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Oblique   Listen
adjective
Oblique  adj.  (Written also oblike)  
1.
Not erect or perpendicular; neither parallel to, nor at right angles from, the base; slanting; inclined. "It has a direction oblique to that of the former motion."
2.
Not straightforward; indirect; obscure; hence, Disingenuous; underhand; perverse; sinister. "The love we bear our friends... Hath in it certain oblique ends." "This mode of oblique research, when a more direct one is denied, we find to be the only one in our power." "Then would be closed the restless, oblique eye. That looks for evil, like a treacherous spy."
3.
Not direct in descent; not following the line of father and son; collateral. "His natural affection in a direct line was strong, in an oblique but weak."
Oblique angle, Oblique ascension, etc. See under Angle, Ascension, etc.
Oblique arch (Arch.), an arch whose jambs are not at right angles with the face, and whose intrados is in consequence askew.
Oblique bridge, a skew bridge. See under Bridge, n.
Oblique case (Gram.), any case except the nominative. See Case, n.
Oblique circle (Projection), a circle whose plane is oblique to the axis of the primitive plane.
Oblique fire (Mil.), a fire the direction of which is not perpendicular to the line fired at.
Oblique flank (Fort.), that part of the curtain whence the fire of the opposite bastion may be discovered.
Oblique leaf. (Bot.)
(a)
A leaf twisted or inclined from the normal position.
(b)
A leaf having one half different from the other.
Oblique line (Geom.), a line that, meeting or tending to meet another, makes oblique angles with it.
Oblique motion (Mus.), a kind of motion or progression in which one part ascends or descends, while the other prolongs or repeats the same tone, as in the accompanying example.
Oblique muscle (Anat.), a muscle acting in a direction oblique to the mesial plane of the body, or to the associated muscles; applied especially to two muscles of the eyeball.
Oblique narration. See Oblique speech.
Oblique planes (Dialing), planes which decline from the zenith, or incline toward the horizon.
Oblique sailing (Naut.), the movement of a ship when she sails upon some rhumb between the four cardinal points, making an oblique angle with the meridian.
Oblique speech (Rhet.), speech which is quoted indirectly, or in a different person from that employed by the original speaker.
Oblique sphere (Astron. & Geog.), the celestial or terrestrial sphere when its axis is oblique to the horizon of the place; or as it appears to an observer at any point on the earth except the poles and the equator.
Oblique step (Mil.), a step in marching, by which the soldier, while advancing, gradually takes ground to the right or left at an angle of about 25°. It is not now practiced.
Oblique system of coordinates (Anal. Geom.), a system in which the coordinate axes are oblique to each other.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Oblique" Quotes from Famous Books



... sensations of joy and novelty run through my veins, upon beholding this smiling land of groves and verdure stretched out before me. A few glooming vapours, I can hardly call them clouds, rested upon the extremities of the landscape; and, through their medium, the sun cast an oblique and dewy ray. Peasants were returning homeward from the cultivated hillocks and corn-fields, singing as they went, and calling to each other over the hills; whilst the women were milking goats before the wickets of the cottages, and preparing their ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... the military school of Potsdam, never thought it would lead to the "right shoulder forward" of General Ruchel,[4] and to the teaching that the oblique order is the infallible rule for gaining all battles. How true it is that there is but a step from the sublime to ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... common form in the leaves of tropical shrubs and trees, and the lower wings are also produced into a short narrow tail. Between these two points runs a dark curved line exactly representing the midrib of a leaf, and from this radiate on each side a few oblique lines, which serve to indicate the lateral veins of a leaf. These marks are more clearly seen on the outer portion of the base of the wings, and on the inner side towards the middle and apex, and it is very curious to observe how ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, being the last important place on the great trading-route from Poland to Berlin. It has annual fairs which are relics of these olden times, interesting mediaeval churches, and a town-house bearing on its gable the device of the Hanseatic League,—an oblique rod supported ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton

... joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and the windows of Lumley's house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays, glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save the cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills for the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the vision of the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... expression, looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair hair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more like a goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes caught you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How came he, in spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really exquisite manners and a distinguished air? The problem is solved partly by the care and elegance ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... As far as possible such canes as have arisen but a short distance above the lower wire are selected. All the old wood projecting beyond the last cane retained on each of the arms is cut away. The arms of the third year are bent down from their oblique position and are tied firmly to the lower wire, to the right and left of the center of the vine. These are now permanent arms. The vine at this time consists of two arms, arising from near the ground, tied to the lower wire to the right and left ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... ascertained from co- ordination (samanadhikaranya) is only that the cloth is a substance to which a certain colour belongs. The whole matter may, without any contradiction, be conceived as follows. Several words—having either the affixes of the oblique cases or that of the nominative case—which denote one or two or several qualities, present to the mind the idea of that which is characterised by those qualities, and their co-ordination intimates that the thing characterised by all those attributes is one only; ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... a look of constantly growing nervousness, his mouth pulled to an oblique, his glance constantly toward ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... working-man—he who consumed it—was ruined upon the other. But between the two, the great operators, who never saw the wheat they traded in, bought and sold the world's food, gambled in the nourishment of entire nations, practised their tricks, their chicanery and oblique shifty "deals," were reconciled in their differences, and went on through their appointed way, jovial, contented, ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... expressed upon religious matters, could extort a kind word in favour of their religion. But this observation, whether meant as a reproach to him for his want of gracious feeling to a generous parliament, or as an oblique compliment to his sincerity, has no force in it. His majesty's speech was spoken immediately upon, passing the bills which the Speaker presented, and he could not therefore take notice of the Speaker's ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... ten in the morning; the rays of the sun struck the surface of the waves at rather an oblique angle, and at the touch of their light, decomposed by refraction as through a prism, flowers, rocks, plants, shells, and polypi were shaded at the edges by the seven solar colours. It was marvellous, a feast for the eyes, this complication of coloured tints, a perfect ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... stranger," said the Grand Duke, as he took one of the bottles, and scrutinised the cork with a very keen eye; "we are no bigots, and there are moments when we drink Champagne, nor is Burgundy forgotten, nor the soft Bourdeaux, nor the glowing grape of the sunny Rhone!" His Highness held the bottle at an oblique angle with the chandelier. The wire is loosened, whirr! The exploded cork whizzed through the air, extinguished one of the burners of the chandelier, and brought the cut drop which was suspended under it ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt advancing, to hear ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... shrubs, and