi-diameters of the earth;—who had measured the circumference of our globe with so much exactness that their calculation only differed by a few feet from that made by our modern geometricians;—who held that the moon and the other planets were worlds like our own, and that the moon was diversified by mountains and valleys and seas;—who asserted that ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... stood upon moss-grown and in ruins. The church itself is a plain quiet structure, but the sylvan beauty and peaceful seclusion of the situation cannot be surpassed. We measured the great yews, and several of them were twenty-four or twenty-five feet in circumference at four feet from the ground. There were some graves enclosed in railings, and surrounded by evergreens and rose-trees; and the sentiment of the place was not destroyed by a few nibbling sheep that cropped the short grass on the graves where the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept. Can the sepulchral ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... near the three, Robert's and Willet's swords, and Tayoga's bow and arrows in their case resting on the top. Robert threw more wood on the fire, and contentedly watched the great, glowing circle of light extend its circumference. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... The blooming lychnis exhaled sweet odours. My light was faint, my face pale as the water lily that, torn from its stem, has been drifting for weeks with the tide. The crown-shaped Northern Light burned fiercely in the sky. Its ring was broad, and from its circumference the rays shot like whirling shafts of fire across the whole sky, flashing in changing radiance from green to red. The inhabitants of that icy region were assembling for dance and festivity; but, accustomed ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... churchyard is very small, and is encompassed by a gray stone fence that looks as ancient as the church itself. In front of the tower, on the village-green, is a yew-tree of incalculable age, with a vast circumference of trunk, but a very scanty head of foliage; though its boughs still keep some of the vitality which perhaps was in its early prime when the Saxon invaders founded Whitnash. A thousand years is no extraordinary ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne



Words linked to "Circumference" :   size, circumferent, perimeter, mete, length, circuit, delimitation, circumferential, girth, boundary line



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