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Engagement   Listen
noun
Engagement  n.  
1.
The act of engaging, pledging, enlisting, occupying, or entering into contest.
2.
The state of being engaged, pledged or occupied; specif., a pledge to take some one as husband or wife.
3.
That which engages; engrossing occupation; employment of the attention; obligation by pledge, promise, or contract; an enterprise embarked in; as, his engagements prevented his acceptance of any office. "Religion, which is the chief engagement of our league."
4.
(Mil.) An action; a fight; a battle. "In hot engagement with the Moors."
5.
(Mach.) The state of being in gear; as, one part of a clutch is brought into engagement with the other part.
Synonyms: Vocation; business; employment; occupation; promise; stipulation; betrothal; word; battle; combat; fight; contest; conflict. See Battle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Engagement" Quotes from Famous Books



... a man would go several miles any day to avoid a fuss; it is we women who delight in scraps. A man occasionally has a little set-to with the girl's father, before he gains his consent to the engagement, but once he's married, it's the old lady he has to train for, or I should say who trains for him, because as a general thing it is she who gives battle, not he. The real conflict, however, takes place between the two ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... or amuse myself. With the farm and the inn I shall be free to do that without the worry of giving lessons. So you understand that not only must I avoid any scandal among the neighbors by harboring you here, but I must not make Polly Colpus jealous; and she might become that, and break off the engagement were you taken into the house. She is a good girl, and amiable, but might become suspicious. There are so many busybodies in a little place, and the smaller the place is the more meddlesome people are. It would not do for my engagement to be broken through any such an ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... a reply to this letter, the government, no doubt, being engrossed at the time by an overwhelming crowd of affairs. The month of March arrived, and the Lark was ordered by Mr. Astor to put to sea. The officer who was to command her shrunk from his engagement, and in the exigency of the moment, she was given in charge to Mr. Northrup, the mate. Mr. Nicholas G. Ogden, a gentleman on whose talents and integrity the highest reliance could be placed, sailed ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... another. You can't tell. I only know I've seen men look like that and talk like that before an engagement." ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... he thought to himself. "A sterling fellow! And he heard it from an Archdeacon's wife. Confound it all! the thing must be true then. I'll write and make full inquiries about this Zaluski before consenting to the engagement." ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... this alliance, and he thus related the sequence: "After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate.... I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son."[145] From England he wrote to Mademoiselle Curchod breaking off the engagement. Perhaps it is because of feminine criticism that Cotter Morison indulges in an elaborate defense of Gibbon, which indeed hardly seems necessary. Rousseau, who was privy to the love affair, said that "Gibbon was too cold-blooded a young man for his taste or for Mademoiselle Curchod's happiness."[146] ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... I could reach my pulpit in time the next morning only by having some one drive me through the woods that night. It was not a pleasant prospect, for I had heard appalling tales of the stockades in this region and of the women who were kept prisoners there. But to miss the engagement was not to be thought of, and when, after I had made several vain efforts to find a driver, a man appeared in a two-seated wagon and offered to take me to my destination, I felt that I had to go with him, though I did not like his appearance. He was a ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... in my suavest tones. "And I pray your pardon again, Villehardouin, for my very great clumsiness. I pray your pardon a thousand times. The fault was mine, though unintentioned. In my haste to an engagement I was clumsy, most woful ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... cried, with Father shamelessly squeezing her arm on public thoroughfares, they again plunged into the Roman pleasures of the little tinsel restaurant. And like two lovers, like the telephone-girl in your office and the clerk next door, they made an engagement to meet at noon, next day, in a restaurant half-way ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... He said he had served as a boatman in the Indian trade ten years, had married an Indian wife and raised a family, and during all this time, with the exception of short visits to Mackinac with his bourgeois, had resided in the Indian country. On the expiration of his last engagement he went to St. Peters, and while there, made eight canoes for Mr. Bailly, from whom he got the few goods that were seized at Sandy Lake by Mr. Johnston. He had intended, however, to go to Mr. Johnston for a license, and he had used the goods, in a great measure, to procure ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... had had time to take up their position with their backs to a hedge, in the English manner. King Charles's men barely outnumbered the enemy. A certain clerk of that time, a Frenchman, writes of the engagement. His innate ingeniousness was invincible. With candid common sense he states that this very slight numerical superiority rendered the enterprise very arduous and difficult for his party.