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Calibre   Listen
noun
Calibre, Caliber  n.  
1.
(Gunnery) The diameter of the bore, as a cannon or other firearm, or of any tube; or the weight or size of the projectile which a firearm will carry; as, an 8 inch gun, a 12-pounder, a 44 caliber. "The caliber of empty tubes." "A battery composed of three guns of small caliber." Note: The caliber of firearms is expressed in various ways. Cannon are often designated by the weight of a solid spherical shot that will fit the bore; as, a 12-pounder; pieces of ordnance that project shell or hollow shot are designated by the diameter of their bore; as, a 12 inch mortar or a 14 inch shell gun; small arms are designated by hundredths of an inch expressed decimally; as, a rifle of.44 inch caliber.
2.
The diameter of round or cylindrical body, as of a bullet or column.
3.
Fig.: Capacity or compass of mind.
Caliber compasses. See Calipers.
Caliber rule, a gunner's calipers, an instrument having two scales arranged to determine a ball's weight from its diameter, and conversely.
A ship's caliber, the weight of her armament.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Calibre" Quotes from Famous Books



... entanglements and connected those entanglements with the city lighting system; one of its officers went on a secret mission to England and brought back with him a supply of cordite, not to mention six large-calibre guns which he smuggled through Dutch territorial waters hidden in the steamer's coal bunkers. And, as though all this were not enough, the Belgian Government confided to this foreign corporation the minting of the national currency. For ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell

... nine-pounder), and along by a breastwork pierced with embrasures to the important battery on Day Point, at the extreme south-east. Here five thirty-two pounders—and, three hundred yards away to the west, in the great Windlass Battery, no fewer than eleven guns of the same calibre—had grinned defiance at the ships of France. To-day the grass grew on their empty platforms, the nettles sprouted from their angles ... and the Commandant—what was he ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... as La Fosseuse's life," answered Genestas, "I should still be glad to know about it; I should like to know the untoward events that could bring a man of your calibre into ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... Yugna," said Tommy coldly. "I'm designing steam guns. Gravity feed of spherical projectiles. A jet of steam instead of gunpowder. They'll be low-velocity, but we can use big-calibre balls for shock effect, and with long barrels they ought to serve for a hundred yards or better. ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... which he held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and, with a wild look and strange gestures, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now, Harry! O, ill done, Dick! O, well done, Harry! Harry ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... of Scotland can produce manuals of this calibre it need not fear comparison with ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... calling you should consider its noblest and not its most ignoble products. All the work that is done on the stage cannot stand upon the same level, any more than all the work that is done in literature. You do not demand that your poets and novelists shall all be of the same calibre. An immense amount of good writing does no more than increase the gayety of mankind; but when Johnson said that the gayety of nations was eclipsed by the death of Garrick, he did not mean that a mere barren amusement had lost one of its professors. When Sir Joshua Reynolds painted Mrs. Siddons ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... brought into the shop, supplied with a ration container, and left to himself within this bare-walled cabin to meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so utterly stupid? Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was, ruthless, powerful ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... ordered to march their companies to their respective quarters, and make up their powder and ball into cartridges, with the greatest possible despatch. As there were scarcely two muskets in a company of equal calibre, it was necessary to reduce the size of the balls for many of them; and as but a small proportion of the men had cartridge-boxes, the remainder made use of ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... of a very different calibre, the venerable Beda; concerning whom we must remember that he stands in contrast to Gildas from being Anglo-Saxon rather than British. Now, his history is Ecclesiastical and not Civil; so that ethnological questions make no part of his inquiries, and, as far as they ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... a Sabbath,—in which, by the bye, he was less likely to be successful, as, caeteris paribus, sailors, from an opinion that it is a fortunate omen, always choose to weigh anchor on that day. The calibre of this young man's understanding may be judged of by this anecdote; but in other respects he was a faithful and active instructor; and from him chiefly I learned writing and arithmetic. I repeated to him my French ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... positions from Outpost Hill to the sea, including in his fire area the whole of the trenches we had taken from him from Umbrella Hill to Sheikh Hasan. Many observers of this bombardment by all the Turks' guns of heavy, medium, and small calibre declared it was the prelude not of an attack but of a retirement, and that the Turks were loosing off a lot of the ammunition they knew they could not carry away. They were probably right, though the enemy made no sign of going away for a couple of days, but if ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... of the calibre of the man may be had in the fact that in his published Article in defense of the mob, he makes use of such expressions as "g'hals," "g'halhood" ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen

... embryo, arriving at a moment of profound and complicated difficulty for the practical architect; without technical education, but gifted with supreme genius, bringing the imperious instincts of a sublime creative amateur into every task appointed him. We need not wonder if a man of his calibre left the powerful impress of his personality upon an art in chaos, luring lesser craftsmen into the Barocco mannerism, while he provoked reaction in the stronger, who felt more scientifically what was needed to secure firm standing-ground. Bernini and the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... at present, in very loose order; and many a spirited free-thinker makes use of his freedom mainly to vent nonsense. We should he the better for a vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer us into cohesion and discipline; and I, for one, lament that the bench of Bishops cannot show a man of the calibre of Butler of the "Analogy," who, if he were alive, would make short work of much of the current ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Baron took two guns from his closet, loaded them, taking particular care to show that they were of equal length and the same calibre. He then locked them up in the closet and offered Gerfaut ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... retaining his hold over a people whose paramount political preoccupation was their national unity. The crisis of 1908-9 brought him into close relations with the government of the Greek kingdom; and the king, who had gauged his calibre, now took the patriotic step of calling in the man who had expelled his son from Krete, to put his own