in defiance stood Near and right opposite. Ulysses, first, Rush'd on him, elevating his long spear Ardent to wound him; but, preventing quick 560 His foe, the boar gash'd him above the knee. Much flesh, assailing him oblique, he tore With his rude tusk, but to the Hero's bone Pierced not; Ulysses his right shoulder reach'd; And with a deadly thrust impell'd the point Of his bright spear through him and far beyond. Loud ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... necessarily impede the reinforcements which might be advancing to his aid and embarrass his retreat should he be finally overpowered. This was about 10. While both armies were preparing for action General Scott (as stated by General Lee) mistook an oblique march of an American column for a retreat, and in the apprehension of being abandoned left his position and repassed the ravine in ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... Flag description: five oblique bands of blue (hoist side), yellow, red, white, and green (bottom) radiating from the ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... a missionary! Not a whaler! not a member of his Majesty's Government! not even Secretary of the Navy! Ah, Heaven! it is too blissful to be true; alas, I do but dream. And yet that noble, honest countenance—those oblique, ingenuous eyes—that massive head, incapable of—of—anything; your hand; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse these tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of Jin Vin—by which abbreviation he was familiarly known through the ward—corresponded with the sketch we have given of his character. His head, upon which his 'prentice's flat cap was generally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely covered with thick hair of raven black, which curled naturally and closely, and would have grown to great length, but for the modest custom enjoined by his state in life and strictly enforced by his master, which ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... fast filly of Porter's would win, and his subtle master, Crane, would have turned the result to his own benefit. Why should he reason, or object, or counterplot, or do anything but just follow blindly the dictates of this past master in the oblique game he loved so well? Crane wanted The Dutchman because he was a good horse; he also wanted to have a heavy plunge on Lucretia; but with the son of Hanover in other hands the good thing might not come off. Somehow Langdon felt miserably inefficient in the presence ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... lingering in the extreme rear of the party, came rapidly up to the spot where the well-affected struggle was maintained. At his approach the hurdles of the other players were withdrawn, when, at a single blow from his powerful arm, the ball was seen flying in an oblique direction and was for a moment lost altogether to the view. When it again met the eye, it was descending into the very centre ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... of the Little Country, Clem returned, bearing breast-high a napkin-covered tray, from which towered twin pillars of glass, topped with fragrant leafage and pierced each by a yellow straw. This tray he placed upon the table beside the poems of Lord Byron, and the minister permitted himself an oblique look thereat, even though this involved deserting the eyes of his agreeable hostess. The ice in the glasses tinkled a brief phrase of music, the tops burgeoned with a luxuriant summer green, and the straws were of a sweetly pastoral ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... said above (Q. 76, AA. 1, 2, 3). But in the form of the consecration of the bread, the body of Christ is expressly mentioned, without any addition. Therefore in this form the blood of Christ is improperly expressed in the oblique case, and the chalice in the nominative, when it is said: "This is the chalice of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... repeated itself during several days. At last, after dogging her hither and thither, leaning with a wrinkled forehead against doorposts, taking an oblique view into the room where she happened to be, picking up worsted balls and getting no thanks, placing a splinter from the Victory, several bullets from the Redoubtable, a strip of the flag, and other interesting relics, carefully labelled, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... close proximity to the nerve of the Ligament of the Pad (Percival), or the Ligament of the Ergot (McFadyean). This is a subcutaneous glistening cord originating in the ergot of the fetlock, passing in an oblique direction downwards and forwards, and crossing over on its way both the digital artery and the posterior branch of ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... these plates are riveted two by two; all the others are movable, and rest, like the pieces of an arch, against the fixed plates that form abutments. Each half lining is thus held by means of a central plate, b' (Fig. 10), with oblique edges, and which, being driven home by the top of the filter, binds the whole tightly together. All these plates, which are slightly notched at their upper part, rest on a small flange at the lower part of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... tubercle (or palate) of the lip is a remarkable character." But he, too, has failed to note the equally remarkable palate of the ragged orchid, just described, both provisions having the same purpose, the insurance of an oblique approach to the nectary. In H. flava this "tubercle," instead of depending from the throat, grows upward from the lip, and, as we look at the flower directly from the front, completely hides the opening to the nectary, and an insect is compelled to insert ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... necessary in order to arrive at it; like the sailor making allowance for the deviation of the magnetic pole, in steering. Happiness is not gained by a point-blank aim; we must take a boomerang flight in some other line, and come back upon the target by an oblique or reflected movement. It is the idea of Young on the Love of Praise (Satire ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... Figs. 143 and 141, in such a way that the tooth rests close to the base; such adjusters claiming this course has a tendency to avoid cockling or buckling of the detent spring E. Such adjusters also set the impulse jewel slightly oblique, so as to lean on the opposite angle of the tooth. Our advice is to set both stones in places corresponding to the axis of the balance ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... can still recognise him for the same creature that was once so gay and jumpy-jumpy: father is no such far cry from pater:—but oh what a change in sprightliness of habits is here! Time has worn away his head and limbs to almost unrecognisable blunt excrescences. Bid him move off into the oblique cases, and if he can help it, he will not budge; you must shove him with a verb; you must goad him with a little sharp preposition behind; and then he just lumps backward or forward, and there is no change for the better in him, as you may say. No longer will he ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... this dividing ground or water-shed, and although no rise was perceptible in the northern horizon, the river was traversed by several rocky dykes, over which it fell southward; their direction being oblique to the course, and nearly parallel to this division of the waters. I beg leave to state, that I should not feel certain on this point without having seen more, were it not evident from Mr. Cunningham's observations, made on crossing ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... seas Beyond the horizon: then from pole to pole He views in breadth, and without longer pause Down right into the world's first region throws His flight precipitant, and winds with ease Through the pure marble air his oblique way Amongst innumerable stars that shone Stars distant, but nigh hand seem'd other worlds; Or other worlds they seem'd or happy ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... arranging a second system of spirals identical with the first, but placed in a plane at right angles therewith, or, more simply still, by having a single system of spirals comprising the coil of the electro-magnet, but distributed in a plane that is oblique with respect to the needle's position of rest. It then becomes possible, by properly modifying such angle of inclination, to obtain a total directing action that shall continue to increase with the intensity, and which, graphically ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... nose is depressed; the ridge broad and generally inclined to be concave, although straight noses are not uncommon. The nasal wings are moderately broad and arched or swelled. The eye slits are oblique and moderately open, showing dark or brown-black eyes. The hair is brown-black and generally slightly wavy or loosely curled, while in some cases it is found curled in locks. Women comb their hair straight back and plaster it with cocoanut oil, ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... to the cemetery, he noticed on the cemetery side a family clothed in black kneeling on the pavement, the transepts having no benches. The young priest knelt down on the step of the balustrade which separated the choir from the nave and began to pray, casting oblique glances at a scene which was soon explained to him. The gospel had been read. The rector, having removed his chasuble, came down from the altar and stood before the railing; the young abbe, who foresaw this movement, leaned back against the wall, so that Monsieur Bonnet did not see ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... Faun, as you would speak To tree, or zephyr, or untrodden grass. Have you, O Greek, O mocker of old days, Have you not sometimes with that oblique eye Winked at the Farnese Hercules?