[1952] And the battle was strong indeed. The Burgundians were mightily afraid of the Maid because they believed ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... that all my life was shut out from the ordinary hopes and prospects of girlhood, that I never realized the fact that to him I was a young girl whom he might love honorably, were he once set free from his engagement ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... not there, having pleaded another engagement. But Rhinds and his lieutenant, Radwin, Messrs. Farnum and Pollard and all three of the submarine boys were around the big table. Radwin had succeeded in seating himself ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... visit to the following morning at 11 o'clock. Even before we had finished reading this unexpected message, the booming of cannon along the Pei-ho river announced the arrival of the phantai's boats before the city. The postponement of our engagement at this late hour threatened to prove rather awkward, inasmuch as we had already purchased our steamship tickets for Shanghai, to sail on the Fei-ching at five o'clock the next morning. But through the kindness of the steamship company it was arranged ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... fly, &c.] Parthians are the inhabitants of a province in Persia: They were excellent horsemen, and very exquisite at their bows; and it is reported of them, that they generally slew more on their retreat than they did in the engagement. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... Netherlands. Probably the armies met on some piece of level ground in one of the wadies, up which the Philistines marched to the attack. At all events, there they were, face to face once more on the old spot. On both sides might be men who had been in the former engagement. Depressing remembrances or burning eagerness to wipe out the shame would stir in those on the one side; contemptuous remembrance of the ease with which the last victory had been won would animate the other. God Himself helped them by ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... cynically. "I have heard enough praise of Miss Georgy for one evening. Ted Hutchinson was talking about her." And with a burst of wrath he went on, retailing the gossip of the night: Ted knew nothing of her engagement, and was wild about her—had sent her a bracelet anonymously, and been thrilled with delight when she showed it to him on her white arm, wondering who could have been so kind. Thorpe too had collected various items of news about her. There was old Blake, a widower—who ought to have known better, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... Jean d'Acre," but better known to sailors in the British navy as "Old Sharpen Your Cutlasses!" This quaint soubriquet he obtained from an order issued by him when he commanded a fleet in the Baltic, anticipating an engagement ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... been signed in the presence of her family and more intimate friends, the priests, his officers, and the Governor, he had not spoken with her for a moment alone. Nor had her eyes met his in a glance of understanding. At the dances she showed him no favor; and as the engagement was to be as secret as might be in that small community, until his return with consent of Pope and King, he was forced to concede that her conduct was irreproachable; but when on the day of the betrothal she was oblivious to his efforts to draw her into the garden, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... his facility for words, is in no sense a conversationalist, refuses to recognize the fact that conversation involves a partnership; that in this company of joint interest each party has a right to his turn in the conversational engagement. He ignores his conversational partners; he breaks into their sentences with his own speech before they have their words well out of their mouths. He has grown so habitual in his interrupting that he rattles on ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... distant, it was in my power to assure them that they would be better off in a day or two.[21] All the way to their boat, and on my return to ours, I observed some hundreds of bodies of men and animals that had perished in the late engagement and during the pursuit, and the stench which filled the air was almost intolerable. The country, covered with an abundance of grain almost matured, was abandoned; the water-wheels stood still, and the cisterns were frequently infected by a ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English

... not be so easy to carry out as you think. Give me your word, darling. You promise not to form any engagement of marriage for a ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the federal occupation of the garrison at Casita. After a short, decisive engagement the rebels were dispersed into small bands and driven eastward along the boundary line ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... Kilcarney. 'An engaged girl is not noticed at the Castle. You don't know what nice men you'll meet there; have your fun out first,' were the arguments most frequently put forward; and, in the excitement of breaking off Olive's engagement, even the Land League was forgotten. Olive hesitated, but at length allowed herself to be persuaded to at least try to captivate the marquis before she honoured the captain with her hand. No sooner said ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... Hartsuff was assigned to the Twenty-third. In a former chapter I have spoken of Hartsuff's abilities as a staff officer in West Virginia. [Footnote: Chap, vi., ante.] His qualities as a general officer had not been tried. He was wounded at the beginning of the engagement at Antietam, where he commanded a brigade in Hooker's corps. [Footnote: Chap, xv., ante.] That was his first service under his appointment as brigadier, and he had necessarily been out of the field since that ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Negro Business League held in Boston in August, 