house in order. It speaks much for both men that they worked together in harmony from the beginning. Upon the royal ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... lady, who (so I was told) has made her mark in Rosalind, in As You Like It, and Katharina, in the Taming of the Shrew. I can quite believe that Miss REHAN is a great success in parts of the calibre of the Shakspearian heroines I have mentioned; nay, more, I fancy she would do something with Lady Macbeth, and be quite in her element as Emilia, in Othello. But, as she had to play an ingenue, aged eighteen, in The Great Unknown, she was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... the stern. Ali Jan is in a boat full of carved-wood rubbish on the starboard side, while Samad Shah, Sabhana, and half-a-dozen other robbers line the river bank opposite our port windows and clamour for custom. A powerful garden-hose of considerable calibre might be useful, but for the present I have given Sabz Ali orders to rig out long poles, which will prevent the enemy from so ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... well-conceived plans, and the preliminaries to an unprecedented offensive were completed by June 6. Guns of different calibre were massed at points of vantage, cleverly camouflaged to conceal them from enemy observation. Dumps were replete with the necessary supplies of ammunition, and scrupulous regard was paid to arrangements for keeping the lines of communication clear. Provision was made for the ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... expert in manufacturing, chemicals, and steel; James C. Pennie, the international patent lawyer; Frederick Neilson and Chandler Anderson, authorities on international law; and various others of equal calibre. ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... most useful, and sensible members of society, the men who are depended upon most in emergencies, the men of backbone and stamina, the bone and sinew of their communities; the men who can always be relied upon, who are healthiest and happiest, are, as a rule, of ordinary mental calibre and medium capacity. But with persistent and untiring industry, these are they, after all, who carry the burdens and reap the prizes of life. It is the men and women who keep everlastingly at it, who do not believe ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... Ah! Why had that not warned him of the woman's calibre? Nay, why had he forgotten—and here he had a vivid vision of a little girl bringing in Passover cakes—her training in a double life? Not that woman needed that—Dom Diego was right. False, frail creatures! No sympathy ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... with equal wonders from within. Welcome to the bard who is not appalled by the task, and who can readily assimilate and turn into human emotions these vast deductions of the savants! The minor poets do nothing in this direction; only men of the largest calibre and the most heroic fibre are adequate to the service. Hence one finds in Tennyson a vast deal more science than he would at first suspect; but it is under his feet; it is no longer science, but faith, or reverence, or poetic nutriment. It is in "Locksley ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... assumed towards it. But as long as the Negro prefers to construe owlish looks as wisdom, to bow down to clam like silence as profound philosophy, to stand agape over blatant mouthings as eloquence, and to measure mental calibre by bodily avoirdupois, he not only gives evidence of weakness in a lack of sound discrimination, but he subjects the entire race ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough

... Sikh army that they had met with a foe they little expected; and their whole force was driven from position after position, with great slaughter, and the loss of seventeen pieces of artillery, some of them of heavy calibre; our infantry using that never-failing weapon, the bayonet, whenever the enemy stood. Night only saved them from worse disaster; for this stout conflict was maintained during an hour and a half ot dim starlight, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... early explorers of this region was found a few years ago at Ottawa, six miles above Starved Rock, in the shape of a small iron gun, buried several feet deep in the drift of the river. It consists of a welded tube of iron, about an inch and a half in calibre, strengthened by a series of thick iron rings, cooled on, after the most ancient as well as the most recent method of making cannon. It is about fourteen inches long, the part near the muzzle having been ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... immense relief invaded him as the width of waterway grew steadily larger between his boat and Casa Felice. He could have wept for her and for himself. He could even have wept for humanity. Yet he felt the comfort of one from whom an almost intolerable strain has just been removed. To a man of his calibre, sensitive, almost feminine in his subtlety, the situation had been exquisitely painful. He had felt what Viola was feeling as well as what he was feeling. He had struggled like a creature taken in a net. And how useless it had all been! He found himself ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... superintending the work to which he had set a half-score of men. With a great show, and as much noise as possible—by which Francesco intended that the herald should be impressed—they were rolling forward four small culverins and some three cannons of larger calibre, and planting them so that they made a menacing show in ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... contest between armor-makers and gunmakers, and that just now the torpedo-makers are in the lead. For this reason a battleship needs other protection than that imparted by its cellular subdivision. This is given by its "torpedo defense battery" of minor guns of about 5-inch calibre. ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... way of thinking, he did more. He proved that B Company cannot afford to be without a sergeant of his proved calibre." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... and shoot with the rifle almost at once; while many who have been used to the slap-dash double cannot do anything for some time with a rifle. More than one African explorer has found his single-barrel smooth-bore the most useful of all the pieces in his battery; though, of course, of much larger calibre than required ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... Mut, he thought they would not only be discouraged but frightened. They had run away from us, in the temple; and despite the proverb concerning those who fight and run, to fight another day, it was probable that men of their calibre would see the wisdom of abandoning the chase. They had shown themselves cowards, Anthony thought, whatever their object had been in attacking Miss O'Brien and Miss Gilder: and though we must be on the watch during the rest of the trip, his idea was that the men had retreated in ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Marian, she had promised, in his view, to be but a charming repetition of her mother, with perhaps a mind of larger calibre. She had learned more and had acquired more accomplishments, but all this resulted, possibly, from her better advantages. Her drawing-room conversation seemed little more than the ordinary small talk of the day, fluent and piquant, while the girl herself was as undisturbed by the vital ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... the wild country warfare of South Africa. In the warfare that will go on in the highly-organized European States of the opening century, the special military balloon used in conjunction with guns, conceivably of small calibre but of enormous length and range, will play a part of quite primary importance. These guns will be carried on vast mechanical carriages, possibly with wheels of such a size as will enable them to traverse almost all sorts of ground.