DIRECT EVIDENCE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Direct evidence

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/dərˈɛkt ˈɛvədəns/ Listen

adjective

Direct adj.

1.

Straight; not crooked, oblique, or circuitous; leading by the short or shortest way to a point or end; as, a direct line; direct means. "What is direct to, what slides by, the question."

2.

Straightforward; not of crooked ways, or swerving from truth and openness; sincere; outspoken. "Be even and direct with me."

3.

Immediate; express; plain; unambiguous. "He nowhere, that I know, says it in direct words." "A direct and avowed interference with elections."

4.

In the line of descent; not collateral; as, a descendant in the direct line.

5.

(Astron.) In the direction of the general planetary motion, or from west to east; in the order of the signs; not retrograde; said of the motion of a celestial body.

6.

(Political Science) Pertaining to, or effected immediately by, action of the people through their votes instead of through one or more representatives or delegates; as, direct nomination, direct legislation.

Direct action.

(a)

(Mach.) See Direct-acting.

(b)

(Trade unions) See Syndicalism, below.

Direct discourse (Gram.), the language of any one quoted without change in its form; as, he said "I can not come;" correlative to indirect discourse, in which there is change of form; as, he said that he could not come. They are often called respectively by their Latin names, oratio directa, and oratio obliqua.

Direct evidence (Law), evidence which is positive or not inferential; opposed to circumstantial evidence, or indirect evidence. This distinction, however, is merely formal, since there is no direct evidence that is not circumstantial, or dependent on circumstances for its credibility.

Direct examination (Law), the first examination of a witness in the orderly course, upon the merits.

Direct fire (Mil.), fire, the direction of which is perpendicular to the line of troops or to the parapet aimed at.

Direct process (Metal.), one which yields metal in working condition by a single process from the ore.

Direct tax, a tax assessed directly on lands, etc., and polls, distinguished from taxes on merchandise, or customs, and from excise.

See images of 'Direct evidence'

Etymology of 'Direct evidence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Direct evidence" Quotes from Famous Books

... story is reported, not quoted at full length. It has been reduced by the poet of Beowulf, so as not to take up too large a place of its own in the composition. Such as it is, it may very well count as direct evidence of the way in which epic poems were produced and set before an audience; and it may prove that it was possible for an old English epic to deal with almost the whole of a tragic history in one sitting. In this case the tragedy is far less complex than the tale of the Niblungs, whatever ...

— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... hypothesis be maintained and carried out into a system on similar grounds? If so, however unproved, it would appear to be a tenable hypothesis, which is all that its author ought now to claim. Such hypotheses as, from the conditions of the case, can neither be proved nor disproved by direct evidence or experiment, are to be tested only indirectly, and therefore imperfectly, by trying their power to harmonize the known facts, and to account for what is otherwise unaccountable. So the question comes to this: What will an hypothesis of the derivation of species explain which ...

— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... he had to tell it out in direct evidence. When he is there in the court telling it, he will not think much of Mr. Lax, nor even of Pat Carroll, who will be in the dock glaring at him; nor would he think much of anything but his direct story, while a friendly barrister is drawing it out of him; ...

— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... artificial selection, the individuals of which are fertile among themselves and infertile with the parent stock. It may properly be alleged that there has not been time enough for such a slow process, but it yet remains as true as ever that there is no direct evidence in nature of what the Darwinians call favorable variation. It is the unwritten law of nature that one race must die that another may live, this other, in its turn, subserving the same end. Without this law nature would be a chaotic impossibility. If natural selection were ...

— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various

... glasses or telescopes. Normally, we can see but a few hundred stars in the sky; with the aid of telescopes, we can see many thousand; but the photographic camera discloses more than twenty million! Here, then, is direct evidence that the camera can observe things which we cannot see; and, indeed, this whole process of sight or "seeing" is a far more complicated one than most persons imagine. As Sir Oliver Lodge has pointed out, there is no reason why we should not be enabled to photograph a spirit, when we can ...

— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... and orders. No one had suspected her money matters of being in disorder, and Rachel was very slow to comprehend; her simple, country life had made her utterly unaware of the difficulties and ways and means of a young lady of fashion. Even the direct evidence before her eyes would not at first persuade her that it was not "all those wicked tradesmen;" she had always heard that fashionable shops were not to ...

— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had been imprisoned at Davenport, Iowa, with those who took part in the massacre or in the battles following, and he was taught in prison and converted by the pioneer missionaries, Drs. Williamson and Riggs. He was under sentence of death, but was among the number against whom no direct evidence was found, and who were finally pardoned ...

— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... however, of the absence of such direct evidence, we may affirm without fear that the Chaldaean architects soon discovered the principle of the arch, and used it at least in its simplest and least complex forms. We are led to these conclusions not only by their restriction ...

— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... ignorance, and we may, therefore, expect to find many details very difficult of explanation, and in attempting to give one, must allow ourselves to call into our service geological changes which it is highly probable may have occurred, though we have no direct evidence of their individual operation. ...

— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

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