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Specific   Listen
adjective
specific  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to a species; characterizing or constituting a species; possessing the peculiar property or properties of a thing which constitute its species, and distinguish it from other things; as, the specific form of an animal or a plant; the specific qualities of a drug; the specific distinction between virtue and vice. "Specific difference is that primary attribute which distinguishes each species from one another."
2.
Specifying; definite, or making definite; limited; precise; discriminating; as, a specific statement.
3.
(Med.) Exerting a peculiar influence over any part of the body; preventing or curing disease by a peculiar adaptation, and not on general principles; as, quinine is a specific medicine in cases of malaria. "In fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science."
Specific character (Nat. Hist.), a characteristic or characteristics distinguishing one species from every other species of the same genus.
Specific disease (Med.)
(a)
A disease which produces a determinate definite effect upon the blood and tissues or upon some special tissue.
(b)
A disease which is itself uniformly produced by a definite and peculiar poison or organism.
Specific duty. (Com.) See under Duty.
Specific gravity. (Physics) See under Gravity.
Specific heat (Physics), the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body one degree, taking as the unit of measure the quantity required to raise the same weight of water from zero to one degree; thus, the specific heat of mercury is 0.033, that of water being 1.000.
Specific inductive capacity (Physics), the effect of a dielectric body in producing static electric induction as compared with that of some other body or bodies referred to as a standard.
Specific legacy (Law), a bequest of a particular thing, as of a particular animal or piece of furniture, specified and distinguished from all others.
Specific name (Nat. Hist.), the name which, appended to the name of the genus, constitutes the distinctive name of the species; originally applied by Linnaeus to the essential character of the species, or the essential difference. The present specific name he at first called the trivial name.
Specific performance (Law), the peformance of a contract or agreement as decreed by a court of equity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Specific" Quotes from Famous Books



... the world, and particularly the governments of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, that all restrictions placed on the trading of their vessels with the allied and associated countries, whether by the German government or by private German interests, and whether in return for specific concessions, such as the export of shipbuilding materials or not, are ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... panting. She even appeared to be smothering, for the carbonic acid—as in the famous Grotto del Cane on the banks of Lake Agnano, near Naples—was collecting like water on the floor of the Projectile, on account of its great specific gravity. It already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and stirred the mixture gently: ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... harm; for, allowing for some selfishness, her character was, on the whole, innocent and generous. But the ladies of her train, sharpsighted in such matters, had for some time discovered that a poignant jest at the expense of the Lady Edith was a specific for relieving her Grace of England's low spirits, and the discovery saved their ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... including the Journal of the Convention recently published, just what the complexion of the body was on the slavery question. Mr. W. Kitchell, a descendant of one of the delegates, states that there were twelve delegates that favored the recognition of slavery by a {p.21} specific article in the Constitution, and twenty-one that opposed such action. Gov. Coles, who was present as a visitor and learned the sentiments of the prominent members, says that many, but not a majority of the Convention, were in favor of making Illinois a slave ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul

... the Correspondent an article exceedingly insulting to France. It had been inserted by order of Baron Novozilzow, who was at Berlin, and who had become very hostile to France, though it was said he had been sent from St. Petersburg on a specific mission to Napoleon. The article in question was transmitted from Berlin by an extraordinary courier, and Novozilzow in his note to the Senate said it might be stated that the article was inserted at the request of His Britannic Majesty. The Russian ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of animal, in course of time acquires so vivid a conception of its form and structure, that the idea may take visible shape and become a sort of waking dream. But the figure which thus presents itself is generic, not specific. It is no copy of any one specimen, but, more or less, a mean of the series; and there seems no reason to doubt that the minds of children before they learn to speak, and of deaf mutes, are peopled with similarly generated generic ideas ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... concerned now only with universal time. It may, however, be proper that the resolution offered by Mr. RUTHERFURD in regard to the employment of universal time should be supplemented by something more specific—something, for ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various

... and specific description in Chapter III, a clear idea will have been obtained of the power house building and its adjuncts, as well as of the features which not only go to make it an architectural landmark, but which adapt it specifically for the vital function that ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous

... the tendency of a germ to develop according to a certain specific type, e.g. of the kidney bean seed to grow into a plant having all the characters of Phaseolus vulgaris, is its "Karma." It is the "last inheritor and the last result" of all the conditions that have affected a line ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... day that my mind was disordered by the approach of the fever which eventually struck me down, and that all I have described was merely the result of what he, with delightful periphrasis, calls "an abnormal condition of the system, induced by causes too remote for specific diagnosis." ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... These two men, Benton and Dunwody, therefore, were at the time of which we write two gladiators upon the scenes of a wild western region, as yet little known in the eastern states, though then swiftly coming forward into more specific notice. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was separately touched by some specific recollection. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... not a general statement. I have a specific instance in view, when, in 1886, I went to the Leinster House in Dublin—the public library of the place—and asked for Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." On being informed that they had no copy of it in the library, I put down the book in the suggestion list. A number ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various

... expects or demands anything in the nature of "proof" of the teachers statements of principle or method; in fact, he would regard it as an insult to the teacher to ask for the same. Consequently, he does not look for, or ask, specific instances or illustrations in the nature of scientific evidence or proof of the principles taught. He may ask for more information, but solely for the purpose of bringing out some point which he has not grasped; but he avoids as a pestilence any question seeming to indicate ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... young animals of these species which are the most social and docile and most approach man in appearance. As they grow older, their specific characters become more marked. Fierce and sullen as is the old gorilla, the young of this species is playful and affectionate in captivity and is given to mischievous tricks. The one that was kept for a time in ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress and housekeeping, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the liberty to explain to him the cause, and inform him of the laws of the balance. The merchant was astonished, and began to regard him with other eyes. Zadig, finding he had raised his curiosity, increased it still further by acquainting him with many things that related to commerce, the specific gravity of metals, and commodities under an equal bulk; the properties of several useful animals; and the means of rendering those useful that are not naturally so. At last Setoc began to consider Zadig as a sage, and preferred him ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... sister were nursed by the same woman at intervals widely separated. A man may not marry his wife's sister during his wife's lifetime unless she has been divorced. A Muhammadan cannot marry a polytheist, but he may marry a Jewess or a Christian. No specific religious ceremony is appointed, nor are any rites essential for the contraction of a valid marriage. If both persons are legally competent, and contract marriage with each other in the presence of two male or one male and two female witnesses, it is sufficient. And the Shiah ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... definitely accused Mr. Peters in his mind of any specific tort or malfeasance. He had merely felt that something fishy was toward. He had a sixth ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... thigh, and for pain in the kidneys an amulet depicting Hercules overcoming a lion. To exorcise gout, he used incantations, these being either oral or written on a thin sheet of gold during the waning of the moon. Writing a suitable inscription on an olive leaf, gathered before sunrise, was his specific for ague. Alexander appears at times to have doubted the efficacy of such remedies as amulets, for he explains that his rich patients would not submit to rational treatment, and it was necessary, therefore, to use other methods reputed ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... truck. He sticks to his trade through life. He becomes a master mechanic. You can't lure him away into an unskilled channel by more money. It's not the money alone he is thinking of. It is also the pride of having a specific calling that lifts him out of the great commonplace market of untrained labor. So Germany is full of competent mechanical men while we limp along with our huge supply of the partly experienced. Every such German ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... And whereas, although that specific object was successfully achieved by the survey of Raine Island Passage, and by the erection of a durable beacon there to render it the more accessible, yet it appears that much is still to be done in those seas in order to make the approach to the Strait more secure and certain, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... difficult circus feat of riding two mounts at the same time. The instructions from England, as Lyttleton himself acknowledged in his letter of 15th October 1663, distinctly forbade further hostilities against the Spanish plantations; on the other hand, there were no specific orders that privateers should be recalled. Lyttleton was from first to last in sympathy with the freebooters, and probably believed with many others of his time that "the Spaniard is most pliable when best beaten." In August 1664 he presented to the Lord Chancellor his reasons for advocating ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... attempted to walk home alone