—Alone, Have you, O Faun, considerately turned From side to side when counsel-seekers came, And now advised as shepherd, now as satyr?— Have you sometimes, upon this very bench, Seen, at mid-day, Vincent de Paul instilling Grace into Gondi?—Have ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... elder son was introduced—Rudolph, called Rudi, a youth of about Gard's age. There was an unseemly scar on his face and something oblique in his look. Engineering was given as his profession, but he affected the German military strut and was forward and crammed with ready-made conclusions on most subjects. But Herr Bucher reigned here as elsewhere about Villa Elsa as absolute master. He ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... the pouch in which the latter carry and suckle their young. Nor have they the marsupial bones in the ventral wall at the anterior border of the pelvis, which the Marsupials have in common with the Monotremes, and which are formed by a partial ossification of the sinews of the inner oblique abdominal muscle. There are merely a few insignificant remnants of them in some of the Carnivora. The Placentals are also generally without the hook-shaped process at the angle of the lower jaw which ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... his task of populating his lands. He was capricious, despotic and with the same paternal instincts as his compatriots who, centuries before when conquering the new world, had clarified its native blood. Like the Castilian conquistadors, he had a fancy for copper-colored beauty with oblique eyes and straight hair. When Desnoyers saw him going off on some sudden pretext, putting his horse at full gallop toward a neighboring ranch, he would say to himself, smilingly, "He is going in search of a new peon who will ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Statue of Marcus Aurelius, represents at a Distance the Shape of an Owl, to intimate the Country of the Statuary, who, in all probability, was an Athenian. This kind of Wit was very much in Vogue among our own Countrymen about an Age or two ago, who did not practise it for any oblique Reason, as the Ancients abovementioned, but purely for the sake of being Witty. Among innumerable Instances that may be given of this Nature, I shall produce the Device of one Mr Newberry, as I find it mentioned by our learned Cambden in his Remains. Mr ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... was to carry their colors in the contest. The "Rocket" engine, which was built in their Newcastle shop, was fitted with a tubular boiler six feet long and three feet four inches in diameter. The fire-box was two feet wide and three feet high. On each side of the boiler at its rear end was an oblique cylinder, the piston-rods being connected with the outside of the two driving wheels, which were in front. The two rear wheels were about one-half the diameter of the drivers. The tender, also fourwheeled, was a simple affair, the water being carried ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... with me this sunbeam, as o'er the moss bank green It glides, and enters swiftly the foliage dark between; Resting its golden lever, of mystic length and line, Upon the dewy herbage, in an oblique decline: Toward its moving column the stamen of the flowers Whirl, as by strong attraction; and through the daylight hours Gay insects, azure atoms, with every-colored wing, Swim 'mid the light, still lending fresh sparkles as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... certain marvellously patient citizen who allows his wife to hector him, his customers to bully and cheat him, and who pushes his eccentric and unmanly patience to the point of enduring both madhouse and jail. Lamb, while ranking a single speech of Bellafront's very high, speaks with rather oblique approval of the play, and Hazlitt, though enthusiastic for it, admires chiefly old Friscobaldo and the ne'er-do-well Matheo. My own reason for preferring it to almost all the non-tragical work of the time out of Shakespere, is the wonderful character of Bellafront, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... shirk it 'you say that the highest literature deals with What Is rather than with What Knows. It is all very fine to assure us that testing our knowledge about Literature and around Literature, and on this side or that side of Literature, is healthy for us in some oblique way: but can you examiners examine, or can you not, on Literature in what you call its own and proper ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... gave him an oblique glance. The Indian seldom looks the white man in the face, but it was obvious that Bright Sun was not afraid of the leader. Conway, as well as ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... side, and my companions agreed with me that it was advisable to leave the bed of the river for the spur of the mountains where the river apparently took its rise. We crossed the stream, and commenced a gradual but oblique ascent of the spur. But after climbing for some hours we found our further progress stopped by a wide and deep gully, a sinister place, full of masses of dark green rocks. At the foot of one of the largest of these rocks we came ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... Columbus called Indians, certainly resemble Asiatics in some physical features, such as the reddish-brown complexion, the hair, uniformly black and lank, the high cheek-bones, and short stature of many tribes. On the other hand, the large, aquiline nose, the straight eyes, never oblique, and the tall stature of some tribes are European traits. It seems safe to conclude that the American aborigines, whatever their origin, became thoroughly fused into a composite race during long centuries of isolation from ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... colouring. Even man, excepting perhaps an artist, does not analyse the slight differences in the features of the woman whom he may admire, on which her beauty depends. The male mandrill has not only the hinder end of his body, but his face gorgeously coloured and marked with oblique ridges, a yellow beard, and other ornaments. We may infer from what we see of the variation of animals under domestication, that the above several ornaments of the mandrill were gradually acquired by one individual ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... horseman. Galloping after the bull, the rider seizes the animal's tail, giving it a turn round his own wrist, and then again urges forward his horse till both are at full speed, when, suddenly turning in an oblique direction, by a powerful jerk—from the impetuosity imparted by their rapid speed— the bull is brought to the ground. Here, too, the horse, knowing what is about to be done, starts forward at the proper moment, and assists in accomplishing the work. Sometimes the daring ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... dares. In purity of manhood stand upright And say 'This man's a flatterer'? if one be, So are they all: for every grise of fortune Is smooth'd by that below: the learned pate Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique; There's nothing level in our cursed ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... road to Poland, as all his lieutenants wished, he should tacitly admit his defeat. He conceived the idea of making the Duke of Belluna march upon St. Petersburg, reckoning that, on his arrival and while threatening the capital and court, he could effect an oblique movement northwards by Woskresensk, Wolokolamsk, and Bieloi, and then concentrate all his forces at Smolensk. Winter being past, Napoleon would then be in a position to attack St. Petersburg in earnest. To satisfy his own mind, the emperor wrote out this plan before speaking of it ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... situations. Their places are, in express legal tenure, or in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the first and most respectable persons in the kingdom are tossed about like tennis balls, the sport of a blind and insolent caprice, no Minister dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If an attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to sanctuary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all promises. No conveniency of public arrangement is available to remove any one of them from the specific situation he holds; and the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... Boswell that he loved most 'the biographical part of literature.' Ante, i. 425. Goldsmith said of biography:—'It furnishes us with an opportunity of giving advice freely and without offence.... Counsels as well as compliments are best conveyed in an indirect and oblique manner, and this renders biography as well as fable a most convenient vehicle for instruction. An ingenious gentleman was asked what was the best lesson for youth; he answered, "The life of a good man." Being again asked what was the next best, he replied, "The life of a bad one."' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... Our country and our Church have in reality but one set of interests; and a man cannot be a bad Scot without being a bad Free Churchman too. Let them decide in this matter, not under the guidance of an oblique eye, squinted on little temporary difficulties or hypothetical denominational advantages, but influenced by considerations of the permanent welfare of their country, and of their abiding obligations to ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... precaution to a long crack in the side of a hill, scarcely discernible without the closest scrutiny, through which the accents came quite audibly, and they caught sight of the objects below in a grey light. They made out a narrow, oblique cavern, formed by the widening of what geologists call a "fault" in the shaly rock. Eight men, all in rags with one exception, were sitting and lying about. Stretched on the ground, drinking alternately ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... until they finally passed out of his hands. As with Reynolds, his motto was "Work! work! work!" and, like him, he expressed great dislike for talking artists. Talkers may sow, but the silent reap. "Let us be DOING something," was his oblique mode of rebuking the loquacious and admonishing the idle. He once related to his friend Constable that when he studied at the Scottish Academy, Graham, the master of it, was accustomed to say to the students, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... the fire-box at one end, and to the chimney at the other. The fire-box, or furnace, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, was attached immediately behind the boiler, and was also surrounded with water. The cylinders of the engine were placed on each side of the boiler, in an oblique position, one end being nearly level with the top of the boiler at its after end, and the other pointing towards the centre of the foremost or driving pair of wheels, with which the connection was directly ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... and then they are not young folks any longer. Why—where did we drive to, to knock ourselves up so? What's her name—Picture?" He was incredulous, evidently, about such a name being possible. But there was a sort of graciousness, or goodwill, about his oblique speech in the first person plural, that more than outweighed abruptness in his question ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... the structure against horizontal forces. The substructure consists of (a) the piers and end piers or abutments, the former sustaining a vertical load, and the latter having to resist, in addition, the oblique thrust of an arch, the pull of a suspension chain, or the thrust of an embankment; and (b) the foundations below the ground level, which are often difficult and costly parts of the structure, because the position ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... is sure to develop his hobbies and weak side. I think it possible, however, that Livingstone, with an unsuitable companion, might feel annoyance. I know I should do so very readily, if a man's character was of that oblique nature that it was an impossibility to travel in his company. I have seen men, in whose company I felt nothing but a thraldom, which it was a duty to my own self-respect to cast off as soon as possible; a feeling of utter incompatibility, with whose nature mine could never assimilate. But Livingstone ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... was inferred in that oblique reference. Bull decided that this was a conversational topic on which he must remain silent, and yet he yearned to speak of the little withered catlike fellow with the wise brain who had done so ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... distinguishes Dryden by his "Rehearsal" title of Bayes; and, among many other oblique expressions of malevolence, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... of the new gift, therefore, is that the oblique line, hitherto only transiently indicated, shall become an abiding feature of ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... as it had looked out at him from under the white silk puffing of her black hat, and the speaking power of her eyes at the moment of danger. The breadth of that clear-complexioned forehead—almost concealed by the masses of brown hair bundled up around it—signified that if her disposition were oblique and insincere enough for trifling, coquetting, or in any way making a fool of him, she had the intellect to do it ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... room. Then I think that as soon as you decide that a picture is to be seen, it is easy to find out the way of showing it; to say that it should have such and such a room, with such and such a light; not a raking light, as I heard Sir Charles Eastlake express it the other day, but rather an oblique and soft light, and not so near the picture as to catch the eye painfully. That may be easily obtained, and I think that all other questions ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... by which the land ends of these enormous suspension chains were rooted to the solid ground on either side of the Strait, was remarkably ingenious and effective. Three oblique tunnels were made by blasting the rock on the Anglesea side; they were each about six feet in diameter, the excavations being carried down an inclined plane to the depth of about twenty yards. A considerable width of rock lay between ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... ease; When all the weary sons of woe restrain Their yielding cares with slumber's silken chain, Solace sad grief, and lull reluctant pain. And while the sun, ne'er covetous of rest, Flies with such rapid speed from east to west, In tracks oblique he thro' the zodiac rolls, Between the northern and the southern poles; From which revolving progress thro' the skies. The needful seasons of the year arise: And as he now advances, now retreats, Whence winter colds proceed, and summer heats, He qualifies, and chears the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... plains are described as level, this term must only be taken in a comparative sense. No one who observes them when their surface is thrown into relief by the oblique rays of the rising or setting sun can fail to remark many low bubble-shaped swellings with gently rounded outlines, shallow trough-like hollows, and, in the majority of them, long sinuous ridges, either running concentrically with their borders or traversing them from side to ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... understand gesture one must study melody. There is great affinity between the inflections of the voice and gesture. All the inflections of the voice are common to gesture. The inflections of gesture are oblique for the life, direct for the soul and circular for the mind. These three terms, oblique, direct and circular, correspond to the eccentric, normal and concentric states. The movements of flection are direct, those of rotation, circular, those ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... presented to them sideways, or immediately over their heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which may ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... s of the stem becomes r (between vowels) in the oblique cases. In many words (honor, color, and the like) the r of the oblique cases has, by analogy, crept into the Nominative, displacing the earlier s, though the forms honos, colos, etc., also occur, particularly in early Latin ...
