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Specify   Listen
verb
Specify  v. t.  (past & past part. specified; pres. part. specifying)  To mention or name, as a particular thing; to designate in words so as to distinguish from other things; as, to specify the uses of a plant; to specify articles purchased. "He has there given us an exact geography of Greece, where the countries and the uses of their soils are specified."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Specify" Quotes from Famous Books



... if he is capable of appreciating facts, will he deny—though he may deplore it—that to all seeming these attacks have been attended by a considerable measure of success. If, however, our man in the pew were asked to specify what forces he had in his mind, he would probably in nine cases out of ten point to two such, and two alone, viz., natural science and Biblical criticism, which, he would tell us, had between them created an atmosphere in which the old views ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... But, because wheat or barley generally means that sort of grain in mass, if he will mention a single kernel, he must call it a grain of wheat or a barleycorn. And these he may readily make plural, to specify any particular number; as, five grains of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... editions, it were needless to specify them; the great books of the world are reprinted and re-edited every few years. But our editions should be good ones. 'A good edition should be a complete edition, ungarbled and unabridged.'[28] Perchance you may prefer to have them, if it be possible, in the original ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... exact number of the Athenians is certainly doubtful. Herodotus does not specify it. Justin estimates the number of citizens at ten thousand, besides a thousand Plataeans: Nepos at ten thousand in all; Pausanias at nine thousand. But this total, furnished by authorities so equivocal, seems incredibly small. The free population could have been ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Island, again, the court possesses what is termed "discretionary power" in divorce cases. The State Constitution, after specifying the usual prime ground—adultery—goes on to specify: "And for any other cause for which the court shall deem it proper that a divorce should be granted," or "when it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court that the parties can no longer live harmoniously together." It requires no elaborate reasoning ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... treaty of peace. But the revival of an evil spirit amongst the worst landlords and the interpretations of hostile law officers reduced the Evicted Tenants clause in the Act of 1903 almost to a nullity. In this extremity the Cork evicted tenants requested the Land Conference to reassemble and specify in precise language the settlement which they regarded as essential. All the representatives of the landlords and of the tenants on the Conference accepted the invitation, with the single exception of Mr Redmond. Eventually, despite these and other discouragements, the Conference ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... high-minded and well-intentioned man. He was chosen to lead the South because he was, in addition, an accomplished soldier. As one who consistently opposed him in his public policies, I can specify no act to the discredit of his character, his one serious mistake being his failure to secure the peace offered by Abraham Lincoln ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... Chinaman's New Year festival? And in a jargon of pidgin-English he swept aside all moon discussions, and fixed the date of "Bunday" for the twenty-eighth of March, "which," as Dan wisely remarked, "proved that somebody was right," but whether the Maluka or the Dandy, or the moon, he forgot to specify. "The old heathen to beat us all too," he added, "just when it had got us all dodged." Dan took all the credit of the suggestion to himself. Then he looked philosophically on the toughness of the problem: "Anyway," he ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... Mr. Stevens proceeded to specify amendments to the Constitution which should be made before the late rebel States "would be capable of acting in the Union." The first of those amendments would be to change the basis of representation among the States from federal numbers to actual voters. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... impart, impart to; make acquaintance with, apprise, advise, enlighten, awaken; transmit. let fall, mention, express, intimate, represent, communicate, make known; publish &c. 531; notify, signify, specify, convey the knowledge of. let one know, have one to know; give one to understand; give notice; set before, lay before, put before; point out, put into one's head; put one in possession of; instruct &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... world was not suggested by the father of evil, until it was too late to make a formal law against it in the Bible, or to fortify the argument of human depravity from this source. It is neither in the Bible, nor in any other code of laws, the custom to specify crimes which do not exist. How remarkable in a code of laws would have been such a declaration as the trafficker demands, "Thou shalt not deal in ardent spirits," hundreds of years before the article was known. The world would have stood in amazement, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... that this is the scene of the phenomena recorded by Miss "B——," as Duncan R——, the factor, is well aware. Also, he was persistent about "keeping out the natives," and their chatter, if I wanted to keep the servants, but did not specify the nature of the chatter, and I ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various

... my younger brother, and in his lighter moments is a Don at Oxford or Cambridge; it will be safer not to specify which. In his younger and more serious days he used to play the banjo quite passably, and, when the Hicksons asked us to dine, they insisted that he should bring his instrument and help to make music to which the young people might dance, for it seems that this instrument ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various