in such a condition. It was not safe. But I am talking to you, when I should be aiding you," said Cora; and she went to her dressing case and took from it a certain family specific for neuralgic headaches which had been in great favor with her grandmother. This she poured into a glass, added a little water, and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... entire new scene" was to be enacted. The instructions were exceedingly voluminous, consisting of thirty closely written folio pages, and they contain plans for the rotation of crops for several years, as well as specific directions regarding fencing, pasturage, composts, feeding stock, and a great variety of other subjects. In them one can find our Farmer's final opinions on certain phases of agriculture. To draw them up must have cost him days of hard labor and that he found the task wearing ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... to have in the house a paper or journal which prints notices that lie or that conceal the truth. If this drastic measure would cut us off entirely from daily papers, we could choose the least offensive and petition it to exclude specific lying methods. When it preaches health, honesty, and philanthropy, we can cut out of one issue the noble editorial and the exploiting advertisements and send them to the editor with our protest. Knowledge of the ingredients ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... the process of rotation renewed until the whole of the sand is taken away, and the gold alone remains. It is found in very minute scales, and, unless I had been assured to the contrary, I should have taken it to be mica, for, knowing the gold to be of greater specific gravity than the sand, I imagined that a stream of water would remove the latter and leave the former; but here the practice is to remove the whole of the sand by the hand. This process was, no doubt, a profitable one to the Portuguese, and it is probable that, with ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... was already convinced of what was going on, I knew that he always considered it a matter of considerable medico-legal importance to be exact, for if the affair ever came to the stage of securing an indictment the charge could be sustained only by specific proof. ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... singular mountain piazza, a place of shelter. We had brought a pickaxe with us; and the dry and dusty floor, composed mainly of a gritty conglomerate, formed the scene of our labors. It is richly fossiliferous, though the organisms have no specific variety; and never, certainly, have I found the remains of former creations in a scene in which they more powerfully addressed themselves to the imagination. A stratum of peat-moss, mixed with fresh-water ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... length, giving them a summary of his views on Government, Constitutions, and Charters. The Creoles of Louisiana sent to Congress a memorial of their "rights," in which they included the importation of African slaves. Paine was indignant at this perversion of his favorite specific for all political ailments, and took the Franco-Americans soundly to task:—"How dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice?" It is manifest that Paine could not be a Democrat in good standing now. Mingled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... A SURE AND SPECIFIC REMEDY for all the ills known as seminal losses. As right eating cures a sick stomach and right breathing diseased lungs, so the right use of the sexual organs will bring relief and restoration. Many ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... twenty years,—the fossils of an early formation of mind, produced at a period when the atmosphere of feeling was warmer than now, and the immaturities of the mental kingdom grew rank and large, like the ancient Cryptogamiae, and bore no specific resemblance to the productions of a present time. I had passed in the neighborhood the first season I anywhere spent among strangers, at an age when home is not a country, nor a province even, but simply a little spot of earth inhabited by friends and relatives; and the rude verses, long ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... replied that they could not arrest and imprison one of their number except upon specific charges made against him. Whereupon the Commons very promptly prepared a list of charges and sent them to the Lords. On this accusation the Lords ordered Suffolk to be arrested, and he ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... adolescence-period of the child. We have been in the habit of allowing the child to consider the Bible-school as his church. We send him to the Bible-school in his very early years, but make no demands upon him as far as specific church-attendance is concerned. And at the kindergarten-period we are probably wise in this; for after the child has attended kindergarten for an hour, it is too great a tax upon him to require him to sit through an hour's church-service. But after the kindergarten-period it seems ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... Now, then, Jerry and I will ride in looking for cattle and prepared to charge these Indians with cattle-stealing. This will put them on the defensive. Then the arrest will follow. You two will remain within sound of whistle, but failing specific direction let each man act on his ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... the standing-rigging, which, as we have said, is fixed, and keeps the masts, etcetera, immovably in position. Yet every rope, in what seems to a landsman's eye a bewildering mass of confusion, has its distinctive name and specific purpose. ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... Patty, obligingly. "I forgot to ask your name," she continued, "and I don't suppose you like to be called 'Freshman'; it's not specific enough." ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster

... no such specific understanding between Jeanne and Victorine. From some perverse and roguish impulse the girl chose to take no counsel in this game she had begun to play; but each woman knew that the other comprehended ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... estimable man,' who was the 'principal champion' of the Owenites in their debates with the Benthamites. He published in 1824 a book upon the distribution of wealth.[457] It is wordy, and is apt to remain in the region of 'vague generalities' just at the points where specific statements would be welcome. But besides the merit of obvious sincerity and good feeling, it has the interest of showing very clearly the relation between the opposing schools. Thompson had a common ground with the Utilitarians, though ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... chapter of the story of the delusion in Connecticut. It is an entry made by John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in his famous journal, without specific date, but probably in the ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... Asphaltites is further remarkable for a species of limestone called the fetid, the smell of which, as its name imports, is extremely offensive. It is still manufactured in the East into amulets, and worn as a specific against the plague; and that a similar superstition existed in regard to this stone in very early ages is rendered manifest by the circumstance, that charms made of the same substance were found in the subterranean chambers under the pyramids of Sakhara in Upper Egypt. The cause of ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... have a good reason. Within the last few months smuggling has been resumed, and the government is adopting measures once more to suppress the traffic, and we have decided that the interest of our narrative does not demand more specific details. ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... belief in the truth of a specific statement by means of deductive reasoning. Commonly, however, when dealing with an actual state or occurrence, we present other facts or circumstances that show its existence. The facts presented may be those of experience, the testimony of witnesses, the opinion of those considered as experts ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... and the poor generally, as before stated. This was according to an Old Testament command. Beside the annual tithes, designed for the Levites, special tithes were to be set aside every third year for the poor, the widows and the orphans. There is no New Testament law for specific giving, for this is the day of grace, wherein everyone is admonished to give freely. Paul says (Gal 6, 6), "Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things." Again (verse 10), "Let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... it did; but I determined to keep my temper at any cost, and before I left, to find out at least one specific, definite reason why he did n't want ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... of the rope's-end had finished Pan's bout. Something else was going to act as a specific ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... wanted to destroy General Forrest, who, with an irregular force of cavalry, was constantly threatening Memphis and the river above, as well as our routes of supply in Middle Tennessee. In this we failed utterly, because General W. Sooy Smith did not fulfill his orders, which were clear and specific, as contained in my letter of instructions to him of January 27th, at Memphis, and my personal explanations to him at the same time. Instead of starting at the date ordered, February 1st, he did not leave Memphis till the 11th, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... house on lease; the owner was a mean, saving old man named Pettigrew, who lived in a villa adorned with plaster images of dogs and goats, at Overcastle, and in spite of our specific agreement, he would do no repairs for us at all. He rested secure in my mother's timidity. Once, long ago, she had been behind-hand with her rent, with half of her quarter's rent, and he had extended the days of grace a month; her sense that some day she might need the same mercy again ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... and frequently is, emphasized with a vow or an oath. One may solemnly promise God in certain contingencies that he will damn another to hell; or he may call upon God to witness his execrations. The malice of two specific sins is here accumulated, the offense is double in this one abominable utterance; nothing can be conceived more horrible, unless it be the indifferent frequency with which ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... seven—Euclid, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, Lavoisier, and Darwin. This list might well be larger; it could not be less; and no matter how it might be extended it would include these seven. None of them was merely an inventor of specific devices; all of them were discoverers of essential principles, and thereby contributors to the advancement of civilization and ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... repetition of it, having a propitiatory value of its own, which the Sacrifice on the Cross had not; just as though it were what Bishop Gardiner, in repudiating it, described as "a new Redemption." {87} Hence it came about that the belief arose that Masses offered for specific purposes had more virtue for those purposes than what was called "a Common Mass." The practice, therefore, of offering "private Masses" for souls in Purgatory, as it was very lucrative, so it became very prevalent. Thus spiritual things ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson

... no specific mention of the old. capital of Ku in the piece, but the schools of Mo and K are agreed in this interpretation, which is much more likely than any of the ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... things are named by us after the way of created things, as above explained (Q. 13, AA. 1, 3). And since created natures are individualized by matter which is the subject of the specific nature, it follows that individuals are called "subjects," supposita, or "hypostases." So the divine persons are named supposita or "hypostases," but not as if there really existed any real "supposition" or ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... their own headings. Brief mention only need be here made of some of the others. Naturally, on account of the wide variations in chemical composition, the different members vary considerably in characters and general appearance; the specific gravity, for example, varies from 2.9 in tremolite to 3.8 in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... man, and then went to look after Tom and Gerald. He advised them to lie down with their eyes shut in the berth which was now vacated, the occupants being called off to their respective duties, and the assistant-surgeon having retired into the dispensary to concoct a specific against sea-sickness of his own invention, which made him and those he persuaded to take it ten ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... Interesting traces of more specific influence remain. Dugald Stewart seems to have heard Smith himself admit that it was Hutcheson in his lectures that suggested to him the particular theory of the right of property which he used to teach in his own unpublished lectures ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... husband anything for herself; but in the law proceedings which were consequent upon Sir Joseph's death, it became abundantly evident that she had asked him for much for her son,—and that she had been specific in her requests, urging him to make a second heir, and to settle Orley Farm upon her own boy, Lucius. She herself stated that she had never done this except in the presence of a third person. She had often done so ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... it not true that every thinking man and woman in the course of his or her development, epitomizes the history of human thought? To be more specific, I take it that you, reader, are an educated man of middle-class origin, and that you have been a socialist for at least six months, and have, of course, read Engels' "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific." Now, is it ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... age, as will be more fully explained in the chapters in this book which treat of cancer and gangrene. Admitting that Haviland has exaggerated the influence of climate as an etiological factor in its specific influence in producing certain diseases; or that M. Taine claims more than he should for his "Theorie des Milieux," or influence of surroundings; or that Hutchinson has drawn the hereditary and pedigreeal fatherhood of disease too finely; it must also be admitted that the solid, tangible truths ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... of governmental or traditional policy are by their very nature excluded from the consideration of the Joint High Commission, or even the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Such specific exemptions it is not necessary to set forth in the treaties. Objection has been made that under the first section of the pending pacts it might be claimed that we would be called upon to submit to arbitration of the Monroe Doctrine, or our right to exclude ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... beg you to deal with the Duke, is this. Find an opportunity, before this night be over, of entreating him earnestly not to go to-morrow to the meeting at the Old King's Head, in Leadenhall-street. This is clear and specific, and at the same time you assail the ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... in whole or in part the proportion of its internal secretion in the blood will be diminished. Then the gland, if the suppression is partial, will undergo a new diminution of activity But in, the egg the specific substance of the gland will also be less stimulated, and in the next generation a diminution of the gland may result. Thus Delage states Massin found that partial removal of the liver in rabbits had an inherited effect. In the case of excretory ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... should be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a restorative. Sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although I cannot assert that the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... productions of nature, because we do not perceive their utility? Shall we venture to arraign his goodness, because he has not only supplied the necessities of man, but filled the caves of ocean, and spread the pathless wilderness with a rich variety of existence, the specific purposes of which the researches of man have hitherto failed to discover? Shall we dare to say that the impenetrable forest, or the untenanted island, was made in vain? or that the grass grows, in the valley, the shrub sprouts ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... of the diet are limited and subsidiary. A policy very generally pursued has been that of formulating at Vienna general regulations for the entire Empire, leaving to the diets the task of devising legislation of a local and specific character for the execution of these regulations; though it can hardly be maintained that the results have been satisfactory. The diets are not infrequently radical, and even turbulent, bodies, and it has been deemed expedient ordinarily by ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... case, will prove the most valuable, as they will have grown to some size before the vessel has been completed, and we can carry them to sea with us. They are the most certain specific against scurvy," ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... were mingled with more complex combinations, and with half-imitations, as of the Blue-Bird, so that it seemed almost impossible to doubt that there was some specific meaning, to him and his peers, in this endless vocabulary. Yet other birds, as quick-witted as the Robins, possess but one or two chirping notes, to which they seem unable to give more than the very rudest variation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... these at once. Emotions evaporate very soon if they are not used to drive the wheels of conduct. The Psalmist was wise who 'delayed not, but made haste and delayed not to keep God's commandments.' Many a man has over and over again resolved to serve God in some specific fashion, and to enlist in the 'effective force' of Christ's army, and has died without ever having ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... in us an unnameable spiritual quality which, from lack of a more specific name, we call mental telepathy. Some day we shall know more about it, just as some day we shall know what unknown force it is which draws the needle ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... something deeper in it than this. There was mixed with it the natural dread in the political diviner of the political logician,—in the empirical, of the theoretic statesman. Burke, confounding the idea of society with the form of it then existing, would have preserved that as the only specific against anarchy. Rousseau, assuming that society as it then existed was but another name for anarchy, would have reconstituted it on an ideal basis. The one has left behind him some of the profoundest ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... Is there any specific account of the "tonne in Cornhyll" existing? Its purpose, in connection with the conduit, admits of no doubt; the forsworn and dishonest priest had been punished with a "good ducking," and this, no doubt, accompanied with a suitable ceremonial ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various