— New Latin Grammar • Charles E. Bennett

... who was narrating something slowly, and with effort, like a man whose memory is labouring to give up its dead, while the attorney, with his spectacles on his nose, was making notes. The speaker ceased abruptly, and turned his pallid visage and jealous, oblique ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... from its socket, and left, moreover, another ragged hole into some hollow place behind. But for this MacIan's cell was the duplicate of Turnbull's—a long oblong ending in a wedge and lined with cold and lustrous tiles. The small hole from which the peg had been displaced was in that short oblique wall at the end nearest to Turnbull's. That individual looked at it with ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... way along the black ridge of juicy peat, to where, in an oblique cutting running out from the main drain, a dozen men were at work, with their sharp spades cutting out great square bricks of peat, and clearing away the accumulations of hundreds of years from the sides of what ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn

... latter, as contrasted with the lack of nationality of the former. It seems, also, that Mr. Clay's speech carries, in its internal characteristics, sufficient evidence of the natural forces which tended to make democracy a national power, and not a mere adjunct of State sovereignty, wherever the oblique influence of slavery was absent. For this reason, it has been taken as a convenient introduction to the topic which follows, the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... strode forth into the street and, though a little conscious of my new clothes and somewhat hampered by the bulbous parcel beneath my arm, felt myself no longer in danger of being roared at to hold horses or proffered alms by kindly old ladies. I strolled along at leisurely pace, casting oblique and surreptitious glances at my reflection in shop windows, whereby I observed that my new garments fitted me better than I had supposed, though it seemed the hair curled beneath my hat brim in too generous luxuriance; so perceiving ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... room with such determination that the very ends of his quaintly old-fashioned bow necktie seemed to bristle with unspeakable menaces. The movement was so swift and fierce that Mr Verloc, casting an oblique glance, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... the park to keep themselves warm and stepped over to the window. The rain was pouring, a regular Normandy rain which one might have thought was let loose and showered down by a furious hand, a slanting rain, thick like a curtain, forming a kind of wall with oblique stripes, a rain that lashed, splashed, deluged everything, a rain peculiar to the neighborhood of Rouen, that watering pot ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... is shown in the diagram. It will be found that no queen attacks another, and also that no three queens are in a straight line in any oblique direction. This is the only arrangement out of the twelve fundamentally different ways of placing eight queens without attack that fulfils ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... give some idea of the interior, we shall describe the cabin of Mr. Stevenson. It measured four feet three inches in breadth on the floor, and though, from the oblique direction of the beams of the beacon, it widened towards the top, yet it did not admit of the full extension of the occupant's arms when he stood on the floor. Its length was little more than sufficient to admit of a cot-bed being suspended during ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... my method. It were well, then, to inform MR. SHADBOLT, that in perspective, planes parallel to the plane of delineation (in this case, the glass at back of camera) have no vanishing points; that planes at right angles to plane of delineation have but one; and that planes oblique have but one vanishing point, to the right or left, as it may be, of the observer's eye. This premised, let the subject be a wall 300 feet in length, with two abutments of one foot in front and five feet in projection, and each placed five feet from the central ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various

... for a woman, to see a feeling of repulsion on the faces of others, when her true destiny is to move all hearts about her to emotions of grace and love. One result of this inward trouble is that an old maid's glance is always oblique, less from modesty than from fear and shame. Such beings never forgive society for their false position because they ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... thin, flat flasks (to contain agar or gelatine, which is allowed to solidify in a layer on one side) are extremely useful on account of the large nutrient surface available for growth. A surface cultivation in one of these will yield as much growth as ten or twelve "oblique" tube cultures. The wide mouth, however, is a disadvantage, and for many purposes thin, flat culture bottles known as Roux's bottles (Fig. 5) ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... groaning all around me. He was as hard to please as the captain; once, looking back along the line as we marched company front, he said, "The ancestors of this bunch certainly must have been a lot of snakes!" But I'll venture to say that none of us, after this, will forget how to oblique in making ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... more oblique than in the eight-year-old and nine-year-old mouth. The table surfaces of the inferior nippers are decidedly rounded, the cups are small, triangular and situated well toward the posterior borders. The dark brown streak or dental star is situated in the central portion ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... is shown an "Oblique Halving Joint," where the oblique piece, or strut, does not run through (Fig. 28, 3). This type of joint is used for strengthening framings and shelf brackets; an example of the latter is shown at Fig. 48. A strut or rail of this type prevents movement or distortion ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... of expression, or all reduced to a general and conventional expression, present, in the oblique position of the eyes and mouth, that forced smile which seems to have been the characteristic feature common to all productions of this archaic style; for we find it also on the most ancient medals, and on ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... perhaps chuckling at his assurance—even this shrewd mummer gravely shook his head at Chatterton, and frowned on him as a cheat! True; they were both cheats; Horace Walpole from apprehensive vanity; Chatterton from proud oblique humility. The Bristol boy knew his worth; but, doubting the equity as well as the sagacity of his judges, he did not venture to produce it as his own. He supposed that an obscure and penniless youth, such as he, could have little ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... which, owing to the folly of misguided notions or inexperienced men, they had for a time taken their departure." This was in 1840, when the Whigs ruled us; it must be an admirable maxim for honest men, but it must be perpetually thwarting the oblique. To form a view on principle, and to adhere to it under all difficulties, is the palpable way to attain great ultimate success; but the paltry and the selfish, the hollow and the intriguing, have neither power nor will to look beyond the moment; they are not steering the vessel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... which are placed most in front of the middle of the window throw shorter shadows than those obliquely situated is:—That the window appears in its proper form and to the obliquely placed ones it appears foreshortened; to those in the middle, the window shows its full size, to the oblique ones it appears smaller; the one in the middle faces the whole hemisphere that is e f and those on the side have only a strip; that is q r faces a b; and m n faces c d; the body in the middle having a larger ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... 