1915, and had to be nursed for some weeks following before he was even strong enough to return to Tuskegee, he insisted in spite of the admonitions of physicians and the pleadings of friends, family, and colleagues, in keeping his engagement to speak before this great convention in Chicago in September. To all protests he replied, "It would do me more harm to stay away than to go." With these words, and rallying the rapidly waning dregs of his once great strength he went and made an ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... made famous for a very great engagement at sea, in the year 1672, between the English and Dutch fleets, in the bay opposite to the town, in which, not to be partial to ourselves, the English fleet was worsted; and the brave Montague, Earl of Sandwich, Admiral under the Duke of York, lost his life. The ship Royal Prince, carrying ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe

... face in front?" asked Mabel, smiling, and for the first time feeling a slight apprehension about the dangers of the expedition. "Are we likely to have an engagement?" ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... promptly in the morning, and after telling Franchard of the engagement, took aboard the two men, who appeared each with a shotgun and ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... quiet, determined men, slow of speech, even clumsy, but quick to make up their minds, and endowed with a great tenacity of purpose. A man who rarely said he was going to do a thing, but generally did it. These known features in a man who, up to the time of the announcement of Prudence's engagement to Grey, had been a frequent visitor to the farm, and who was also well known to be wealthy and more than approved of by Mrs. Malling, no doubt, gave a certain amount of colour to the belief of those who chose to pry ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a grotesque mistake had he fallen! Was it likely that a clergyman and a gentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But his stiffness remained, and, though he asked who Cissie and Albert might be, he still thought ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... a've done pretty well for mysel', and a'll wish yo' as good luck, Sylvia. For yo' see,' (turning to Bell Robson, who, perhaps, she thought would more appreciate the substantial advantages of her engagement than Sylvia,) 'though Measter Brunton is near upon forty if he's a day, yet he turns over a matter of two hundred pound every year; an he's a good-looking man of his years too, an' a kind, good-tempered feller int' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... at her blindness, and then at her disastrous attempt to see. Why had she forced the truth out of Darrow? If only she had held her tongue nothing need ever have been known. Sophy Viner would have broken her engagement, Owen would have been sent around the world, and her own dream would have been unshattered. But she had probed, insisted, cross-examined, not rested till she had dragged the secret to the light. She was one ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... lenses of the microscope, focus the preparation, and make ready to explain. But undoubtedly the lady all this time will have been on the point of saying a hundred times: "Excuse me, Professor, but really ... I have an engagement ... I have a great deal to do...." When she has looked without seeing anything, her lamentations are bitter: "What a lot of time I have wasted!" And yet she has nothing to do, and fritters away all her time! What she lacks is not time but patience. He who is impatient cannot ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... race nex' Satu'day, an' I was thinkin' mebbe the Gen'al could win it if he gits a good ride. Jockey Jones didn't have no otheh engagement, suh, so I done hired ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... I can't answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what, Gill! Mark my words! It will go hard with Sergeant Drooce, if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. Let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for it's all over with him, and he is on his Death-bed. Mark ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens

... you been principally concerned with the engagement and settling with seamen employed in the Greenland whale fishing?-Principally, of late, since the settlement at the Custom House was commenced. That ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... for one moment, that she said yes? Suppose that on getting home she walked into the dining-room and announced her engagement to a prosperous and charming man, who was already a family friend and favourite? What fun! What excitement! What pride on the part of the little mother; what transparent relief to the overtaxed pater! Mollie and Trix would begin at once to discuss ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... write to Riley & Bonner," said Sir James, quietly. "She will probably write to-night. They may take steps to acquaint her with her history—or they may not. It depends. Meanwhile, who else is likely to know anything about the engagement?" ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... instance, when He came out of His spiritual trance, it was thirst He became conscious of. I remember once talking with a German student who had served in the Franco-Prussian War. He was wounded in an engagement near Paris, and lay on the field unable to stir. He did not know exactly what was the nature of his wound, and he thought that he might be dying. The pain was intense; the wounded and dying were groaning round about him; the battle was still raging; and shots were ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... women on the other. In a way, these clubs prevented hasty marriages, for the men were given plenty of time to study their prospective brides and the girls their future husbands. Curiously enough, in the Bororo country it was generally the woman who proposed to the man. When the official engagement was made the man proceeded to the hut of his sweetheart and brought a gift of food for her and her mother. If the gifts were accepted there was no other formality to be gone through, and the matrimonial ceremony was indeed of the simplest kind. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... of course, angrily asked the reason of such an abrupt dissolution of the engagement; and then, much to his horror, heard of his eldest son's doings. "You would not have me marry into such a family?" said the ex-bridegroom. And old Cartouche, an honest old citizen, confessed, with a heavy ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... response from the rival monarch, active hostilities begin. We read of raids and forays. Prisoners are treated with contumely, and their skirts are docked as in the Biblical narrative. Treachery adds excitement to the situation. Skirmishes precede the great engagement, in which the nouns are worsted, though they have come off with some of the spoils of war; and peace is made on terms dictated by Priscian, Servius, and Donatus. Spangenberg's Grammatical War is a not uninteresting, not uninstructive squib, and the salt of it, or saltpetre ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... he was whirled along in a stream of consequences. There was an interview with Mr. Ellwell, a sudden opening of the Ellwell family arms, and he was one of them—not much to his relish. Ruby Ellwell brought out her engagement to Bradley, the young stock broker her father had chummed with. The Four Corners renewed its worldly life in a garden-party, at which both engagements were announced. Thornton had to stand in line with his new brother-in-law, and for all this disagreeable ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick

... a wretched summer every way. The accountant who had charge of David's affairs was in no hurry to close up a profitable engagement, and the creditors, having once accepted the probable loss, did not think it worth while to deny themselves their seaside or Highland trips to attend meetings relating to Callendar & Leslie. So there was little progress made in the settlement of affairs all summer, and David was literally ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... literary job at last, bein' engaged as sportin' editor on one of Gabe's papers. His dad, old Sol Bearse, seems to be pretty well satisfied, partic'lar as another engagement between the Bearse family and the Sterzers ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... coronation a party of Norman barons arrived, bearing a summons from Duke William to Harold to fulfil the oath he had sworn to be his man, and also to carry out his engagement to marry one of William's daughters. They were received with all honour, and Harold informed them that he would, without delay, reply to the duke's summons. A few days later three thanes of high rank started for Normandy with ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... the truth, Mr. Fernald," explained Garry, "you were the last man on earth that we expected to see right this minute. The reason for our being here involves the telling of a long story, and we must keep a six o'clock engagement in order to prevent an armed posse from going in search of us. Perhaps you'd better come along, and then we can tell you the story at the same time we tell ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... Neal, Irwin, Hill and Lacy, he made a vigorous assault against the post of Rocky Mount, but failed in reducing it for the want of artillery. After this assault General Sumter crossed the Catawba, and marched with his forces in the direction of Hanging Rock. In the engagement which took place there, and, in the main successful, the right was composed of General Davie's troops, and some volunteers under Major Bryan; the centre consisted of Colonel Irwin's Mecklenburg Militia, which made the first attack; and the left included ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... where he attacks: and his whole talent is strained by endless manoeuvre and evolution, to march always on the enemy at an angle, and destroy his forces in detail. It is obvious that a very small force, skilfully and rapidly manoeuvring, so as always to bring two men against one at the point of engagement, will be an overmatch for a ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... that was but seldom; and when he spoke he always wore the sword the Queen had given him, and used the Book he had studied in her palace. It was to their home that Buonespoir the pirate—faithful to his promise to the Queen that he would harry English ships no more came wounded, after an engagement with a French boat sent to capture him, carried thither by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It was there he died, after having drunk a bottle of St. Ouen's muscadella, brought secretly to him by his unchanging friend, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... unhappily, my uncle Chill's master-vice. Though he was rich, he pinched, and scraped, and clutched, and lived miserably. As Christiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little fearful of confessing our engagement to him; but, at length I wrote him a letter, saying how it all truly was. I put it into his hand one night, ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens

... other great maritime state will refuse its accession to an arrangement so well calculated to diffuse the blessings of peace, commerce, and civilization, and so honorable to all nations which may enter into the engagement. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... woven by Armenians and Turks in Anatolia (the land of sunrise, and the Greek name for Asia Minor). The literal translation of the word Kiz-Kilim is bride's rug, it being a custom in that country for a bride to present to her husband one of these rugs, which she has woven during her engagement to him. The quality of the rug is supposed to measure the quality of the husband's affection for his bride, consequently we have many beautiful specimens of this class, the brilliant hues and intricate designs of which could only have been inspired by the whisperings ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... was at first repulsed by the Phocians and their allies, and obliged to retire to his own territory. He soon returned, however, at the head of a more numerous army, defeated the enemy in a decisive engagement near the Gulf of Pag'asae, and would have marched upon Phocis at once to terminate the war, but he found the Pass of Thermopylae strongly guarded by the Athenians, and thought it prudent ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... engaged to Paul Holcomb; he was a very handsome fellow, somewhat too evidently aware of the fact, and Frances was very deeply in love with him—or thought herself so, which at the time comes to pretty much the same thing. Everybody in her set knew of her engagement, and all her girl friends envied her, for Holcomb ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... round the mass of his cavalry from the vanguard to support his rear, reserving only his personal escort. (2) And now in battle order the rival squadrons faced each other; when the Thessalians, not liking a cavalry engagement in face of heavy infantry, wheeled and step by step retreated; their opponents with much demureness following. Then Agesilaus, detecting the common error under which both parties laboured, sent round his own ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon

... and after brief service there to one Of their posts on the West African coast. Returning thence, He was, early in 1628, sent out to Manhattan, where he arrived April 7. It is not known just when he returned to Holland, but he appears to have been under engagement for three years. In 1637-1638 we find the classis vainly endeavoring to send him again to New Netherland, but prevented by the Company, which had a veto upon all ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... could have been devised, than to put him in possession of the English language; and I am glad to hear that the opinion I so early formed has at length been partially acted upon. The natives will soon be open to an engagement on board a vessel, and may expect to emulate the New Zealanders, some of whom have risen to be mates; and to acquire the information and experience of which they stand so much in need. Whereas, were their knowledge confined to their own imperfect ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... this day, and remembering the captain's promise that I should go on shore whenever I pleased, I thought it only necessary to say I was going, merely passing the usual compliment to my superior. I therefore went to him, with a modest assurance, and told him of my engagement ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Mop was the first person who was told of his master's engagement, and he was the first to greet the wife when she came home, a bride, to his own house. He had been made to understand, from the beginning, that she did not care for dogs—in general. And he set himself out to please, and to overcome the unspoken antagonism. He had a delicate part to play, and ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... respective courses happened to be in our direction. But now that one of them—the craft nearest us— had actually assumed the offensive, we need entertain no further scruples, so far at least as she was concerned; and as for the others, now that the engagement might be said to have begun, we should soon discover, by their behaviour, what their ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... had an engagement for that very evening. It was with one of the most brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating women he had ever met. A few months before, she had crossed his path, and from that time he was changed towards Edith. Her name was Catharine Linmore. The earnest attentions of Florence pleased her, and as she ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... day arrived, and Boswell, like a consummate general who leaves nothing to chance, went himself to fetch Johnson to the dinner. The great man had forgotten the engagement, and was "buffeting his books" in a dirty shirt and amidst clouds of dust. When reminded of his promise, he said that he had ordered dinner at home with Mrs. Williams. Entreaties of the warmest kind from Boswell softened the peevish old ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... by Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina. Consent had cured the usurpation of the Congress, if such it was, as Madison affirmed, and therefore, the ordinance, when the Constitution took effect, was legally and constitutionally an engagement of the United States, under the Confederation, binding upon the Federal government by express provision of the sixth article of the Constitution, declaring that "all debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton

... opinion forced upon Lieutenant Maynard as he saw the engagement resolve itself into a series of bloody whirlpools, his seamen and the pirates intermingled. He won his way past the forecastle into the wider spaces of the deck, with only a few of his twenty tars on their feet. Colonel Stuart was hard pressed and the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... to lose sight of it," she turned on him swiftly. And she added, before he could find defence, "You have come to redeem your words, to tell me that you love me desperately; that you want to make an engagement; and some day marry me and go ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... already bought some. Months with Jake Caslow, a few months stolidly fighting the school, and two with the help of Mrs. Bagley and Martha. Then in these later months there had been more purchased time; time gained by the post-dated engagement and the procrastinated marriage, which was ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... engagement held the rank of Adjutant-General of Virginia. "His business was to inform the French that they were building forts on English soil, and that they would do ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... riotous, so full of mutiny, that not many are Christians but in name, their bodies so diseased and crazed that not sixty of them may be employed." He served afterwards with credit in Holland, was made commander of the East Indian fleet in 1618, had a naval engagement with the Dutch near Bantam in 1619, and died in 1620 from the effects of the climate. He was twice married, and his second wife, Lady Fanny, the cousin of his first wife, survived him and received a patent for a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... told her the meaning that lay behind his words. He had known of the engagement, and he knew that it was ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... you arrived last night; it's an awful bore, but I have to go away to-day—an old engagement made, I need hardly say, FOR me and not BY me; I shall turn up to-morrow about this time. No WORK, I think. A day of calm resolution and looking forward manfully to the future! My father and sister are going ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... virtue of this power of purchase at any time, which was vested in the nearest relative, taken along with the compulsory manumission of all 'slaves' every fiftieth year, came to be substantially a voluntary engagement for a fixed time, which might be ended even before that time had expired, if compensation for the unexpired term was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... I ain't noticed, Bloss, that you—you ain't been the same—that you been different—for weeks. Sometimes I think maybe you're going cold on—on this long engagement stuff. That's why this thing is breaking just right for us, honey. I felt you slippin' a little. I'm ready now, Peaches, we can't go taxi-cabbing down for that license none too soon to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... emphasis quite unusual with him—"They want our blood—blood—blood!" It was somewhat ridiculous to implicate Mr. Tooke in a charge of High Treason (and indeed the whole charge was built on the mistaken purport of an intercepted letter relating to an engagement for a private dinnerparty)—his politics were not at all revolutionary. In this respect he was a mere pettifogger, full of chicane, and captious objections, and unmeaning discontent; but he had none of the grand whirling movements of the French ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... battle, in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five. A few months after, in a fierce engagement, the admiral signaled, "Stop firing." Nelson's attention was called to the signal, and his reply was, "I am short one eye, and the other isn't much good, and I accept no signals I can not see: lay alongside of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... thing is certain," he said: "even if that heathen marriage should not be considered legal, it was a solemn ceremony of engagement, and nobody can deny that. It was something like a caveat which people get before a regular patent is issued for an invention, and if you want him to do it, he should stand up and do it; but if you ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... dreary appendage, and (in the case of a person 'hooking on') that was always something gained. Is it because something of a romantic or pathetic interest usually attaches to a good creature who has been the victim of a 'long engagement' that this young lady made an impression on me from the first—favoured as I had been so quickly with this glimpse of her history? Certainly she made no positive appeal; she only held her tongue and smiled, and her smile corrected whatever suggestion might have forced itself upon me that the ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... an engagement, or would all end in smoke, was the talk of Carmel Springs for the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... under his breath; and aloud: "Thanks, I have an engagement. Awfully sorry, and all that, you know." And he rose, as if to ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... return to Sullen Face. He and Forked Horn, on their return to the village, were informed of what had occurred during their absence. They offered to fulfil the engagement of the chief, and accompanied by others of the band, they started for Fort Snelling. The wife of Sullen Face had insisted upon accompanying him, and influenced by a presentiment that he should never ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... postponing the battle to a more convenient season. But as he grew short of food and the barbarians did not desist from pressing him hard, he was compelled, though contrary to his plan, to enter into an engagement with them. Buduica herself, heading an army of about twenty-three myriads of men, rode on a chariot and assigned the rest to their several stations. Now Paulinus could not extend his phalanx the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... were engaged—so what did it matter? Everybody but John Jr., who was John Jr. still, and who while openly denying the engagement, teasingly hinted "that 'twas ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... teeth, adapted to engage the teeth of the matrices and hold the latter in suspension as they are carried along the bar over the mouths of the magazine channels by means of screws which engage their edges. Each matrix remains in engagement with the bar until it arrives at the required point, directly over its own channel, and at this point for the first time its teeth bear such relation to those on the bar that it is