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Workable   Listen
adjective
Workable  adj.  Capable of being worked, or worth working; as, a workable mine; workable clay.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Workable" Quotes from Famous Books



... out at sea and William Sleep moving about the slope below. Sometimes he would spend an hour in thinking out plans for his escape; but his money had gone with the lugger, and without money no plan seemed workable. Sometimes he'd think upon the girl Amelia Sanders. But that was crueller pain; for if he could not even escape, how on earth was he to get married? So he fell back on thoughts of religion and in making up answers to the doctor's terrible arguments; and these he would muster up ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... "A workable mock-up, cadet!" Strong was vaguely irritated by Roger's nonchalance in accepting a situation that Tom had marveled at. "You will take your ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... family duties, cultivation, finance, punishment, and so on, but endeavoured to bring all human actions whatsoever into practical harmony with supposed natural laws; that is to say, to make them as regular, as comprehensible, as beneficent, and as workable, as the perfectly manifest but totally unexplained celestial movements were; as were the rotation of seasons, the balancing of forces, the growth and waning of matter, male and female reproduction, light and darkness; and, ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... necessary but complex secondary modifications, would render the constitution of a variety "unworkable" (p. 23). But this seems hardly feasible, seeing that natural selection must continually favour the most workable constitutions, and will only preserve organisms in proportion as they combine general workableness with the special modification. On the other hand, according to Mr. Spencer himself, use-inheritance must often disturb the balance of the constitution. ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... Reef series" consists of several parallel beds of varying size and thickness, which have not been correlated throughout their entire length; at some points two may be workable; at others three. The Main Reef bed varies from one to twenty feet in thickness; its "leader," which is richer in gold, from three inches to three feet; and the South Reef, also generally rich, from three inches to six feet. The Main Reef proper, however, is of too low an ore ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... farm is on a forty-five-degree slope there is hope for him today, thanks to the Farm Security Administration. A workable plan for soil rebuilding was the first step. To reclaim wet land the mountain man digs drainage ditches. Stone, heretofore hidden in the mountain side and unused, is now utilized for building barns and houses. On fourteen acres a man and his family, including ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... that James Watt turned the power of steam to practical use in the eighteenth century. But it was not till the first year of the nineteenth that a really workable steamer appeared, though the British, French, and Americans had been experimenting for years, just as ingenious men had been experimenting with stationary engines long before Watt. This pioneer steamer was the Charlotte Dundas, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... finding in them bones or implements of human origin. Mr. S. B. J. Skertchly thinks he has done this. In the valley sides around the town of Brandon, in England, "are preserved patches of brick-earth, which are valuable as affording the only workable clay in the district. Whenever these beds are well exposed they are seen to underlie the chalky boulder-clay of glacial age. Of this there cannot be the slightest doubt, for the glacial bed is typically developed and not in the slightest ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... open, but at the same time sheltered, as the blossoms are liable to be cut off by spring frosts. The planting may be done at any time during November and the beginning of March, when the ground is in a workable condition. Cherries are often worked upon the Mahaleb stock. As they have a tendency to gumming and canker, the knife should be used as little as possible, but where pruning is necessary, let it be done in the summer. If gumming occurs, cut away the diseased ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... the faithful carrying out of the principles of constitutional government is a departure from the American model, not an approximation to it, and, therefore, a departure from republicanism in its only workable shape." ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... during the course of which they visited the proposed mill site, the McNabb holdings, and a great part of the available pulp-wood territory adjoining. With Murchison's help, Wentworth sketched a map of the district that showed with workable accuracy the location of lakes and streams, together with the location of Government and Hudson's Bay Company lands. This done, he secured an Indian guide and proceeded to lay out and blaze the route of the wagon road ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... gives one an air of impartiality, with the comforting reflection that it will please the socially stronger side. But suspended judgment on what? To hold one's judgment in suspense implies that we have at least a workable comprehension of the subject in dispute, and that judgment is suspended because the evidence produced is not adequate to command decision. But is that the case here? Does the Agnostic claim that the evidence produced by the theist ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... world needs food. Food is the greatest safeguard—I would almost say the only safeguard—against anarchy and chaos. Then, I want to learn by experience; to prove by my own demonstrations that my theories are workable—or that they're not. And then, most of all, I love the prairies and the open life. It's my whim, ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... authority by which Mr. Bradley's understanding speaks, his words leave me wholly unconverted. 