4,500 people in there on a warm day, and then watch the perspiration trickle out through the clapboards on the outside. On the closing afternoon, during the matinee performance, the building was struck by lightning and a hole knocked out of the Corinthian duplex that surmounts the oblique portcullis on the off side. The reader will see at once the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... the attention of the five was instantly concentrated upon the first of the strangers, a young man of medium height, but of the most extraordinary ugliness. His skin, even without the tan, would have been very dark. His eyes, narrow and oblique, were almost Oriental in cast and his face was disfigured by a hideous harelip. The whole effect was sinister to the last degree, but Henry and his comrades were fair enough to credit it to a deformity of nature and not to a wicked soul behind. The two with him were a little ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... ornaments of which were, I suppose, highly interested in the progress of the affair, while others "really thought Mr. Chrystal Croftangry might have had more wit at his time of day." Then came the sly intimation, the oblique remark, all that sugar-lipped raillery which is fitted for the situation of a man about to do a foolish thing, whether it be to publish or to marry, and that accompanied with the discreet nods and winks of such friends as are in the secret, and the obliging eagerness of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... meek, In a brown little baby cheek, Two dear little eyes that met her own in a ravishing glance oblique; A chubby hand thrust through The palings of bamboo— A little Celestial, dropped, it seemed, straight out of ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our supper the oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white sand about us. The translucent red ball itself sank behind the brown stretches of cornfield as we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of air that had rested over ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... impendent hills. Inshore the substance of the ice sparkled here and there with iridescence like the plumelets of a butterfly's wing under the microscope, wherever light happened to catch the jagged or oblique flaws ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... hydrate, CCl3.CH(OH)2, forms oblique, often very short, rhombic prisms. The crystals are perfectly transparent, only slightly odorous, free from powder, and dry to the touch, and do not become white by exposure. The melting-point of pure chloral hydrate is 57 deg., the boiling-point 96-98 deg. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... mucous coat is a sub-mucous, consisting of loose connective tissue, while superficial to this are three coats of unstriped muscle, the inner oblique, the middle circular and the outer longitudinal. The peritoneal coat is described in the article on the coelom ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... is seen, when I look directly eastward; but by an oblique glance southward (always from my library-window) the checkered farm-land is repeated in long perspective: here and there is a farm-house with its clustered out-buildings; here and there a blotch of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... with pointed beards, oblique eyes, and oblong shields, had to represent the Israelites; they marched by in an endless procession. He saw the blue-green of the vineyards on the hillside, the shadow of the dusty palm-trees upon the ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... Elmur he recognized the oblique carriage of the head and the high-shouldered figure of the third man he had seen with the newspaper correspondents in the Grand Square that afternoon. Moreover he knew that the German had entered ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... light. On examining the eye by looking straight into it through the pupil, the anterior wall of the capsule appeared opaque in its whole extent, and of a color and luster like mother-of-pearl. On looking from the temporal side in an oblique direction into the pupil, there was visible in the anterior wall of the capsule a very small perpendicular cleft of about one line ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... through adulation, nor as if they were raising mortals to the rank of goddesses." Ky. This is one of those oblique censures on Roman customs in which the treatise abounds. The Romans in the excess of their adulation to the imperial family made ordinary women goddesses, as Drusilla, sister of Caligula, the infant daughter of Poppaea (Ann. 15, 23), and Poppaea ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... but finally yielded. If there was anything in the old adage that "music hath charms," he told himself grimly that now was the time to put it to the test. He took up a hymn book and selected a hymn Janet could play. The leader of the Methodist Choir condescended to flop down noisily from his oblique position and join him. Janet's sweet, timid voice made a pleasant third and the trio rendered ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... brimming full, when their still surfaces reflect the sky with a brighter light, and the fishing boats ride erect, Bosham is serenely beautiful and restful. But at low tide she is a slut: the withdrawing floods lay bare vast tracts of mud; the ships heel over into attitudes disreputably oblique; stagnation reigns. ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... play at lying, as children play at hide and seek, the hideous debauchee of a heart, worse than all the lubricity of the Romans, or the Saturnalia of Priapus; bastard parody of vice itself as well as of virtue; loathsome comedy where all is whispering and oblique glances, where all is small, elegant and deformed like the porcelain monsters brought from China; lamentable derision of all that is beautiful and ugly, divine and infernal; a shadow without a body, a skeleton of all that ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... the tooth-row throughout the length of each specimen. Beneath the naris the maxilla extends as a broad tapering shelf, the ventral surface of which articulates with the premaxilla. The narial rim is wide, but wider ventrally than dorsally. The plane of the narial rim is oblique to the lateral surface of the maxilla. The external surface of each fragment is grooved and pitted. The ossification of each fragment appears to ...
— Two New Pelycosaurs from the Lower Permian of Oklahoma • Richard C. Fox

... shaped eye rounded in the corner next the nose like the end of an ellipsis, probably of Tartar or Scythian origin, are nearly alike. They also agree in the broad root of the nose; or great distance between the eyes: and in the oblique position of these, which, instead of being horizontal, as is generally the case in European subjects, are depressed towards the nose. A Hottentot who attended me in travelling over Southern Africa was so very like a Chinese servant I had in Canton, both in person, features, manners, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... fine Sunday morning, in the month of December, 179-, that the oblique beams of the sun were reflected back by the snow white canvass of a stately ship of about six hundred tons, that with a fair wind, a good breeze, and all sail set, was steadily pursuing her course, somewhat east of north. She was in, or about, the latitude of eighteen ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes Which cause those divers motions, by whose means Nature transacts her work. And so I say, The atoms must a little swerve at times— But only the least, lest we should seem to feign Motions oblique, and fact refute us there. For this we see forthwith is manifest: Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go, Down on its headlong journey from above, At least so far as thou canst mark; but who Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve At all aside from off ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... mellow afternoons that sometimes colour London with their golden light at this time of the year, and produce those marvellous sunset effects which, if they were not known to be made up of kitchen coal-smoke and animal exhalations, would be rapturously applauded. Behind the perpendicular, oblique, zigzagged, and curved zinc 'tall-boys,' that formed a grey pattern not unlike early Gothic numerals against the sky, the men and women on the tops of the omnibuses saw an irradiation of topaz hues, darkened here and there into ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... great darkness were approaching. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange and ghastly figure of legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads and distinguished for an instant in an oblique lightning flash; as Vanderdecken passing in the hurricane and throwing a blood-red illumination from the sails of his haunted ship; as the everlasting climber of the Brocken, as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern legend, who ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... narrow chest, into which the remains had been almost crushed together, the bishop's red-gloved hands drew the dwindled body, shrunken inconceivably, but still with every feature of the face traceable in a sudden oblique ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... colour or form; the largest on record (a Suliot, belonging to the king of Naples), measured four feet at the shoulders; the least would probably give a height of as many inches. All the untamed species are lank and gaunt, their muzzles are long and slender, their eyes oblique, and their strength and tenacity of life ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... spoil her with moralising; but the Baron is the magnet, and, as a counterfoil, the diabolical German hotel keeper. There is too much arbitrary handling at the close for my taste. Only in the opening chapters of Victory does Mr. Conrad pursue his oblique method of taletelling; the pomp and circumstance of a lordly narrative style roll to a triumphant conclusion. This Polish writer easily heads the present ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... the upper chamber, and down these, at the very moment of Mistress Nutter's entrance, descended a stalwart personage, who eyed her fiercely as he leapt upon the