[40] The aeronauts, provided with ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... to ascertain what value there was in the musketry training of a foreign infantry. Also it had been reported that they had recently acquired a new form of machine gun which was a particularly rapid firer and very accurate in its effects. Its calibre was known, and its general pattern (from photographs), but its actual capabilities were still a ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... higher calibre, as, for instance, Isaac Aboab, whose Nomologia undertakes to defend Jewish tradition against every sort of assailant; Samuel Aboab, a great Bible scholar; Azariah Figo, a famous preacher; and, above all, Moses ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... him, and again Biffton relapsed into silence. Rather a damper on a man of his calibre, when a fellow wouldn't touch a bell and ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... towards the well-known city of the lower Shannon. There, on the 14th of August, Tyrconnell expired, stricken down by apoplexy. On the 25th, De Ginkle, reinforced by all the troops he could gather in with safety, had invested the place on three sides. Sixty guns, none of less than 12 pounds calibre, opened their deadly fire against it. An English fleet ascended the river, hurling its missiles right and left. On the 9th of September the garrison made an unsuccessful sally, with heavy loss; on the 10th, a breach, forty yards wide, was made in the wall overhanging the river; on the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... in these places, one cavern and one gun resembling the other. As for the guns, they are not of large calibre, indeed, such are not needed here, where a pebble discharged from so great an altitude would be fraught with death. On descending a shaft, however, I observed, in one cave of special importance, two enormous carronades looking with peculiar wickedness ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... seated himself, and his hand wandered unconsciously to his shirt. Then, changing his mind, he spoke without looking up. "You don't need this, Goggles, but I'm going to give it to you, just the same. You're heavier calibre and longer range than the whole crowd. But I am with you, and there are others. The gang haven't landed their plunder yet, and, what's more, they aren't going to, either. I'll see to that. You just restez tranquille, and give your mind to ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... than five-franc pieces) will slip away like soldiers after pillage. And, then, what will you do? Shall you begin to work? Work, or what you understand by work at this moment, means, for a man of Poiret's calibre, an old age in Mamma Vauquer's lodging-house. There are fifty thousand young men in your position at this moment, all bent as you are on solving one and the same problem—how to acquire a fortune rapidly. You are but a unit in that aggregate. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... the world. It is of more importance for monikins of my calibre to seem to be anything than to be it. My fellow-citizens are usually satisfied with this sacrifice; and, now principle is eclipsed, nothing ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... off the mood, angry with himself for entertaining it. It was maudlin. After all Chabrillane and La Motte-Royau were quite exceptional swordsmen, but neither of them really approached his own formidable calibre. Reaction began to flow, as he drove out through country lanes flooded with pleasant September sunshine. His spirits rose. A premonition of victory stirred within him. Far from fearing Monday's meeting, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... In his waist-belt there was a revolver-pouch which Durham, on removal, found to contain a revolver of heavy calibre loaded ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... writer who lived and wrote at this early date, and had conversed with these first disciples, are not without importance, even though his own mental calibre may have been small. But the speculations of the Tuebingen school have invested them with a fictitious interest. Was he, or was he not, as these critics affirm, a Judaic Christian of strongly Ebionite ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... saw that he could not maintain his position where he was; he had not brought out with him the whole force of the garrison, though in all he had not above seventy or eighty men; but he had behind the barrack a gun of very large calibre, properly mounted, with all the necessary equipments and ready for service. Such a piece of artillery accompanied every detachment, and was kept in preparation for immediate use at every military station; it had already been ascertained that this ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... moment it seemed to Stanhope that he must dare everything and take her. After all, she was intelligent: she could be educated. She was beautiful, youthful; and what a love she poured out at his feet!—different in calibre, in nature, different, from its root up, from any love he could hope to find again—a love that asked absolutely nothing for itself, not even the right to live, and yet would give its all unquestioningly, ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... music, and discerning in works of art. As to either praise or blame of what he writes, he is totally indifferent, not to say scornful—having in fact a very decisive opinion of his own concerning its calibre and destinies. Thoreau, a very congenial spirit, said of Whitman, "He is Democracy;" and again, "After all, he suggests something a little more than human." Lincoln broke out into the exclamation, "Well, he looks like a man!" Whitman responded to the instinctive appreciation of the President, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... as men count, (Mercier, iii. 163.) to the number of some hundred and thirty-three. Of various calibre; from your Cheniers, Gorsases, Camilles, down to your Marat, down now to your incipient Hebert of the Pere Duchesne; these blow, with fierce weight of argument or quick light banter, for the Rights of man: Durosoys, Royous, Peltiers, Sulleaus, equally with ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Symbolists produced nothing of the same calibre, and they failed to attract the public. The bestsellers of the period after 1905 were, naturally enough, hybrid writers like Andreyev. The cheap effect of his cadenced prose, his dreary and monotonous rhetoric, his sensational way of treating "essential problems" were ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... in the blackened object whom he had helped to drive back into the cabin a foe of a calibre suited to his size, and one whom he could tackle, Bob Howlett shouted to his men—"Cut 'em down if they resist," and then to Mark. "Now you slave-catching dog, surrender, or this goes through you like ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... mask, stopping the car, and politely intimating our inability to carry Mr. Dunkelsbaum any further. But his reception of such an open declaration of war was certain to be unsuitable for Adele's eyes and ears, and the subsequent action which a man of his calibre would undoubtedly take might prove ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... an attack was made upon it by a numerous body of Indians, among whom was Tecumseh. They were accompanied by a British officer, and some artillerists, furnished with fixed ammunition, suited to the calibre of some field pieces which the Indians had taken from general St. Clair, at the time of his defeat.