permitted to disengage and fall into the channel. It is to be particularly noted that the matrices pursue a ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... or require vows of obedience is objectionable; yet we know that the voluntary nurses who went to the East were called upon to do what comes to the same thing—to sign an engagement to obey implicitly a controlling and administrative power—or the whole undertaking must have fallen to the ground. Then again, questions about costume have been mooted, which appear to me wonderfully absurd. It has been suggested that there should be something ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... replied, "for it's the truth. I'll hire a sandwichman to stop people in the street and tell it to them. I'll get a week's engagement at the theatre and sing it from the stage. I'll make up a poem about your goodness. I don't know what to do to thank you. Do you see, if I had to pay you now I'd have to pawn something, and I really ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... by the fascinating Aileen, the regulars were her adorers. There was much rivalry among many of the steady customers. Aileen could have had an engagement every evening. At least twice a week some one took her to a theatre or to a dance. One stout gentleman whom she and Tildy had privately christened "The Hog" presented her with a turquoise ring. Another one known as "Freshy," who rode on ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... learnt to fix it to a day. But I am not going to compete with this undistinguished lavishness. I give you my picture to stand in your drawing-room as an artist puts his signature to a completed masterpiece, so that when you look around upon the furniture, the silver, the cut glass, the clocks, the engagement tablets, and the tantalus stands, the offerings of the rich whose names you have long ago forgotten, then you will confess to yourself in a burst of thankfulness to your fairy godmother that all this would never have been yours if it had not ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... actually come to pass! Her heart beat so that she could hear it herself, and she seemed to feel a dull pain there. Her face, little by little, acquired a fixed, cold expression: she was thinking that he was then telling his stepmother of their engagement, and fortifying himself for ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... have been daunted by such odds. Not so Capt. Mugford. Mustering his men, he showed them the British ship, told them that she carried heavier metal than the "Franklin," told them that the British fleet lay near at hand, and would doubtless try to take a hand in the engagement; then, having pointed out all the odds against them, he said, "Now, my lads, it's a desperate case; but we can take her, and win lots of glory and prize-money. Will you ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... Count of Clermont for permission to attack. As handsome as Absalom and Paris of Troy, full of words and eaten up of vanity, the Count of Clermont, who was but a lad and none of the wisest, had that very day received his spurs and was at his first engagement.[552] He foolishly sent word to the Gascons not to attack before his arrival. The Gascons obeyed greatly disappointed; they saw what was being lost by waiting. And at length, perceiving that they have walked into the lion's mouth, the English leaders, Sir John Fastolf, Sir Richard Gethyn, Bailie ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... France should be the vassal of no man. "To the feudal contract, between man and man, symbolized by the homage and the investiture, the thirteenth century saw succeed the democratic contract between a man and a group, between seigneurs and subjects, carrying an engagement written and public. Then began the conquest of liberty,—liberty of the person, of the family, and of the property; liberty administrative and political; economic liberty.... Of the total sum of partial contracts intervening between the king and the provinces, cities and corporations, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... engagement that had just been announced, and Mrs. Erlich began to tell Claude a long story about how this brilliant young man had come to Lincoln and met this beautiful young girl, who was already engaged to a cold and academic ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... and there were frequent consultations of wrist watches. Suddenly, at five o'clock exactly, there was a roar that sounded like a hundred bursts of thunder. The artillery had opened the engagement, and the moving picture boys, at last on the firing line, grasped their cameras and reels of film as the soldiers grasped their guns and waited for the ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... got its position in this battle, having to wade through creeks and swamps up to one's armpits. There was no chance to make a deflection to the right or left to shun a quagmire, right ahead being the only chance. The Eighty-sixth skirmishers in this engagement experienced a hard time; but the main body of the regiment ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... 