floor. There was something in the man's truculent physiognomy, and strange and oblique vision, that ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... happened to be looking very closely at the time, and consequently they could not say one way or the other. All they knew was that without any warning Landy was seen to be dragged out of the stern of the skiff, struggle to clasp his writhing legs about the pushpole that stood at an oblique angle, caught firmly in the tenacious mud, and then releasing his hold, flop with a great splash into the dark-colored water ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... the interruptions thus caused, the lower stake was fixed in a few minutes. The Professor then swung his axe vigorously, and began to cut an oblique stair-case in the ice up the sheer face of ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... with a lazy competence, Brice moved forward and gave him a light push, sidewise, on the shoulder. There was science and a rare knowledge of leverage in the mild gesture. When a man is kicking, he is on only one foot. And, the right sort of oblique push will not only throw him off his balance, but in such a direction that his second foot cannot come to earth in position to help ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... gradation, and at the same time a something lacking as to a sense of physical form. In the few specimens of Martin to be seen there is, nevertheless, eminent distinction paramount. He was an artist of "oblique integrity": He saw unquestionably at an angle, but the angle was a beautiful one, and while many of his associates were doing American Barbizon, he was giving forth a shy, yet rare kind of expression, always a little symbolic in tendency, with the ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... although the tributaries of the Chickahominy, running in from the north, afforded a series of positions, the right flank of these positions, resting, as Stuart had ascertained, on no natural obstacle, was open to a turning movement. Furthermore, in rear of the Fifth Corps, and at an oblique angle to the front, ran the line of supply, the railway to West Point. If Porter's right were turned, the Confederates, threatening the railway, would compel McClellan to detach largely to the north bank of the Chickahominy in order to recover or ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... when they started, it had been clear and mild. The wild geese had flown high up in the air—evenly, and without haste—with Akka at the head maintaining strict discipline, and the rest in two oblique lines back of her. They had not taken the time to shout any witty sarcasms to the animals on the ground; but, as it was simply impossible for them to keep perfectly silent, they sang out continually—in rhythm with the wing-strokes—their usual coaxing call: "Where are you? ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... the right. In doing so, he catches sight of the other foot, and skips to the left. Then everything disappears from in front of the saddle—the wicked ears, now laid level backward—the black, tangled mane—the shining neck with the sweeping curve of a circular saw—the clean, oblique shoulders—they have all disappeared, and there is nothing in front of the saddle but a precipice. There is ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... experiments to pass unnoticed, of which an account was given in the Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects in 1887. These experiments were made on rectangular bodies with sections of propeller blade form, moved through the water at various velocities in straight lines, in directions oblique to their plane faces; and from their results an estimate was formed of the resistance of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... sounded. The peal is then echoed and re-echoed by all the other periodical works over which the publisher, or the author, or the author's coterie, may have any influence. The newspapers are for a fortnight filled with puffs of all the various kinds which Sheridan enumerated, direct, oblique, and collusive. Sometimes the praise is laid on thick for simple-minded people. "Pathetic," "sublime," "splendid," "graceful," "brilliant wit," "exquisite humour," and other phrases equally flattering, fall in a shower ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... life is in his heart yet, and after he has slept awhile he will come to himself, and be a wiser man for it, till the hour of his real time shall come," returned Hawkeye, casting another oblique glance at the insensible body, while he filled his charger with admirable nicety. "Carry him in, Uncas, and lay him on the sassafras. The longer his nap lasts the better it will be for him, as I doubt whether he can find a proper ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... seemed to slumber. Suddenly the loud clamour of five bells as the hour was struck made him start to his feet and look quickly about him with nervous apprehension. From the dead officer's state-room a narrow line of light from beneath the door sent an oblique ray aslant the cabin floor and ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... direction on a new plan, in which either great dispersion or great purity of spectrum is obtained by the use of 'Half-prisms,' according as the incident pencil falls first on the perpendicular or on the oblique face. In this Spectroscope either one or two half prisms can be used at pleasure, according to the dispersion required, and there is facility for increasing the train to three or four half-prisms, though the dispersion with two only is nearly double of that given by the large ten-prism Spectroscope. ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... of battle and place my artillery in position so that I could act in concert with Davis's division, which he wished to post on my right in the general line he desired to take up. In obedience to these directions I deployed on the right of, and oblique to the Wilkinson pike, with a front of four regiments, a second line of four regiments within short supporting distance, and a reserve of one brigade in column of regiments to the rear of my centre. All this time the enemy kept up a heavy artillery ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... staccato, Emerson is not free from secondary faults. He uses words that are not only odd, but vicious in construction; he is not always grammatically correct; he is sometimes oblique, and he is often clumsy; and there is a visible feeling after epigrams that do not always come. When people say that Emerson's style must be good and admirable because it fits his thought, they forget that though it is well that a robe ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... then, you're only fit for the hounds," observed the gentleman with oblique vision; "I should ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... have any uneasy jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chiefly of the burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom we have grave reasons for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of injuring him—rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits; and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... the coast whence numerous cargoes of slaves were still embarked. A short time before sunset they made the land. Soon after this, as Jack was standing up on the stern-sheets, his eye fell on a white spark glistening brightly in the oblique rays of the departing luminary. He brought his glass to bear on the subject. Adair took a look at it, and so did Needham. They all agreed that the sail in sight was a square topsail schooner standing off ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... uncinated[obs3], aquiline, jagged, serrated; falciform[obs3], falcated[obs3]; furcated[obs3], forked, bifurcate, zigzag; furcular[obs3]; hooked; dovetailed; knock kneed, crinkled, akimbo, kimbo[obs3], geniculated[obs3]; oblique &c. 217. fusiform[Microb], wedge-shaped, cuneiform; cuneate[obs3], multangular[obs3], oxygonal[obs3]; triangular, trigonal[obs3], trilateral; quadrangular, quadrilateral; foursquare; rectangular, square, multilateral; polygonal &c. n.; cubical, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... repeated Ben, and turned to his company. "Forward, boys,—left oblique!" he shouted, and on they went again, past the nipa huts and down a trail leading along the edge of a rich plantation. Several more huts were passed, but the inmates were nothing but women and children, ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... Anatomy.)