'External relations' stand with their withers all unwrung, and remain, for aught he proves to the contrary, not only practically workable, but also perfectly ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... need, employs all means, from the most impassioned eloquence down to the most trivial pleasantry, meant to delight men of the lower class. Put to such varied uses, prose could not but become a more workable instrument. True it is that Wyclif never seeks after artistic effect in his English, any more than in his Latin. His sermons regularly begin by: "This gospel tellith.... This gospel techith alle men that ..." and he continues his arguments in a clear and measured style, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... national selfishness rushed to the front of the stage. Every pocket of people in Europe hemmed between a river, a mountain and a dialect claimed the rights of a nation, when more than half of them should have been conveniently merged into workable groups having some form of government with which nations ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... the fact that this stock is scattered among an enormous number of holders, are safe from any attempts to establish a monopoly to control their price through the control of their production. Other metals, however, which are like silver and gold in being found in workable deposits at but a few points on the globe but are there found in abundance, are peculiarly adapted to facilitate the schemes of monopolists. Of lead, copper, zinc, and tin, we require a steady supply for use in the various arts; and the statement has been made that the supply ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... ideals of Western Europe. To less informed or less critical ages than our own, the absolute contribution of Cicero to ethics and metaphysics seemed comparable to that of the great Greek thinkers; the De Natura Deorum was taken as a workable argument against atheism, and the thin and wire-drawn discussions of the Academics were studied with an attention hardly given to the founder of the Academy. When a sounder historical method brought these writings ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... present an anomaly among the base metals under discussion, in that the primary form of this metal in most workable deposits is an oxide. Tin in this form is most difficult of solution from ground agencies, as witness the great alluvial deposits, often of considerable geologic age. In consequence the phenomena of migration and enrichment are almost ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... But I had planned to live in Vienna. He would spend only a part of the year there with me. His own interests are here, of course. It would be a perfectly workable arrangement." ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... a glance: the box contained a tiny, crude, but workable atomic generator. And I had been right about the wire: there was a great orderly coil of it on one spool, and the other end was attached to an empty spool. The upright of rusty metal was the pole of an electro-magnet, energized by ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... him, and having lost most of it in the gentlemanly vice of gambling, he began to need more, but being slow-witted he could think of no way better than robbing Mhtoon Pah, which suggestion the Chinaman's assistant looked upon as both dangerous and weak, regarded in the light of a workable plan. ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... would learn, yes. But, once a given theory proved workable, how resistant he would be to a new theory. How long—how incredibly long—it would take such a race to achieve the technology ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... before the Christmas holidays, Walter and Bauer had completed their lamp and given it a test. It was more perfect by far than Walter's model. It worked with a practical certainty that left no doubt in their minds that unless some unforeseen factor came in to change conditions they had a workable, economic mechanism ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... aware, Professor Nelson's very interesting series of observations, which, for the first time, placed the question of a menstrual rhythm in men on a sound and workable basis, have not directly led to any further observations. I am, however, in possession of a much more extended series of ecbolic observations completed before Nelson's paper was published, although the results have only been calculated at a comparatively-recent ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Hemmingwell. "If these rocket projectiles prove workable now, there's nothing to stop us from carrying on with our test of the ground receivers ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell

... Grand Duke's death, the American admiral, Mackney, died at sea—you will remember? Now, following Ericksen, Van Rembold, undoubtedly the greatest mining engineer of the century and the only man who has ever produced radium in workable quantities, is seized with illness at a friend's house and expires even before medical aid can ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... this the ultimate end and aim of the instruction offered are practical workable results. Mr. Packard regards education as a tool. If the tool has no edge, is not adapted to its purpose, is not practically usable, it is worthless as a tool. This idea is kept prominent in all the ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... all rights, and they'll meet expenses while I put in the assessment work and do all that's necessary to get title from the Crown. They were kind enough to say that it was rather a hazardous venture, but they wanted another workable reef to round up their mineral properties. The reason seemed ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... criticism—e.g. "good drawing," "magnificent design," "mechanical," "unfelt," "ill-organised," "sensitive,"—is given, what such terms sometimes lack, a definite meaning. In a word, my hypothesis works; that is unusual: to some it has seemed not only workable but true; that is ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... that, dear; you must just tell me what is in your mind, and be satisfied with my decision. The only thing that I can assure you beforehand is that if it is a workable scheme, and likely to give you great pleasure, I will do my ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade

... following the course of the valleys and the natural line of the country: preferring to go round a hill rather than to tunnel under it or carry his railway over it, and often making a considerable circuit to secure good, workable gradients. He studied to lay out his lines so that long trains of minerals and merchandise, as well as passengers, might be hauled along them at the least possible expenditure of locomotive power. He had long ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... under the forms of law, government, and religion which represent the best wisdom of past generations. Of any proposal he always asked not only whether it embodied abstract principles of right but whether it was workable and expedient in the existing circumstances and among actual men. No phrase could better describe Burke's spirit and activity than that which Matthew Arnold coined of him—'the generous application of ideas to life.' It was England's ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... offered at once to show his workings to the government geologist, an official recently sent out from England to report upon gold prospects. On May 19th Mr. Stutchbury officially reported the discovery of gold in workable quantities at Summer Hill Creek, and by the end of the same month the immigration to the diggings had begun. Hargraves himself took no part in the digging, merely pointing out to others, without reserve, the places ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... concession, and on his way passed through a village where there was a fair, and where he had a very narrow escape. A little more, we are told, and a hideous, snuffy, old Icelandic woman would have kissed him. In respect to the survey, the mass of workable material was enormous. There was no lack of sulphur, and the speculation promised to be a remunerative one. Eventually, however, it was found that the obstacles were insuperable, and the scheme had to be abandoned. However, the trip had completed ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... aristocracy, but rather the presence in it of the thought of Montesquieu and his school, of the necessity of studying political phenomena in relation, not merely to forms of government and law, but in relation to whole groups of social facts which give to law and government the spirit that makes them workable. Connected with this, is a particularly wide interpretation and a particularly impressive application of the maxims of expediency, because a wide conception of the various interacting elements of a society naturally extends the considerations ...
— Burke • John Morley

... great deal of thought and time to this case," said the commissioner, "and I was hoping that perhaps you could help me. The most workable theory that I can suggest is that this unfortunate man was destroyed by a French criminal of the class which I have indicated, the bullying apache type, which is so common in France. Why the murder was committed," the commissioner fingered his paper-knife carelessly, "what led to it and who committed ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... ability to become a civilian of the first rank. He was industrious but improvident; he made money and he lost it. He had a habit of abandoning good inventions for worse ones. The ability to eliminate is good, but in sifting ideas let us cleave to those that are workable, until Fate proves there is something ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... supposed to have been thoroughly instructed in its proper use, and, though on one or two occasions, owing to disregard of some trifling precaution, he has found it "jam," still, in the leisure of the practice-field, he has been generally able to get it right again, and put it in workable order. He is now hurrying along in all the excitement of battle, and in face of the enemy, of whom a batch appear on the horizon in front of him, when the word ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various

... question should have been, "Certainly," for it is obvious to the simplest intelligence that the more water-tight spaces you provide in a ship (consistently with having her workable) the nearer you approach safety. But instead of admitting the expediency of the suggestion, this witness at once raised an objection as to the possibility of closing tightly the door of a bunker on account of the slope of coal. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... especially its fine roots, produce a variegated cabinet wood of much beauty, but of such extreme hardness as scarcely to be workable by ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... "A" Force Command began careful reconnaissance and plans of advance. American officers and doughboys had their first experiences, of the many experiences to follow, of taking out Russian guides and from their own observations and the crude old maps and from doubtful hearsay to piece together a workable military sketch of ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... she must not only desire unity, as, no doubt, all the sects desire it, but she must have been provided by her all-wise Founder with what none of them even profess to possess, viz., some simple, workable, and effective means of securing it. This means, as practical as it is simple, is no other than one supreme central and living authority, enjoying full jurisdiction over all—that is to say, the authority of Peter, ever living in his ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... believe the effect of the reforms has been, is being, and will be, to draw the second class, who hope for colonial autonomy, into the ranks of the third class, who will be content with admission to a fair and workable co-operation. A