... all social events, even those of the most insignificant character. Every one of them has its appropriate influence, which is indestructible; and they all combine to make up the great whole of human action, the results of which at any specific period are only the necessary and inevitable consequences ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... I still chafe in vain is the impracticability of ascertaining so apparently simple a matter as the number of kinsfolk of each person in each specific degree of near kinship, without troublesome solicitations. It was specially asked for in the circular, but by no means generally answered, even by those who replied freely to other questions. The reason must in some cases ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster

... seem to be great organisms. Each has an individuality, a specific identity, so marked, and peculiarities so especially characteristic of itself, that one might almost allow it a soul. Down through the centuries has fair Lutetia come, growing in the artistic graces, until now she stands the playground of princes and the capital of the ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... of Peter Grimm" has been chosen for the present collection. It represents a Belasco interest and conviction greater than are to be found in any of his other plays. While there are no specific claims made for the fact that PETER materializes after his death, it is written with plausibility and great care. The psychic phenomena are treated as though real, and our sympathy for PETER when he returns ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco

... Effective speaking depends to a large extent upon the inclusion of specific terms as contrasted with general terms. "Glittering generalities" never make people listen. They mean nothing because they say too much. Study the following selections to see how the concrete phraseology used makes ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... I was harnessed to him; there was no stopping, no time for grieving. Pace was his specific. He dragged me the round of the voters; he gave dinners at the inn of true Liberals, and ate of them contentedly; he delivered speeches incessantly. The whole force of his. serio-comic genius was alive in its element at Chippenden. From balls and dinners, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is one of the things which, in ordinary speech and writing, is but indifferently observed. The reason, perhaps, is to be sought, not in any general indifference to correctness or precision, but rather in the want of some recognised authority, some specific rules or principles, to which the use of words apparently synonymous, yet of slightly different signification, might be distinctly and easily referred. It is in regard to the finer shades of meaning, the subtler touches of expression, the application ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... cultivated voice, there remains nothing further to say about Mr. Marigold's external appearance. But there was something so patent about the man, his air of reserve, his careful courtesy, his shrewd eyes, that Desmond at once recognized him for a type, a cast from a certain specific mould. All services shape men to their own fashion. There is the type of Guardsman, the type of airman, the type of naval officer. And Desmond decided that Mr. Marigold must be the type of detective, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... invasion or civil disturbance, it could not permit the owners of land to pursue, for their own benefit, a course of action which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often that we are able to test the wisdom of legislation by specific results so clearly as in the present instance. The first attempts of the kind which I have described were made in the Isle of Wight early in the reign of Henry VII. Lying so directly exposed to attacks by France, the Isle of Wight was a place which it was peculiarly important to keep in a state ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher

... was to be a supreme court of appeal, and a tribunal, before which every case could be tried, and definitely settled, once for all. And since this tribunal was a divine creation, and invested by God Himself with supernatural powers for that specific purpose, it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—tribunals ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... of course—couldn't use it if we could. What we need and are going to get is a material of about two and a half million specific gravity. Got to have it for lenses and controls for the fifth-order forces. Those rays go right through anything less dense without measurable refraction. But I see Rovol's giving me a nasty look. He's my boss on this job, and I imagine this kind of talk's barred ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... unfaithful servant's answer. When he had taken his ground on a sullen plea of not guilty which threw the blame upon his Lord, it was natural that he should endeavour to justify himself and fortify his position by specific averments of hard treatment; but the essence of his answer lies all in his first words, "I knew thee hard." The meaning cannot be mistaken here. These words do not make known to us what the master's character really was: the only thing which they determine is the servant's ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... this maxim. To recur to an illustration I have employed in my previous books, the old ship-builders thought that ships were bound to be built of wood and not of iron, because wood floats in water and iron sinks; but now nearly all ships are made of iron. Yet the specific gravities of wood and iron have not altered, and a log of wood floats while a lump of iron sinks, just the same as they did in the days of Drake and Frobisher. The only difference is, that people thought out the underlying principle of the law of flotation, and ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... commanding the army and was a resident of Washington City. He took notice of this article by getting Washington correspondents of Cincinnati and Cleveland papers to write letters in his praise. Those letters contained nothing to refute the specific charges made in the Tribune, but dealt in glittering generalities about the important services rendered by Schofield during the war. Moreover in his Forty-six Years in the Army, while devoting many pages to the Battle of Franklin, Schofield has nothing to say ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger

... of large populations of non-commercial marine species (by-catch) by its effect of "sweeping the ocean clean". ecosystems - ecological units comprised of complex communities of organisms and their specific environments. effluents - waste materials, such as smoke, sewage, or industrial waste which are released into the environment, subsequently polluting it. endangered species - a species that is threatened with extinction either by direct hunting or habitat destruction. freshwater - water with very ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... millions upon millions of years, we see the earth swarming with life, low bestial life, devouring and devoured, myriads of forms, all in bondage to nature or natural forces, living only to eat and to breed, localized, dependent upon place and clime, shaped to specific ends like machines,—to fly, to swim, to climb, to run, to dig, to drill, to weave, to wade, to graze, to crush,—knowing not what they do, as void of conscious purpose as the thorns, the stings, the hooks, the coils, and the wings in the vegetable ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... your freedom, and a legacy sufficient to make you comfortable for life. Moreover I have made you the heir of one-fourth of my estate, what remains of it after the gem collections is yours and all specific legacies are paid. I do not love my nephews and cousins and have bequeathed to them more than they deserve; as to the toadies who have hung about me and fawned on me in the hope of legacies, I despise them all. You are my ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... again given in Volume II., page 569, where he asks whether we should believe that "at the first production of a genus, when it first grew into existence, some slight modification in the productive causes stamped it originally with all these specific diversities? Or is it most probable that the modification was subsequent to its origin, and that the genus at its first creation was one and uniform, and afterwards became diversified by the influence of external agents?" He concludes that "the former of these suppositions is the conclusion to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... prevails in these parts; and they say that a child who is weak in the back may be cured by drawing him over the grass wet with the morning dew. The experiment must be thrice performed, that is, on the mornings of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of May. I find no allusion to these specific applications of "May-dew" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various

... as the present divisions of Lady day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas. In regard to Lammas, in addition to its being one of the days of reckoning, it appears from the Confessor's laws, that it was the specific day whereon the Peter-pence, a tax very rigorously executed, and the punctual payment of which was enforced under a severe penalty, was paid. In this view then, Lammas stands as a day of account, and Latter Lammas will consequently signify the day of doom, which in effect, as to all payments ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various

... at a catastrophe in heaven among immortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude, where he ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... looking after her children. It was noticeable that though her health was unequal to the discharge of her duties, she was always well enough to take part in any pleasure or gayety which might be going on; and as none of the many doctors who attended her were able to discover any specific ailment, the general opinion was that Mrs. Sankey's ill health was the creation of her own imagination. This, however, was not wholly the case. She was not strong; and although, had she made an effort, she would have ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... raw peasant soldiery well fed and comfortable, becoming a unit, all outbreak of separate consciousness anywhere more and more impossible, hardening to the peculiar day's work. They were used to heavy work, but this was a particular task that needed specific hardening of feet and lungs; also the personal idea in each breast required numbing. The physical aim was to make men light for heavy work; to give them a taste of the joy and the true health of the field—before the entrainments, the haste ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort

... that it is plainly his interest to take all he can get, and make the most, and the best, of everything; and therefore he begs them to take for granted that their communications are received, and appreciated, even if the succeeding Number bears no proof of it. He is convinced that the want of specific acknowledgment will only be felt by those who have no idea of the labour and difficulty attendant on the hurried management of such a work, and of the impossibility of sometimes giving an explanation, when there really is one which would quite satisfy ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various