... to need recapitulation," said I. "Only a very few days, though I cannot at present specify the exact number; perhaps from thirty to forty, or so. But in all that time, certes, I have never seen either you or any of your two daughters that you talk of. You must ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... ones in case ours should knock up. One man had especial charge of Solon, who, from his ignorance of the nature of the wild beasts we were likely to meet with, it was supposed might otherwise get into trouble. I need not specify exactly the locality of my grandfather's estate; indeed, few of my readers would remember the odd-sounding names of the various places through which we passed. I know that I could scarcely remember them even at the time I was there. Since then roads have ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... positive. Negative in so far as they ignore the oppressed in the distribution of privileges and rights, as though he did not exist; positive, in so far as they expressly assign his dependent position to the oppressed, and specify ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... whose suggestions are entitled to respectful attention whether accepted or rejected, specify considerations which they believe forbid us to regard the ancient Mexicans and the northern wild Indians as identical in race. They point to the well known fact that the fauna of the American continent below the northern frontier ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... Francisco of Albuquerque, a servant of his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip of Spain, and commander of the ship Santa Maria, dispatched from Cadiz by his Majesty to convey munitions of various descriptions to his Majesty's possessions in the Western Indies. And when requested to specify more particularly of what those munitions consisted, Don Pasquale, etcetera, etcetera, mentioned wines, cloths, silk, and brocades of various descriptions, salt, leather, articles of furniture, arms and ammunition, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... The text does not specify which occurrence of "I" is meant. The speech begins "Not I: ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... real similarity between the eyes of cuttle-fish and vertebrates, as may be seen by consulting Hensen's admirable memoir on these organs in the Cephalopoda. It is impossible for me here to enter on details, but I may specify a few of the points of difference. The crystalline lens in the higher cuttle-fish consists of two parts, placed one behind the other like two lenses, both having a very different structure and disposition to what occurs in the vertebrata. The retina ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... the week—no need to specify them—I enter my library and give myself up to literary composition. On the same mornings little Johnny enters his music-room (underneath) and gives himself up to musical composition. Thus ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... rid themselves of the feeling of meanness in a refusal, to feel, notwithstanding their better knowledge, that to comply was generous, liberal, and social, and to refuse reproachful and niggardly. It would be impossible to enumerate or specify the crimes which emanated from this state of affairs. Their political condition was the very genius of despotism, systematically and deliberately conducted. Kings and chiefs were extremely jealous of their succession, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... with Professor Hering, of Prague, and others, that the connection between memory and heredity is so close that there is no reason for regarding the two as generically different, though for convenience sake it may be well to specify them by different names. If I can persuade you that this is so, I believe I shall be able to make you understand why it is that chickens are hatched as eggs and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... know it!" Such was the beginning of the Major's occupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most obliging Lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I need not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection and at all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and Juries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room clock under his coat, and once on the parapets with his own ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens

... discover the slightest ligneous particle pointing to a vegetable residue. The strange Dung-beetle does not, therefore, use cakes of Cow-dung or anything like them; he handles products of another class, which at first are rather difficult to specify. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... what mother told me, only she did not specify the bird. Morris, I am happier than I ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... his own eyes going up the Pass with that old Canadian duffer the morning, the morning," Bat paused, manifestly unable to specify ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... well-acted indignation that if not found it must be paid for. I went so far as to give a list of the articles I should require, including a bow and arrows, zabatana, two spears, and other things which I need not specify, to set me up for life as a wild man in the woods of Guayana. I was going to add a wife, but as I had already been offered one it did not appear to be necessary. He seemed a little taken aback at the value I set upon my weapon, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... thunder and sending forth his lightnings. Through the Middle Ages this was fostered until it came to be accepted as a mere truism, entering into all medieval thinking, and was still further developed by an attempt to specify the particular sins which were thus punished. Thus even the rational