[A] In referring to this attack and the movements of general Wayne, Withers, in his "Chronicles of ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... shikarries and provided with every instrument of the chase that the ingenuity of man and the foresight of Isaacs and Ghyrkins could provide. There were numbers of tents, sleeping tents, cooking tents, and servants' tents; guns and ammunition of every calibre likely to be useful; kookries, broad strong weapons not unlike the famous American bowie knives (which are all made in Sheffield, to the honour, glory, and gain, of British trade); there were huge packs of provisions ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... professor of divinity in the mind of the German graduate. For Nicholson was a theological "doctor" by virtue of a degree from I forget what German university, and had a low estimate, perhaps more justified at that day than it would be now, of the extent and calibre of Oxford theological learning. He was himself a disciple, and an enthusiastic admirer of Ewald, a very learned Hebraist, and an ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... the period of which we are writing, has been universally adopted in all vessels of inferior size, was then in the infancy of its invention, and was known to the American mariner only by reputation, under the appalling name of a "smasher." Of a vast calibre, though short and easily managed, its advantages were even in that early day beginning to be appreciated, and the largest ships were thought to be unusually well provided with the means of offence, when they carried two or three cannon of this formidable invention among their armament. At ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... bullet was extracted Doctor Joe examined it critically, washed it and placed it carefully in his pocket. It proved to be a thirty-eight calibre, black powder rifle bullet. Doctor Joe had no doubt of that. He had made a study of firearms and had the ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... amateur dramatic club. I had written out all the parts, and I think there were rehearsals. But the play was never produced. In the light of after knowledge I suspect some of those actors must have been of quite professional calibre. You understand, therefore, why my thoughts turned to Toole. But I could not find Toole. Instead, I found on the sands a page of a paper called Society. It is still running merrily at a penny, but at that time it had also a Saturday edition at threepence. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... steal successfully, you'd have given more mind to the use of your stealings. You may have some of them left, but it looks as if you'd made ducks and drakes of them, like any petty rascal in the hands of the Employees' Insurance Company. Yes, sir, I believe you're of about the intellectual calibre of that sort of thief. I can't respect you even on your own ground. But I'm willing to give you the chance you ask, for your daughter's sake. She's been in and out of my house with my girl like one of my own children, and I won't send her father ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... her spit behind him and found time to regret that a woman of Mary's calibre should be at Sabina's side. Such concentrated hate astonished him a little. There was no reason in it; nothing could be gained by it. This senseless act of a fool merely made him impatient. But he smiled before he reached North Hill House to think that but for ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... for a man of your calibre!" the other answered with good-humoured bluntness. "You could never be bothered ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... The action of the piece is breathless and vivid, and the music scarcely pretends to do more than furnish a suitable accompaniment to it. Of late years Massenet has confined himself principally to works of slight calibre, which have been on the whole more successful than many of his earlier and more ambitious efforts. 'Sapho' (1897), an operatic version of Daudet's famous novel, and 'Cendrillon' (1899), a charming ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... Granville and Grantham entered the piazza, leading to the officers' rooms, several of which were completely pierced with twenty-four pound shot, known at once as coming from the centre battery, which alone mounted guns of that calibre. After surveying the interior a few moments, they passed into a small passage communicating with the room in question. On opening the door, all were painfully struck by the sight which presented itself. Numerous shot holes were ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... do. He remarks gravely somewhere, "What nature expressly designed me for, I have never been able to conjecture; I seem to myself so universally disqualified for the common and customary occupations and amusements of mankind." Perhaps poetry—at least poetry of the calibre of "Yardley Oak," and "The Castaway," of "Boadicea" and the "Royal George" in one division; of "John Gilpin" in the other, may not be quite properly classed among the "common and customary occupations of mankind." But letter-writing might ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... Having attained this singular bulk, it begins to contract, and continues to do so during its course round the caecum, until it has completed its second flexure, where it grows so small as scarcely to exceed in calibre one of the small intestines; and though, from about the middle of this turn, it again swells out by degrees, it never afterwards acquires its former capaciousness; indeed, previously to its junction with the rectum, it once more materially ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... was impressed by the bearing of the troops and their efficiency under arms. And nobody anticipated that they would be so inferior to the Germans in numbers as proved to be the case, and that the generals would show themselves so inferior in mental calibre to the commanders of the opposing forces. The Paris garrison, it is true, was no real criterion of the French army generally, though foreigners were apt to judge the latter by what they saw of it in the capital. ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... burrowed for a moment, presently emerging with a box. This he carried gingerly to a convenient rock and opened. First he lifted out some soft padding. A small tin box honey-combed inside came to light. With infinite precaution Barnett picked out an object that looked like a 22- calibre short cartridge, wadded some cotton batten in his hand, set the thing in the wadding, laid it on the rock, carefully returned the small box to the large box and the large box to the boat, took up the ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... of Ladysmith began in real earnest. "Long Tom," though temporarily incapacitated, soon resumed his volubility, and was assisted by another of his calibre nicknamed "Slim Piet." Curiously enough, the first house hit during the siege was a commodious bungalow-shaped residence with large verandah belonging to Mr. Carter, the author of the now well-known "Narrative of the Boer War." The owner fortunately ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... myself in the library; placed pen and ink, and some legal-looking documents, selected at random, before me. Red tape and the formal pomp of law constitute half its force with women and men of Louisa's calibre. I had hardly arranged myself and my materials when the door slowly opened, and she entered. She was alarmed, yet wary. To see a naturally hearty, merry little body subjected for years to this