—L.] There is one circumstance, however, which seems to mark a decided difference between the two animals; the eye of the dog of every country and species has a circular pupil, but the position or form of the pupil is oblique in the wolf. Professor Bell gives an ingenious but not admissible reason for this. He attributes the forward direction of the eyes in the dog to the constant habit, "for many successive generations, of looking towards their ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... was most irreligious, of course. Still, some homicides were fairly justifiable, others almost meritorious; and a criminal of this kind showed, in every case, undeniable traces of manliness; one could not help respecting him in an oblique sort of fashion. But a fool! Torquemada, the zealous priest, the man of God, could never quite repress the promptings of his blood. He had all the fanatic's appreciation of violent methods; all the Southerner's fondness for a miscreant, and contempt ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... white interstices are cut out so neatly that there is no appearance of any jag or break in the lines; they look exactly as if they had been drawn with a pen. It is chiefly difficult to cut the pieces clearly out when the lines cross at right angles; easier when they form oblique or diamond-shaped interstices; but in any case some half-dozen cuts, and in square crossings as many as twenty, are required to clear one interstice. Therefore if I carelessly draw six strokes ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... Making an oblique dash, Boyle himself passed the pigskin to Dick Prescott. Then all of the Army line that could do so stiffened in and surged behind ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... Ah meretrix oblique tuens, ait Articus illi— Immemorem sponsae cupidus quam mungit adulter! Haec tua tota fides, sic sic aliena ministras! Erubuit nihil ausa palam, nisi mollia pacis Verba, sed assuetis noctem ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... PKV2S, in which P is the rectangular normal pressure, in pounds or kilograms, K a coefficient (0.0049 for British, and 0.11 for metric measures), V the velocity in miles per hour or in metres per second, and S the surface in square feet or in square metres. The normal on oblique surfaces, at various angles of incidence, is given by the formula P KV2Se, which latter factor is given both for planes and for arched surfaces in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the thread by which it has hitherto been suspended from the finger, and floats away into space. Very often it rises almost vertically, sometimes its course is nearly horizontal, and sometimes it is oblique. ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... which occurred once in the review-ground on the outskirts of Berlin, will suffice to mark his temper in that respect. It was in the spring of 1719; our little Fritz then six years old, who of course heard much temporary confused commentary, direct and oblique, triumphant male laughter, and perhaps rebellious female sighs, on ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... carriage drives on this, without taking out any of the horses. About one hundred and fifty yards up the river is a fixed stake, and a rope tied to it, the other end of which is made fast to one side of the batteaux, so as to throw them oblique to the current. The stream then acting on them, as on an inclined plane, forces them across the current in the portion of a circle, of which the rope is the radius. To support the rope in its whole length, there are two intermediate ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... grand sign is given by bringing the thumb and finger of the left hand to the mouth, and carrying it off in an oblique direction; the grip is given by interlacing the fingers of the left hand; the word is Veritas. The sign, grip, and word are given under the ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... flight of about a hundred yards, rising and falling in a most graceful manner. At a little distance they exactly resemble swallows, and no one who sees them can doubt that they really do fly, not merely descend in an oblique direction from the height they gain by their first spring. In the evening an aquatic bird, a species of booby (Sula fiber.) rested on our hen-coop, and was caught by the neck by one ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... world will thank only the reasoner who winds up, not with Q.E.D., but with Q.E.F. To reason that a patient ought not to take a given medicine because it may possibly cause him more pain than some other medicine which he has no intention of taking, is curiously oblique logic. The question is not oblique; it is direct. Will the operation do more harm to his constitution than the slow corrosions of a disorder grown inveterate? Are the conditions of the connection between England and Ireland, as laid down ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... it diagonally off to the right. Now proceed to pass the lacing through the holes of the belt in a zigzag course, leaving all the strands inside the belt parallel with the belt, and all the strands outside the belt oblique. Pass the lace twice through the holes nearest the edge of the belt, then return the lace in the reverse order toward the center of the belt, so as to cross all the oblique strands, and make all the inside strands double. Finally pass the end of the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... his desk a well-stuffed and tightly sealed legal-sized envelope. He turned to the Japanese, as if for approval or permission, and Dr. Ichi, without removing his bright, oblique eyes from Martin's face, inclined his head in agreement with that unspoken communication. The lawyer faced Martin again, but the latter had the feeling that, despite Smatt's heavy voice and forceful personality, it was the silent little Dr. Ichi ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... do not divide the brain into front, middle, and occipital lobes as would seem most natural, by erecting vertical lines from their bases, but follow up the oblique courses of the convolutions so as to extend the front lobe into the upper surface of the brain, and extend the middle lobe from the middle of the upper surface backward into the region of Self Confidence, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various

... a wide arc of a circle whose lower extremity is connected with the corridor of the larva and whose upper extremity is prolonged in a straight line which ends at the surface with a perpendicular or slightly oblique incidence. The wide connecting arc enables the insect to tack about. When, starting from a position parallel with the axis of the tree, the Sirex has passed gradually to a transversal position, he completes his course in a straight line, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... superiority in artillery, and to the thinness with which they held their front line, they did not bother to build strong traverses between the inordinately long fire bays, which were, in consequence, seriously exposed to oblique gun fire. Again, no attempt had been made to provide any flooring for the trenches, and the Battalion spent many happy hours working under the August sun as amateur bricklayers, with the material ready to hand from the village, in the hope, which the winter was to bring utterly to naught, of thereby ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... the fingers touch the head, with thumbs pointing the rear) they point out straight sideways; (3) let the fingers rest on the top of the head a moment, and then with the elbows pressing back (which forces the shoulders back) force the arms backward with an oblique motion until they reach the sides at full length, as in ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... complete master of this subject, thought this of very difficult comprehension; and observes that probably when at the equinoctial, the full orbit of the star is seen; whereas, the nearer one approaches the pole it seems the less, because the Heavens are more oblique. As for the variation, I believe the star has the quality of all the four quarters, like the needle, which if touched to the east side points to the east, and so of the west, north, and south; wherefore, he that makes a compass covers the loadstone with a cloth, all but its north part, or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... for any American aware of the ancient pieties of race. The impression it produces, the emotions it kindles in the mind of such a visitor, are too rich and various to be expressed in the halting rhythm of prose. Passing through the small oblique streets in which the long grey battered public face of the colleges seems to watch jealously for sounds that may break upon the stillness of study, you feel it the most dignified and most educated of cities. Over and through it all the great corporate fact of the University slowly throbs after ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... the pure white light, is all-pervading, yet it is oft-times obscured with passing clouds and nights of darkness; like the sun's rays, it may be healthy, genial, inspiring, though sometimes too direct for comfort, too oblique for warmth, too scattered for any given purpose. But as the prism by dividing the rays of light reveals to us the brilliant coloring of the atmosphere, and as the burning-glass by concentrating them ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various



Words linked to "Oblique" :   devious, oblique triangle, catacorner, ablative, diagonal, ablative case, case, oblique case, kitty-corner, cata-cornered, possessive, vocative case, dative, nominative, bias, parallel, dative case, oblique angle, divergent, vocative, perpendicular, sideways, crabwise, oblique vein of the left atrium, abdominal muscle, convergent, accusative



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