Florentine historian Villani ascribed floods and fires to the "too great pride of the city of Florence and the ingratitude of the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... (look): (1) spectator, spectacle, suspect, aspect, prospect, expect, respectable, disrespect, inspection, speculate, special, especial, species, specify, specimen, spice, suspicion, conspicuous, despise, despite, spite; (2) specter, spectrum, spectroscope, prospector, prospectus, introspection, retrospect, circumspectly, conspectus, perspective, specie, specification, specious, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... palpable shapes of this desire for Precedence. It works more covertly, but with no less energy. I need not—for I cannot—specify all the instances in which it acts. It would constitute a more concise statement to affirm where it does not act. It is sufficiently apparent in the scramble of the market and the parade of the street; ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... venture once more to mention the higher interests, and actually to specify one of them, although I have been repeatedly warned by outsiders that no public men would ever listen to anything which could not be expressed in "easy terms of dollars and cents!" And I do so in full confidence ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood

... sailed from the port of Liverpool (at a date which it is not necessary to specify) with the morning tide. She was bound for certain islands in the Pacific Ocean, in search of a cargo of sandal-wood—a commodity which, in those days, found a ready and profitable ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... Mary begin to live, and looking back, she marvelled how horses and dogs and a fishing-rod had been her life till now. The revelation bewildered her and she wrote her emotions in many long pages to her cousin. The causes of such changes she did not indeed specify, but he read between the lines, and knew it was a man and not the war that had so altered and deepened her outlook. He had never done it, and he could not be angry with her now, for she had pretended no ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... would be 1l, the twelfth 2m, the thirteenth 3a, and the sixtieth 10m, when the whole revolution would be completed. This cycle, though always used in the records of their history, never appears in the date of public acts. These only specify the time of the reign under which they are given, as the 1st. 2d. or 3d. day of the 1st. 2d. or 3d. moon, of the 1st. 2d. or 3d. year of the reign of such or ...
— 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

... of our constitution were wise in not attempting to specify more particularly than they did, the manner in which the several powers granted to the Federal Government should be exercised. They realized that they were forming a scheme that was to endure for ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby

... same authority that one of the missionaries obtained wonderful results in the conversion of Manbos in Lnao. He was unable to specify the number but says that it increased greatly, for up to that time there were only 3,000 converts in the whole district of Butun. My authority seems to believe that there were two classes of people ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... put under the head of FAITH. Examples of this class will no doubt often cross with those of the first class, but they will specify themselves as CELEBRATIONS of events of various COMMEMORATION, introducing a distinct form, namely NARRATION, which is a very proper and effective form for ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges

... look forward to local eugenic action in numerous directions, of which I will now specify one. It is the accumulation of considerable funds to start young couples of "worthy" qualities in their married life, and to assist them and their families at critical times. The charitable gifts to ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... seemed to him, might be left out, as divers letters, missives sent from Alexander to Darius and Aristotle, and each to other, which letters were little appertinent unto dictes and sayings aforesaid, forasmuch as they specify of other matters. And also desired me, that done, to put the said book in imprint. And thus obeying his request and commandment, I have put me in devoir to oversee this his said book, and behold as nigh as I could ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... condensed into three verses (Jer. lii. 4- 6), in which the minute care to specify dates pathetically reveals the depth of the impression which the first appearance of the besieging army made, and the deeper wound caused by the city's fall. The memory of these days has not faded yet, for both are still kept as fasts by the synagogue. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... Zion!—these are the words which Isaiah reiterates. With these are identified the spiritual kingdom of Christ, which is to spread over the whole earth. The prophet does not specify when that time shall come, when peace shall be universal, and when all the people shall be righteous; that part of the prophecy remains unfulfilled, as well as the renewed glories of Jerusalem. Yet a thousand years with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... it had been officially recognized by the Council of State, was made the chief governing body of the colony. Except for the veto of the English government its power was to be unlimited. It was to elect the Governor and to specify his duties. If his administration proved unsatisfactory it might remove him from office. The Burgesses were also to elect the Council, to prescribe its functions and limit its power. This proud body, which had formerly been so powerful, was now to exist only on the suffrage of the House. It ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... person he met was a gesticulating gentleman in a frock coat and with a red face, who, mistaking him for an engine-driver, dismissed him on the spot, threatened him with imprisonment—with or without hard labour he did not specify—and demanded what the dickens he meant by ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... he didn't think Keats had more or less held his own against the drawbacks of time and place. He admitted that there were 'passages in Keats,' but did not specify them. Of 'the older men,' as he called them, he seemed to like only Milton. 