nervous strain, with a tragic idea forced into a brain meant to be ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... all this and smiled inwardly. He wandered about the bomb-proof case-mates hewn out of the solid rock, caring nothing for the number and calibre of the guns, their armoured protection, or the chart-like diagrams upon the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... as the regiment was concerned, the enmity of a man of Gleason's calibre could hardly be of consequence. Like Canker, he had come into the —th from the "supernumerary list" at the time of the general reorganization in '71. Scores of infantry officers left out of their regiments by consolidation were saddled upon the cavalry and artillery, and in many ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... clime, you find the girl and Nature does the rest. On the second morning of their acquaintance Mortimer invited her to walk round the links with him and watch him play. He did it a little diffidently, for his golf was not of the calibre that would be likely to extort admiration from a champion. On the other hand, one should never let slip the opportunity of acquiring wrinkles on the game, and he thought that Miss Somerset, if she watched one or two of his ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... the intention of Hillyard to use his first months of real freedom in a great wandering amongst wide spaces. The journey had been long since planned, even details of camp outfit and equipment and the calibre ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... poverty and helplessness. Miss Challoner had roused—well, his pride. He could see that now. The might of this new emotion made plain many things he had passed by as useless, puerile, unworthy of a man of mental calibre and might. He had never loved Edith Challoner at any moment of their acquaintanceship, though he had been sincere in thinking that he did. Doris' beauty, the hour he had just passed ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... received with intense gratitude, and caught at like manna by a famished multitude? Eugene Sue is another writer who has taken the world by storm, but in quite a different fashion. The ex-lieutenant of marine does not obtrude his personality upon public notice, and relies more upon the powerful calibre of his guns than upon their number. Two books, lengthy ones certainly, established his reputation. He had been many years a cultivator of literature, and had produced sundry romances of little more than average merit, when he suddenly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... proceeded to choose the ground. This was quickly done, as there were no trees, and it being a cloudy morning neither party would have any advantage from the light. The two cases of pistols were then examined. They were of the same calibre and about the same weight, and Marshall's second at once agreed to Captain Lister's proposal that each should fire with his own pistol, so that neither should be placed at the disadvantage of using a weapon that he was unaccustomed to. Captain Lister proposed that ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... in the face of long-continued action and desire for the attaining a given end, forges in the finer calibre of mind a spirit of unremitting purpose. Blow after blow, which would turn away the ordinary individual from his endeavour, serves to steel the real hero to a dispassionate and persistent patience, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... they can fire those forty per minute, each one takes a lot out of the big fellow's life. Unlike the guns of smaller calibre, they cannot be used over and over again. They are too powerful to be used in actual trench warfare, but let a fortress, or a mountain that has perversely got in the way of operations, loom up ahead, and down it goes! Also the big shells have been found exceedingly useful in ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... measures or systems of government at the time, but they did not reflect on the chain of causes which first raised up, and afterwards undermined it. Aristotle, the most powerful intellect of the ancient world, was of the same calibre as a political observer. He considered only the effects of the various forms of government which he saw established around him. In that survey he was admirable, but he never went beyond it. Bossuet's Universal History is little more than a history of the Jews; he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... readily explained by a reference to the pathological condition of the parts. One of the first effects of inflammation upon the bronchial mucous membrane is to cause some degree of swelling, which, together with the presence of a tough secretion closely adhering to it, tends to diminish the calibre of the tubes. The respired air as it passes over this surface gives rise to the dry or sonorous breath sounds, the coarser being generated in the large, and the finer or wheezing sounds in the small divisions of the bronchi. Before long, however, the discharge ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... front of able adversaries, the principles of what he had penned in his closet and without an opponent before him. They could not but be convinced that declamations of this kind would rouse him,—that he must think, coming from men of their calibre, they were highly mischievous,—that they gave countenance to bad men and bad designs; and though he was aware that the handling such matters in Parliament was delicate, yet he was a man very likely, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... greatly feared, by many women, and he had been heard many a time scoffingly to say that only would he bring home a wife when he had found a woman possessed of gold sufficient to fill a chest so large that ten of his men might not be able to carry it into his castle. Brides of this calibre did not then grow in profusion on either side of the Border, and had he continued to live uninterruptedly in his own country, no doubt Bryan de Blenkinsopp might have remained to the end unmarried. But: "When ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... become sensible, as he approached middle age, of the many advantages of a luxurious home. He had accordingly decided that a wealthy marriage would most easily unlock the gate to prosperity. A girl of a somewhat lighter calibre than Gertrude would have been the woman—we cannot say of his heart; but, as he very generously argued, beggars can't be choosers. Gertrude was a woman with a mind of her own; but, on the whole, he was not afraid of her. He was abundantly prepared to do his duty. He ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... doing me justice. A patriot? Deuce take it! I pride myself upon being one, and of the first calibre, too! And the proof is—Drink this to the health of the Republic." And he handed a hundred-franc assignat to the postilion who had recommended him to his comrade. Seeing the other looking eagerly at this strip of paper, he continued: ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... time-table in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... and Tibetan was as strange as Chinese to the Mongols. But the Mongol Court had already been favourably impressed by Tibetan Lamas and the Emperor probably had a just feeling that the intellectual calibre of the Mongols and Tibetans was similar and also that it was politic to conciliate the uncanny spiritual potentates who ruled in a land which it was difficult to invade. At any rate he summoned the abbot of Sakya ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... to-day in spite of their wide knowledge and their genius, stands a third, Michel Chrestien, the great Republican thinker, who dreamed of