... specific or definite information as to the amount of the company's indebtedness this action of the directors was a most magnificent exemplification of nerve and integrity and a superb testimony reinforcing the axiom that a California man's word is ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks

... Manners and Morals in the Nineteenth Century, subdividing them into Scenes of Private Life, Scenes of Parisian Life, and Scenes of Provincial Life. However, some things he had written were classible conveniently neither under the specific names nor under the generic one. These outsiders he called Tales and Philosophic Novels, subsequently shortening the title, between 1835 and 1840, to Philosophic Studies. The question was what wider description could be chosen which might embrace also this last category. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... primary grammars, beginners' histories of Tennessee, of the United States, of England; physiology, hygiene. It may seem queer. But when it comes to standing a Wayne County teacher's examination, the specific answers to the specific questions on a dozen old examination slips are worth all the degrees Harvard ever ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... is one of the attributes of property, it is not the whole of property. That which makes property a DELIGHTFUL THING, as some philosopher (I know not who) has said, is the power to dispose at will, not only of one's own goods, but of their specific nature; to use them at pleasure; to confine and enclose them; to excommunicate mankind, as M. Pierre Leroux says; in short, to make such use of them as passion, interest, or even caprice, may suggest. What is ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... news gave Dick further cause for agitation, and his mother's distress grew with his deepening melancholy. She was alarmed for his health, and had been trying ever since the return from Yarraman to induce him to drink copious draughts of her favorite specific, camomile tea, but without success; the boy knew of no ailment and could imagine none that would not be preferable to camomile ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... this prediction was erroneous. The obstruction of one avenue of trade not unfrequently opens an issue to another. The consequence of the tariff will be to increase the exportation and to diminish the importation of some specific articles; but by the general law of trade the increase of exportation of one article will be followed by an increased importation of others, the duties upon which will supply the deficiencies which the diminished importation would otherwise occasion. The ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summer before that, and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childish memory kept no specific record, though she was sure that Temperance and Riverboro society did. Truly a sight to chill the blood of any eager young dreamer who had ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... your son has not acquainted you with this affair, think if you have any right to examine it. As you believe him to be a man of honour, what right have you to doubt his honour in this instance? Who is his accuser? An anonymous scoundrel who has brought no specific charge against him. If there were any such, wouldn't the girl's parents have come forward? He is not called upon to rebut, nor you to entertain an anonymous accusation; and as for believing him guilty because a girl ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... is valuable in two ways. It may afford the most vivid and significant representation of a thought or feeling for some specific occasion, or it will open to the reader an alluring field for wandering at will—or even aimlessly, yet with ever-fresh interest. In case one seeks some particular phrase, some familiar quotation which is vaguely remembered ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... the risk of being tedious, to give such specific directions as will qualify the novice to hive a swarm of bees, under almost any circumstances; for I know the necessity of such directions and how seldom they are to be met with, even in large treatises ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... of being an adventurous search for new truth, was a laborious endeavour to stabilize the truth already formulated in the great days of the early Church. Indeed, the Church's specific contribution of a vividly imagined faith in a future world, as the goal of the most absorbing hopes and fears of men, tended rather to confirm than to dissipate the static conception of earthly life and history. With an urgency that the ancient world had never known the Christian world believed ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... the monkey tribe are innumerable: among them the best known are the muniet, karra, bru, siamang (or simia gibbon of Buffon), and lutong. With respect to the appellation of orang utan, or wild man, it is by no means specific, but applied to any of these animals of a large size that occasionally walks erect, and bears the most resemblance ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... arguments into the mouth of one of the persons in the dialogue and their refutation into the mouth of another; but, above all, he was touched in his religious feelings. Again and again His Holiness insisted to all comers on the absolute and specific declarations of Holy Scripture, which prove that the sun and heavenly bodies revolve about the earth, and declared that to gainsay them is simply to dispute revelation. Certainly, if one ecclesiastic more than another ever seemed NOT under the care of the Spirit of Truth, it was Urban VIII in ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... politicians who championed the doctrine of liberty inherent and universal used it merely as a means to a specific and somewhat unrelated end. Others endorsed it literally and with resolve to apply it wherever consistency might require. How could they justly continue to hold men in bondage when in vindication of their own cause they were asserting the right of all men ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips



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