'Milton,' he said, 'wasn't sentimental.' Also, 'Milton had a dark insight.' And again, 'I can always read Milton ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... the man in charge formally. Paul Finglemore insisted that he should specify the nature of the particular accusation. To my great chagrin, Charles selected from his rogueries, as best within the jurisdiction of the English courts, the matter of the payment for the Castle ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... to 14, and the House by 92 to 38. On April 16 the President signed it, and returned it with a message, in which he said: "If there be matters within and about this Act which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am gratified that the two principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and practically applied in the Act." It was one of the coincidences of history that by his signature he ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... 1893 does is, broadly, to confer upon every male citizen one vote and to specify three principal conditions under which this basal voting power may be augmented. As the head of a family, the citizen's suffrage may be doubled. By reason of his possession of property or of capital, it likewise may be doubled. On the basis of a not unattainable educational ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... he explained how the father of one of one of his pupils, grateful for certain benefits, which Mr. Roy did not specify, and noticing certain business qualities in him—"which I suppose I have, though I didn't know it," added he, with a smile—had offered him a situation in a merchant's office at Calcutta: a position of great trust and responsibility, for three years certain, ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... about the welfare of the school as a whole and of the care of individual pupils. It might also include lectures in hygiene and kindred topics, sanitation of buildings, and other assistance too varied to specify. ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen

... unassorted sins and the plea, 'Dear Lord, we are doubtless guilty of all these. Being in affliction, we are probably right in believing that one or more of them has provoked Thy displeasure, and are ready to do penance for any if it will please Thee to specify. Meanwhile, may we suggest horse-racing or profane language?' We may be sure, then, that the sin suggested, as a conjurer forces a card, is not a relevant one. We may be fairly sure also that it is one with which some neighbour is more chargeable ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... she dared not protest. Silence fell on them once more. In the sea of shadows that slumbered before them a light had glimmered forth. It seemed at their feet, somewhere in the abyss, but at what precise spot they would have been unable to specify. And then, one by one, other lights broke through the darkness, shooting into instant life, and remaining stationary, scintillating like stars. It seemed as though thousands of fresh planets were rising on the surface of a gloomy lake. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... said MacCandless, "you talk like a person that means business, but you overlook the fact that this company is neither bankrupt nor silly. The directors will, I feel assured, agree to do all the work you specify, but the price must be three hundred thousand. That will leave us two hundred and ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... printed in three or more quarto volumes. If, in any particular department, there be valuable editions of a work which are not in the public, but in another, library—ex. gr. in Trinity, or St. John's—specify this edition in its appropriate class; and add Trin. Coll., &c.—If this copy contain notes of Bentley, or Porson, add "cum notis Bentleii," &c.: so that such a catalogue would present, not only every volume in the Public Library, but every valuable edition ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... the Merchants' address contained the following passage: 'Allow me to express the satisfaction which it gives me to find that you specify the benefits that are likely to accrue to the inhabitants of these countries themselves, as among the most important of the results to be expected from our recent treaties with China and Japan. On this head we have no doubt incurred ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... I am not mad. Nor, despite the interested assertions of certain parties whom I need not specify by name, is Mr. Brackett. It may be news to you, Mrs. Ferguson, that an action is even now pending in New York, whereby certain parties are attempting to show that my client, Mr. Brackett, is non compos and should be legally restrained from exercising control over his property. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... of events, and incur the necessity of speaking twice of the same things, were I here to specify the express errors in the work of Madame Campan. Suffice it now that I observe generally her want of knowledge of the Princesse de Lamballe; her omission of many of the most interesting circumstances of the Revolution; her silence upon important ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... documents in a family their mutual relationships are sometimes harder to specify. Let A, B, and C be the documents. Suppose A is the common source: perhaps B and C copied it independently; perhaps C only knew A through the medium of B, or B knew it only through C. If B and C have abridged the common source in different ways, they are evidently independent. ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... need to specify the alternative. For now the panic had spread by its own contagion, and the invaders were fighting among themselves for place on the flat-cars. And while yet the rear guard was swarming upon the engine, hanging by toe-and hand-holds ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... above the village residences—of these two Dr Thorne had the smaller. They stood exactly at the angle before described, on the outer side of it, and at right angles to each other. They both possessed good stables and ample gardens; and it may be as well to specify, that Mr Umbleby, the agent and lawyer to the estate, occupied ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... in China is not limited to the appendage of hair which reposes gracefully on the back, and saturates with grease the outer garment of every high or low born Celestial. Elongation of the spine is, at any rate, common enough for Dr Wang to treat it as a disease and specify the remedy, which consists in tying a piece of medicated thread tightly round it, and tightening the thread from time to time until the tail drops off. In order, however, to guard against its growing ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... later time the attempt to harmonize the two parties seems to have given birth to the book of Acts, in which history mixes with fiction. But we are here concerned only with such features of the history as made the most vital and permanent contributions to religion, and for this purpose we need only specify the Epistle ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... warning of young men, I shall specify but two of the world's most gigantic swindles—one English, and the other American. In England, in the early part of the last century, reports were circulated of the fabulous wealth of South America. A company was formed, with a stock of what would be equal to thirty millions of our ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... catalogue of authors, which this Rev. Gentleman has pleased to specify and recommend, begins with Homer, Hesiod, the Argonautics, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Theognis, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus. * * *. 'This catalogue,' says he, 'might be considerably extended, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... rose-compliments in English I can here specify but a few. One of the prettiest is that by Henry Constable ('Saintsbury', p. 113): "My Lady's presence makes the Roses red, Because to see her lips they blush for shame." Carew's compliment is hardly equal to his morals ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... remember) in Mr. Pedgift's service. He had been previously steward to a Norfolk gentleman (name forgotten) in the westward district of the county. He had lost the steward's place, through some domestic trouble, in connection with his son, the precise nature of which Allan was not able to specify. Pedgift vouched for him, and Pedgift would send him to Thorpe Ambrose two or three days before the rent-day dinner. He could not be spared, for office reasons, before that time. There was no need ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... authorities seem to have made themselves quite familiar with my intentions, and upon making application for a teskere (Turkish passport) they required me to specify, as far as possible, the precise route I intend traversing from Scutari to Ismidt, Angora, Erzeroum, and beyond, to the Persian frontier. An English gentleman who has lately travelled through Persia and the Caucasus tells me that the Persians are quite agreeable people, their only fault ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... abstemious; and the free and voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth [22] may sustain the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance, and not accumulated by rapine. He does not indeed specify the value of his money, plate, and jewels; yet, after a voluntary gift of two hundred vases of silver, after much had been secreted by his friends and plundered by his foes, his forfeit treasures were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of seventy galleys. He does not measure the size ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... that peculiar sharpness of build and trimness of rig which insure the greatest amount of speed, and does not specify any particular class. There are clipper sloops, clipper yachts, clipper ships, etcetera. A clipper barque, therefore, is merely a ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... Cromer, Albury, Goff's Oak, Anstey, Arkley, Much Hadham, Weston, Tring and Bushey Heath. Water mills are too numerous to specify, there being several on many of the small rivers named in ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... should falsify it by over-expression, lest it should seem to be more accomplished than it is. He will not even try to take delight in it; he is almost fanatically an intellectual ascetic; and yet again and again he affirms a faith which he will hardly consent to specify by uttering the name of God. He is shy about it, as if it might be refuted if it were expressed in any dogmatic terms. So many victories seem to have been won over faith in the modern world that his will not throw down any ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... likely see you in the course of the summer, but, of course, at such a distance, I cannot specify any ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... up a stowaway, who, taking advantage of their absence, boarded the car and made himself a bed behind some bales of hay. Upon discovery by Rover, he made so piteous an appeal for refuge from some pursuing terror which he declined to specify, that the boys agreed to conceal him a night and a day till they were well on their way along the north shore of Lake Superior. When Larry's conscience made further concealment a burden greater than could be borne, Mr. Gwynne was taken into the boys' confidence and, after protest, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... immediately after the said sentence was pronounced, and before leaving the Court, freely admitted that she was a Witch; at the same time, not wishing to specify the crimes which she had committed, she was taken, along with the others, to the Torture Chamber, and the said question being applied to her, she confessed that she was quite young when the Devil, in the form of a cat: appeared to her: in the Parish of Torteval: as she was returning ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts

... enjoyed a good reputation. From such subjects he drifted to dueling, venal newspapers, and soon down to the ordinary criminals such as Billy Mulligan, Wooley Kearny, Casey, Cora, Yankee Sullivan, Ned McGowan, Charles Duane, and many others. Never did he hesitate to specify names and instances. He never dealt in innuendoes. This was bringing him very close to personal danger, for worthies of the class last mentioned were the sort who carried their pistols and bowie-knives prominently displayed and handy for use. As yet no actual violence ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... these representative species, at least in the case of the tortoise and of some of the birds, may hereafter prove to be only well-marked races; but this would be of equally great interest to the philosophical naturalist. I have said that most of the islands are in sight of each other: I may specify that Charles Island is fifty miles from the nearest part of Chatham Island, and thirty-three miles from the nearest part of Albemarle Island. Chatham Island is sixty miles from the nearest part of James Island, but there are two intermediate islands between ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... Algonquin woman, a prisoner among them, to cut off Jogues's left thumb, which she did; and a thumb of Goupil was also severed, a clam-shell being used as the instrument, in order to increase the pain. It is needless to specify further the tortures to which they were subjected, all designed to cause the greatest possible suffering without endangering life. At night, they were removed from the scaffold, and placed in one of the houses, each stretched ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... dignity, with its calico cushions and curtains. One could not well use it in New York, but it serves every purpose of a cab in Funchal, where we noted a peculiar feature of local commerce which I hesitate to specify, since it cast apparent discredit upon woman. It was, as I have noted, Sunday; but every shop where things pleasing or even useful to women were sold was wide open, and somewhat flaringly invited the custom of our fellow-passengers ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... however, is inconsistent with his statement, that the Head of the Academy had 2,000 disciples at one time, and that more than 500 surrounded him. The British Museum and Casanatense MSS. solve the difficulty; they have the reading forty thousand. It would be wearisome to specify in these notes all the places where a superior reading is presented by these MSS.; the student will, however, find that not a few anomalies which ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... as a speculation, to the agent, who during his travels has met with misfortune, he shall return the full sum to the merchant. [103]. If, on his travels, an enemy has forced him to give up some of the goods he was carrying, the agent shall specify the amount on oath and shall ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... lives, departing annually with their family to some flat and virtuous place, there to disport themselves in a manner that is decent, orderly, wholly uninteresting, vacant of every buxom stimulus. To such as these a suggestion, in all friendliness: why not try crime? We shall not attempt to specify the particular branch — for every one must himself seek out and find the path his nature best fits him to follow; but the general charm of the prospect must be evident to all. The freshness and novelty of secrecy, the artistic satisfaction in doing the act of self-expression as well as it ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... to say nothing about them. A few (such, for instance, as the decreasing ratio in which the produce of the soil is increased by an increased application of labour) it is obliged particularly to specify, and thus seems to borrow those truths from the physical sciences to which they properly belong, and ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... must here specify, for good reasons, that I held myself very strictly aloof from the Bohemians, save in business affairs. This was partly because I was married, and I never saw the day in my life when to be regarded as a real Bohemian vagabond, or shiftless person, would not have given me the horrors. I would ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... at present, to specify the usual age of retirement for gymnastic teachers, but when a woman becomes too old for regular school teaching she can organise, supervise, and inspect, or continue to practise ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... feature of old English life receives such copious illustration from the annals of Oxford that it seems worth while to specify examples. Thus, on November 8, 1445, a dispute between John Godsond, stationer, and John Coneley, "lymner," having been referred to two Masters of Arts and they having failed to compose it within the time stipulated, the Chancellor intervened and decided that John Coneley ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... Lane, which existed in Philidor's time, and the thirty clubs or so which had arisen by 1851, we have now at least five hundred, and as against the earliest chess columns in the Lancet, Bell's Life, and the Illustrated London News, we can specify near one hundred. It is among the middle and humbler classes that the spread of a taste for chess has been most apparent, with the fashionable or higher classes, so far as any manifestation of public interest or support is to be taken as a criterion, its appreciation has died out, ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... me to retire from the railroad, as, if it is that in Aguadores, I would authorize the repair of the bridge at once by your engineers; and if it is that on the heights to the left of your lines, I beg you will specify with more precision. ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... indicate that she has remained becalmed ever since—at least, her logbook makes it clear that she met with no wind for seven full weeks after running into the calm. And about that time it appears that sickness of some virulent and deadly kind broke out aboard her—the log does not specify what it was, possibly because the skipper did not know—and within twenty-four hours all hands were down with it. The entry conveying this information is the last in the book, and the rest can only be guessed at; ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Washington, the assistant treasurers at Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and San Francisco, and by the national banks and bankers generally. The applications must specify the amount and denominations required, and for registered stock the full name and post office address of the person to whom the bonds shall ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... subject being "The Ethical Teachings of Jesus". Several times I have tried to persuade people that the words I am about to quote were actually written and published by this eminent doctor of divinity, and people have almost refused to believe me. Therefore I specify that the article may be found in the "Outlook", the bound volumes of which are in all large libraries: volume 94, page 576. The words are as follows, the bold face ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... fight for a High Churchman. The whole secret of this, however is, that it is the High Churchman who writes in the Patriot, and the Evangelical in the True Blue, each well knowing that a defence by an opposing paper is worth more than one by his favorite organ. In the instance I am about to specify, however, the case was otherwise, each paper adhering to the individual of his own principles. On taking up the True Blue I read the following passage, to which I have fortunately obtained a key that will make the whole matter quite ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... will detail the campaigns of the armies in the field since the date of the last annual message, and also the operations of the several administrative bureaus of the War Department during the last year. It will also specify the measures deemed essential for the national defense and to keep up and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... constantly coming to light. The logical end of all these indefinite and uncertain laws is to pass one statute providing that whoever does wrong shall be imprisoned, et cetera, et cetera. The law never can specify all the ways of doing wrong and many of the meanest and most annoying things have never been, and from the nature of things never can be, prohibited by the statutes. No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... elected to the Presidency on the thirty-sixth ballot. Thirty-five times Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina voted against him. The following year Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, feeling an itching to specify to Congress his interests in Buncombe and his relations to the universe, palavered in the usual style, but let out one truth, for which, as truth-searchers, we thank ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... man—has been most severe, most harsh, not fit for a beast, much less a human being. I was brought to Kilmainham, so far as I know, without any warrant from the Lord Lieutenant. I was brought on a charge the most visionary and airy. No man knew what I was. No one could tell me or specify to me the charge on which I was detained. I asked the magistrates at Dungarvan to advise me of these charges. They would not tell me. At last I drove them into such a corner as I might call it, that one of them rose up and said, with much force, ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... to specify the exact moment when the first earthquake of the 1887 series took place; but it is evident that the preparation for the great shock was very brief. At Oneglia, it is alleged that faint shocks and sounds were observed many times, chiefly at night, ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... "Specify them, my friend," said Mathias. "What do you bring us? Where is the inventory of the property left by Monsieur Evangelista? Show me the liquidation, the investment of the amount. Where is your capital?—if there ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... desperate fortunes. In this council, likewise, they agree upon certain Articles, which are put in writing, by way of bond or obligation, which everyone is bound to observe, and all of them, or the chief, set their hands to it. Herein they specify, and set down very distinctly, what sums of money each particular person ought to have for that voyage, the fund of all the payments being the common stock of what is gotten by the whole expedition; for otherwise it is the same law, among these people, as with other Pirates, 'No prey, no pay.' ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... throughout the following week the young folks were busily engaged. It is needless to specify the nature of their occupations, or the reason of their untiring industry: it will be sufficient for their credit to mention that they did not work with the foolish desire of ostentatiously displaying a larger portion of information than the rest of the party, but really because they ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... these polite hints with one bold form of answer. She first admitted the existence of these reports about the Monktons which her friends were unwilling to specify distinctly, and then declared that they were infamous calumnies. The hereditary taint had died out of the family generations back. Alfred was the best, the kindest, the sanest of human beings. He loved study and retirement; Ada sympathized with ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... a brushwood only a few inches high. In walking across these thick beds of mimosae, a broad track was marked by the change of shade, produced by the drooping of their sensitive petioles. It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... them feels in honour bound to take up arms in defense of such national pretensions as they still may harbour; and all of them harbour such pretensions. In certain extreme cases, which it might seem invidious to specify more explicitly, it is not easy to discover any specific reasons for the maintenance of a national establishment, apart from the vindication of certain national pretensions which would quietly lapse in the absence of a national establishment on whom ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... Nan, suddenly aware that he had not told her, "what does she say? Does she specify? What does ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... believe I'd specify McMillan's claims to fame, or shall we say notoriety," observed "Scotty," with a twinkle in his eye. "Then," he resumed, "there were Morte Atkinson's Blue Leaders, that Percy Blatchford drove in the second big race. When we met at Last Chance on the way back, Blatchford nearly cried when ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... according to the season in which it is felled, preference being given to winter timber, on account of the greater amount of potash and phosphoric acid which it is said to contain at that time. In some parts of Europe it is a custom to specify that the lumber should have been made from rafted timber, on account of the action of the water in killing certain species of germs. Whatever may be the merits of either of these two theories, the commercial lumber of the northern part of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... more clear idea of what I mean by forming habits of obedience in children by methods other than those connected with a system of rewards and punishments, I will specify some such methods, introducing them, however, only as illustrations of what is intended. For, while in respect to rewards and punishments something like special and definite rules and directions may be given, these other ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... to Cook's papers, Dr Hawkesworth had the use of a journal kept by Sir Joseph Banks, in drawing up the account of this voyage; a favour which he has not neglected to specify in his introduction. That introduction, however, and several references to plates, with some other matters deemed of little or no import, or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... which has never been in print before (such as "Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls," the "Jumping Frog restored to the English tongue after martyrdom in the French," the "Membranous Croup" sketch, and many others which I need not specify): not doing this in order to make an advertisement of it, but because these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... for these trivial observations: I assure you I could write a letter ten times as long, if I were to specify all I like in your work. I more than like most of it; and I am charmed with your glorious love of liberty, and your other humane and noble sentiments. Your book I shall with great pleasure send to Mr. Colman[1]: ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... in the drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy. He had been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in the City (the old-gentleman, though he gave great sums to his son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him, and rewarded him only as he was in the humour). He had then been to pass three hours with Amelia, his dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... at a meeting of the Friends of Ireland, and have sent to the Guardian newspaper here, [Footnote: Manchester Guardian.] in reply to their demand that I would specify some plan, a paper on Fixity of Tenure for the cottiers of Ireland. I feel no doubt that this must ere long become the great Irish question, of even more ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... before breaking; but much of the iron used in bridges, although it may hold 40,000 or 50,000 pounds per inch before failing, will not bend over 90 degrees without cracking, and has an elastic limit as low as 18,000 pounds. It is thus full as important to specify that an iron should have a high elastic limit as that it should have a high breaking-weight. A specification which allowed no material to be strained by more than 10,000 pounds per inch, and no iron to be used with ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose

... important news events, one should use special delivery stamps and wire the paper that the pictures are coming. In the case of advance speeches, where the manuscript is forwarded several days ahead, the reporter should specify not only the exact day, but the precise hour for release of the speech, and at the time stated he should wire definite release,—that the address has been given, the speaker beginning at such and such an hour. The necessity of keeping close future ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... that the fallacy is a material one: being a false assumption of the major premise, viz., that the sum of an infinite series is itself always infinite (whereas it may be finite). Mansel refers to Plato, Parmenid. p. 128. [when will editors learn to specify the editions which they use?] Aristot. Soph. Eleuctr. 10. 2. 33. 4., and Cousin, Nouveaux ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various



Words linked to "Specify" :   calculate, specification, delimitate, detail, reset, qualify, set apart, narrow down, particularise, take, specialize, stipulate, dedicate, pin down, be, aim, specialise, select, define, undertake, narrow, elaborate, quantify, expand, condition, destine, fix, slate, pick out, lucubrate, expatiate, designate, mean, exposit



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