10th, 1496, carrying with him in chains the vanquished Caonabo and other natives. He touched at Marigalante and at Guadaloupe, where his people had an engagement with the natives, taking several prisoners, but releasing them all again with the exception of one woman, a handsome creature who had fallen in love with Caonabo and refused to go. But for Caonabo the joys of life ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... urged her by letter to hasten her departure, but she had informed him of our engagement. She had requested his consent, and he had given it, so that all had gone well ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... judicious law, which, while decreeing the Indian's disability for making a contract with a white man, yet visits upon him no penalty when he evades and contemns such law; which, guaranteeing to him immunity for violating or dishonouring his engagement, prompts him to cast about for some new and, haply, more admired expedient, whereby he may circumvent and defraud his creditor? Is that an enviable position for one to be placed in, who, ignorant of the disability I have mentioned, and guileless enough to suppose, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... passed over Mr Crosbie's head at Courcy Castle without much inconvenience to him from the well-known fact of his matrimonial engagement. Both George de Courcy and John de Courcy had in their different ways charged him with his offence, and endeavoured to annoy him by recurring to the subject; but he did not care much for the wit or malice of George or John de Courcy. The countess had hardly alluded to Lily Dale after those ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... Americans, with their fowling-pieces, defended this place for five hours against two hundred regular French troops, six hundred Canadians, and as many Indians. Johnson received a scratch early in the engagement, and made it an excuse to retire; and Lyman assumed direction. Dieskau bravely led the French regulars, nearly all of whom were killed; he was four times wounded; the Canadians were intimidated. At length, about half past four in ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... a day or two, that Kenneth Saunders' illness had taken a rather alarming turn. There was a consultation of doctors; there was a second nurse. Ella went to the extreme point of giving up an engagement to remain with her mother while the worst was feared; Emily and Susan worried and waited, in their rooms. Stephen Bocqueraz was a great deal in the sick-room; "a real big brother," ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... ought it so to sound? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, the glory of the realized form, instruments in the artist's hand so ineffective, that they can answer no nobler purpose than the amusement of curiosity, or the engagement of idleness? Must it not be owing to gross neglect or misapplication of the means at his command, that while words and tones (means of representing nature surely less powerful than lines and colors) can kindle and purify the very inmost souls of men, the painter ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... meet with me, abroad: that lady, mind, being of his own blood and family, related to him as his cousin. I have innocently robbed her of her lover, and destroyed her prospects in life. Innocently, I say—because he told me nothing of his engagement until after I had accepted him. When we next met in England—and when there was danger, no doubt, of the affair coming to my knowledge—he told me the truth. I was naturally indignant. He had his excuse ready; he showed me a letter from the lady herself, releasing him from his engagement. A more ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... that moment Billy never attempted to butt again. He performed with great docility later on in the Pet's engagement at Skinnerstown; he played a distinguished role throughout the provinces; he had had the advantages of Art from "the Pet," and of Simplicity from Polly, but only Rocky Canyon knew that his real education had come with his first rehearsal with ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... if intending to wait patiently for the arrival of the inhabitants, others pursued their researches and we had no doubt went to the other house, while all examined their arms and primed their guns, as if preparing for an engagement with the warlike people who had slaughtered so great a monster as ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... influence. Dryden's preferment, as poet laureate, was due to, and probably obtained by, his literary character; nor did he ever receive any boon suitable to his rank, as son-in-law to an earl. But, what was worst of all, the parties did not find mutual happiness in the engagement they had formed. It is difficult for a woman of a violent temper and weak intellects, and such the lady seems to have been, to endure the apparently causeless fluctuation of spirits incident to one doomed to labour incessantly in the feverish exercise of the imagination. Unintentional neglect, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... a spy-glass, and from aloft could clearly see three gunboats engaged with a large ship. It was a fine, clear morning, with scarcely wind enough to ruffle the glass-like surface of the water. During the first hour or two of this engagement the gunboats had an immense advantage; being propelled both by sails and oars, they were enabled to choose their own position. While the ship lay becalmed and unmanageable they poured grape and canister shot into her stern and bows like hailstones. At this time the ship's crew could not bring a ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... to the Alliance in 1882. The engagement is defensive. Each of the three parties is to come to the assistance of the others if attacked by ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson

... intensely eager for action and excitement, for cards and racing, and all the strongest stimulants of fashionable life. Most people ascribed this increased vivacity, this electric manner, to the fact of her engagement to Horace Smithson. She was giddy with her triumph, dazzled by a vision of the gold which was ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... with fear. I never, indeed, saw a more miserable example of the great power of that passion: I must not, however, omit doing him justice, by saying that I afterwards saw the same man behave well in an engagement, in which he was wounded; though there likewise he was said to have betrayed the same passion ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding



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