European Federation, and had no small share in bringing about the Saint-Simonian movement of 1830. A politician of the calibre of Saint-Just and Danton, but simple, meek as a maid, and brimful of illusions and loving-kindness; the owner of a singing voice which would have sent Mozart, or Weber, or Rossini into ecstasies, for his singing of certain songs of Beranger's ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... said I. "We have here a deck plan showing the disposition of guns, and a section plan showing arrangement of armour, of one of the big new ships which has been completed for the Grand Fleet. Below we have the number and calibre of the guns, the thickness and extent of the armour, the length, breadth, and depth of the vessel, her tonnage, her horse power, and her estimated speed. Everything is correct except the speed, which I happen to know is considerably greater than the ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... side of the room, the negress opened the desk and began to fumble among a lot of old papers. Finally she drew out a small, thirty-two calibre revolver, which ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... leg. Unquestionably several others had been wounded, but had managed to make off. The bullets of revolvers, unless striking a mortal point, disable a wounded man much less than the balls of heavier calibre. It was evidently useless to remove the Indian who was dying; all that could be done for him was to give him a little water, and to place a bundle of grass so as to raise his head. Half an hour later he was ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... slightly, and the other terminates in a broad, flattened, triangular mouth-piece of fine proportions, which is carved with mathematical precision. It is drilled throughout; the bore is seven-tenths of an inch in diameter at the cylindrical end of the tube, and retains that calibre until it reaches the point where the cylinder subsides into the mouth-piece, when it contracts gradually to one-tenth of an inch. The inner surface of the tube is perfectly smooth till within a short distance of the point of contraction. For the remaining distance the circular striae, formed by the ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... could not help feeling that if a row of this calibre did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... his childish tears, his weak entreaties, his bursts of impotent passion, caused nothing but low amusement. Out of school his great object always was to hide himself; anywhere, so as to be beyond the reach of Jones, Harpour, and other bullies of the same calibre. For this purpose he would conceal himself for a whole afternoon at a time up in the fir-groves, listlessly gathering into heaps the red sheddings of their umbrage, and pulling to pieces their dry and fragrant cones; or, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her capacity. I wish you a very ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... it became apparent that Fritz had neither the heart nor the troops for launching a counter-attack on a scale large enough to make a definite impression on the newly-won area. His "strafing" was fitful, poorly sighted, and of small calibre. Here and there he still had the use of a machine gun or two and had concentrated a number of men at Noyelles. This village was attacked by a company of the Royal Fusiliers; fought for desperately in one brief, mad melee, during which blood ran freely, ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... Dacian, calling himself Urban, asked audience of me one day, and being admitted, said he was an artificer of cannon; that he had plied his art in the foundries of Germany, and from study of powder was convinced of the practicality of applying it to guns of heavier calibre than any in use. He had discovered a composition of metals, he said, which was his secret, and capable, when properly cast, of an immeasurable strain. Would I furnish him the materials, and a place, with appliances for the work such as he would name, I might collect the machines in my ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... qualities of greatness that gave every promise for the country if it should ever come under his direction. But the other children of the Landgrave, the princes named Conrad and Heinrich, were of different calibre from their brother Ludwig, and so was the girl, Agnes, who was about Elizabeth's own age. Herman, the eldest son, soon died, and Elizabeth was ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... about that. It is very hard to be sure of anything. When I see him I do feel almost sure that he is guilty; but when I think of it afterwards, I again have my doubts. It is not by men of such calibre that great crimes are committed. I can hardly fancy that he ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... woman of strong mental calibre, whose opinions are derived from thought and study, has built her husband up by permitting his expression to stand even though her own judgment might differ from him. If she be a true wife or sister, she will seek, in retirement, to correct an opinion which could not be avowed in public ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... increased susceptibility. Dr. Gresonowsky warns me against Florence in the winter. I must be warm, they say. Well, never mind! Now I am well again, and I don't know why I should have whined so to you. I am well, and living on asses' milk by way of sustaining the mental calibre; yes, and able to have tete-a-tetes with Theodore Parker, who believes nothing, you know, and has been writing a little Christmas book for the young just now, to prove how they should keep Christmas without a Christ, and a Mr. Hazard, a spiritualist, who believes ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... Gibraltar of strength, strongly fortified and supplied with many guns, most of which were of heavy calibre, deemed necessary to prevent the navigation of the Mississippi, was occupied by General Leonidas Polk with a force of 22,000 men, but on being threatened with attack by Commodore Foote and General W. T. Sherman, was ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... towers are to be 120 feet high and 40 feet apart. The four remaining turrets will be abaft the main funnel, the third turret having its guns 32 feet above water; those in the other turrets about 25 feet above the water. The guns will be the new 50-calibre type. All twelve will have broadside fire over a wide arc and four can be fired right ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... captured in Montecristo by the Spaniards, is wheeled on a cart through the streets, followed by a procession of soldiers and a band of music. This cannon—which is a heavy-looking, unserviceable weapon of the old-fashioned calibre—is made much of by everybody, and finally a niche is built in a wall of the cathedral, and the 'canon de Montecristo,' as it is henceforth derisively termed by the Cubans, is deposited in this niche ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... of his poems attributes to Fergusson 'glorious pairts.' He was certainly a youth of remarkable powers, although 'pairts' rather than high genius seems to express his calibre, he can hardly be said to sing, and he never soars. His best poems, such as 'The Farmer's Ingle,' are just lively daguerreotypes of the life he saw around him—there is nothing ideal or lofty in any of them. His 'ingle-bleeze' burns low compared to ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... though the emperor could give the tone to such literature as existed, he could not revive the old force and spirit, which were gone for ever. The Romans now showed all the signs of a decaying people. The loss of serious interest in anything, even in pleasure, argues a reduced mental calibre; and the substitution of minute learning for original thought always marks an irrecoverable decadence. The chief writer during the earlier part of this period is M. CORNELIUS FRONTO (90-168 A.D.), a native of Cirta, in Numidia, who had been held under Hadrian ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... Calvinists, and therefore the causes of these two events remained in their secret sphere, and were never suspected either by the writers of the people of that day; they were not divined except by de Thou, l'Hopital, and minds of that calibre, or by the leaders of the two parties who were coveting or defending the throne, and believed such ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... the artilleryman can tell whether it comes from a gun with a low trajectory or from a howitzer, whose projectile rises higher and falls at a sharper angle which enables it to enter the trenches; and he can even tell approximately the calibre. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... clad with the vesture of human associations. Light and shade do not alternate in winning and rich relief, and as Carlyle found it, the radiance is 'thin piercing,' leaving none of the sweet and dim recesses so dear to the lover of nature. We may, however, well be content to leave a man of Emerson's calibre to choose his own exercises. It is best to suppose that he knew what he was about when he wandered into the fairyland of verse, and that in such moments he found nothing better to his hand. Yet if ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... posters, religious ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers and sailors, exposed scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas—these, he said, were accountable for any and every fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... in hundreds of hollows there was hidden the deadly French soixante-quinze—the 75-millimetre quick-firing gun, which from the commencement of this gigantic conflict has controlled and beaten German guns of a similar calibre. Yet again, behind them, were other bigger guns, splendidly dug in and hidden cleverly with straw-thatched roofs, many of them no doubt once filling the embrasures of Douaumont and other forts which in times ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... erected the cathedral before the expected Turkish invasion rendered the improved defences necessary. Although in the early days of artillery shell-fire was unknown, both the Turks and Venetians possessed guns of heavy calibre far exceeding any that were used in Great Britain until recent years. The marble shot which are still to be seen in Famagousta are the same which served in the defence of that fortress in 1571. These are nearly ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... like a frowsy bang threatening to obstruct his vision. He passed much of his time in perambulating the aisles of the House, holding short conferences with leading Republicans, and casting frequent glances into the ladies' gallery. A man of the lightest mental calibre and most insufficient capacity, he constituted himself the chief impeacher, and assumed a position that should have been held by ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... you like. I believe you have told the truth up to a point, Mr. Grell. It is fair to assume that a blackmailer of Goldenburg's calibre would have taken precautions lest you should fail to comply with his demands. Doesn't it appear a fair assumption that he might have taken steps to arrange the presence of the person most interested, next to yourself? He ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... glanced at him again. In spite of himself, respect was growing in him. He had expected to find a certain amount of eagerness and subserviency—though veiled; here was a man of different calibre than ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... recognized that those methods have given Germany a leadership in applied science and in industry which she will keep unless the educational authorities of other nations find some way of producing men of like calibre." (Munroe, James P., "Technical Education"; in ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... left to itself, is a fierce and frightful thing; and the stories of savage life are nearly all of the same calibre, and all exhibit a dreadful love of revenge. About twenty years ago, a large encampment of Black-feet and others, had been formed in those prairies for the purpose of hunting. The warriors, however, growing tired of their peaceful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... Agatha. "The male of the species, when he is a man of Robert's attainments and calibre, can be swerved from pursuit of the female he ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... not the right element for a man of his calibre: he did not become a spiritualist, nor was he so intolerant as to object to the use of brandy for cooking purposes; but he published an injudicious and even intemperate letter to the chief-justice of Massachusetts ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... fortifications which rise on the rock are innumerable, and support each other in a manner accounted a model of modern art; the northern face of the rock itself is hewn into tremendous subterranean batteries called the hall of Saint George, and so forth, mounted with guns of a large calibre. But I have heard it would be difficult to use them, from the effect of the report on the artillerymen. The west side of the fortress is not so precipitous as the north, and it is on this it has been usually assailed. It bristles ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... and silently produced a thirty- two calibre pistol, of another make than Chick's but using the same ammunition. From another pocket he drew out a package carefully bound with thread. He unrolled the contents. It ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... spend an evening, and to father's and Professor Allen's. When you feel worried go off somewhere and forget and throw it off. I should really rejoice to hear that you and father and mother, with Professor and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of the same calibre would agree to meet together for dancing cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took Mr. K.'s wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter, into the alliance it would do them good. Bless me! what a profane set everybody ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... power? Be this as it may, M. Comte's conceptions of the mode in which these growing powers should be organized and used, are grounded on anything rather than on history. And we cannot but remark a singular anomaly in a thinker of M. Comte's calibre. After the ample evidence he has brought forward of the slow growth of the sciences, all of which except the mathematico-astronomical couple are still, as he justly thinks, in a very early stage, it yet appears as if, to his mind, the ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill

... of the troops about Washington was good, but it was manifest they were far from being soldiers. Their uniforms were as various as the States and cities from which they came; their arms were also of every pattern and calibre; and they were so loaded down with overcoats, haversacks, knapsacks, tents, and baggage, that it took from twenty-five to fifty wagons to move the camp of a regiment from one place to another, and some of the camps had bakeries and cooking establishments that ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... days of reconstruction had among its membership, perhaps, one-third colored members. These men were not of the same calibre as the colored members of the legislature. They were picked up in the different wards by their friends. They were chosen for their popularity rather than for fitness for ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... anything, a stronger all-around team than the one of the preceding year, and if it failed to make equally as good a showing it was because the teams that were opposed to it were also of a better calibre. The demand for good ball players had risen, and as is usual in such cases the supply was equal to the demand, just as it would be ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... none of the chiefs possess cannon, except the Meer Walli and Moorad Beg of Koondooz, it is almost impossible to gain an entry into a well-constructed fort, except by treachery; and even the few honey-combed pieces of small calibre possessed by the above chieftains would not have much effect ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... aspect outside of that small circle singularly cold and repellent. If he could ever have gathered even a small personal following his character and abilities would have insured him a brilliant and prolonged success; but, for a man of his calibre (p. 012) and influence, we shall see him as one of the most lonely and desolate of the great men of history; instinct led the public men of his time to range themselves against him rather than with him, and we shall find them fighting beside him only when irresistibly compelled to do so by ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... said nothing,—"Roger Hamlin is not the man to be on friendly terms with a fellow of the second mate's calibre." ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... of charity. She had loved Harvey Trueman. They had been schoolmates, and would undoubtedly have wed had not the wreck of Densmore's fortune been accomplished just as Trueman was leaving college. Gorman Purdy had been quick to perceive the calibre of the young man and had brought him into the Paradise Company. With father and mother dead, and with her heart's longing unappeased, Martha determined to join a sisterhood, and devote her entire time to ministering to the poor ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... long-range torpedo at one transport, and ducked before she could judge results. She apologises for this on the grounds that one of her periscopes had been damaged—not, as one would expect, by the gentleman leaning out of the little steamboat, but by some casual shot—calibre not specified—the day before. "And so," says E14, "I could not risk my remaining one being bent." However, she heard a thud, and the depth-gauges—those great clock-hands on the white-faced circles—"flicked," ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... limit." Madeleine d'Ambre would not be fastidious. The brief revelation, like something seen in the flare of a match that quickly dies out, struck Vanno with pity and disgust. But a youth of this calibre was sure sooner or later to drift to Monte Carlo; and perhaps the Frenchwoman's leading strings would be ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... you know it, Dombey,' says the Major, 'Damme, Sir, I know you know it. A man of your calibre is not likely to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... these injuries has undoubtedly increased in frequency with the employment of bullets of small calibre, and no other class of case more strikingly illustrates the localised nature of the lesions produced by small projectiles of high velocity. Again, no other series of injuries affords such obvious indications of the firm and resistent nature of the cicatricial tissue formed in the process of repair ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... full length of Rob Roy. Various little antique cabinets stand round about, each having a bust on it: Stothard's Canterbury Pilgrims are on the mantelpiece; and in one corner I saw a collection of really useful weapons, those of the forest-craft, to wit—axes and bills and so forth of every calibre. There is only one window pierced in a very thick wall, so that the place is rather sombre; the light tracery work of the gallery overhead harmonizes with the books well. It is a very comfortable-looking room, and very unlike any other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various

... detachment began to march on the 9th of February for Ayer Dikit. It now consists of Lieutenant Dare, Mr. Alexander, surgeon, seventy sepoys, including officers, twenty-seven lascars and Bengal convicts, and eleven of the bugis-guard. Left the old mortar and took with us one of smaller calibre. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... operate against mental development, progress and happiness. In the human species among individuals of equal mental calibre, the sanguine individual is due to rise higher and go farther than his nervous or lymphatic rivals. A characteristic temperament may embrace the majority of a whole species, or be limited to a few individuals. Many species are permanently characterized by ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... had drained his glass. "Didn't he wing one of you down in Victoria the other day? Your bushranger is bound to come to it sooner or later. He may much prefer not to shoot; but he has only to get up against a man of his own calibre, as resolute and as well armed as himself, to have no choice in the matter. Poor old Duncan was the very type; he would never have given way. In fact, we found him with his own revolver fast in his hand, and a finger frozen to the trigger, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... of constitutional restrictions, if due process of law may be held to mean the enactment of the very statute drawn to work confiscation.[23] This decision, which represented the profoundest convictions of men of the calibre of Comstock and Denio, deserves to rank with Marshall's effort in the Dartmouth College Case. In both instances the tribunal exerted itself to carry out Hamilton's principle of judicial duty by exercising its judgment and not its ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... equipped mentally and physically for his job, must gather to himself the wealth and you must become his slaves. What do you suppose, in the course of three or four generations, produces men of different mental and physical calibre? I will tell you. The circumstances of their bringing-up, the life they have to lead, their education, their environment. What chance have you under present conditions? None! For very shame, as the years pass on, you operatives will be better paid. What will it amount to? ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sure. Whatever happens to us here we are bound to win glory. There are no other soldiers quite of the calibre of our chaps in the world; they have esprit de corps; they are volunteers every one of them; they are for it; our Officers—our rank and file—have been so entered to this attack that they will all die—that ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... Portuguese had been warned of their approach, and were fully prepared to receive them; the guns mounted to the seaward were of heavy calibre and well served. The guns of the peroquas, though rendered as effectual as they could be, under the direction of Philip, were small, and did little damage to the thick stone front of the fort. After an engagement of four hours, during which the Ternate people ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat



Words linked to "Calibre" :   diam, caliber, quality, gauge, superiority, level, bore, high quality, .45-calibre, diameter, .45 calibre, superior, inferiority, degree, .22-calibre, .38-calibre, grade, inferior



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