correspondent wrote to me the ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... A workable flying machine would be the grandest invention of the age. My offer may not bring it about, but suppose a shilling subscription was made throughout the civilised world; say twenty million people gave 1/- ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... medium, and that it was impossible to regard the materialized form as but a phantasm of the living. A stupendous discovery or a pitiful figment of a lunatic brain! But no flash of lightning rent the halls of learning; Sir William Crookes' researches into radiant matter could safely be accepted as workable intellectual ground, but not his researches into ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... mere theory, not something I read about or saw others do. These techniques are tested and workable. The next-to-last chapter of this book contains a complete plan of my 1992 garden with explanations and discussion of the ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... year found us supplied with increasingly able help from our Chinese co-workers. We found ourselves driven to the practical testing of the principle: "When the pressure of the work is too heavy, then extend the work," and we found it to be sound and workable. Each term some extra responsibility was thrown off on to the shoulders of willing helpers, that we ourselves might be free to ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... word had been said as to the fact which underlay the motives of the bill. Iron had been found in workable quantities in those three thousand square miles of hill country. Not a word had been ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... Association was established in 1934 "to bring together leaders from agriculture, business, labor, and the professions to pool their experience and foresight in developing workable ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... book should be made the subject of special attack by the evil one. It is not surprising, though it is deeply grievous, that the common idea about this book among Christian people is that it is a sort of a puzzle, that it is impossible to get a simple, clear, workable understanding of its message. Parts of it are conned over tenderly and loved, a paragraph here, a verse there, and so on, but a grasp of the one simple message of the book seems not common, to put it mildly. No book of the sixty-six has seemed so much like a riddle to which no one knew the answer. ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... up. "It's a big dream, boy. Too big for you or any other man to put over in a single generation. But we'll do what we can toward giving it a start. You cut out junior laboratory and get to work on your designs. When you finally get one that seems workable, we'll have the shops make a model." He paused, then rose and Roger rose too while the Dean put a hand on his broad young shoulder. "You've launched on the finest, most thankless, most compelling, most discouraging, most heart thrilling game in the world, Roger. You'll probably ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... ship from midnight till 6 a.m. on December 25, Christmas Day. Then they opened a little and we made progress till 11.30 a.m., when the leads closed again. We had encountered good leads and workable ice during the early part of the night, and the noon observation showed that our run for the twenty-four hours was the best since we entered the pack a fortnight earlier. We had made 71 miles S. 4 W. The ice held ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... two days endeavouring to frame a workable quarantine scheme in respect of an outbreak of lung sickness amongst the natives' cattle in several of those deep valleys which cleave the Xomlenzi range from the Northern bank of the Tina River, and it was late in afternoon when I reached the kraal of my friend Numjala, ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... turtle-backs." The Tallega poked about in the loose earth at the top of the mound and brought up a round, flattish flint about the size of a man's hand, that showed disk-shaped flakings arranged like the marking of a turtle-shell. "They were kept workable by being buried in the earth, and made into knives or razors or whatever ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... Public Health Association. He was a physician to St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum and St. Ann's Infants' Asylum in Washington, D.C. In addition, he was instrumental in establishing Providence Hospital in the District of Columbia. He also provided a workable plan for the American Medical Association's library in Washington, D.C. (1868-1871). Among his several publications are: Contributions to the Annals of Medical Progress and Medical Education in the United States before ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh

... editor, when he had proclaimed his distrust of the truth as a workable material in journalism, "I have a plan to set before you, and when you know what it is, I am quite prepared to hear you refuse to have anything to do with it. And, remember, if you do undertake it, there ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... the narrow tunnel. The floor was uneven, while so irregular and rough appeared roof and walls as to convince me this was a natural excavation, probably the run-way for some ancient watercourse. Yet, as I tested the nature of the stone with the point of my hunting knife, it proved easily workable with tools, and apparently revealed softer material the deeper we progressed into the hill. Slightly beyond the entrance leading from the main chamber, several rudely fashioned steps led into a sort of gallery. This was ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... were conversant with the voluntary system of training seamen. Had he done this, it is pretty certain they would have guided him clear of the difficulties he got into, and his measure would have been fashioned into a beneficent, workable scheme instead ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... in the soil much meteoric iron, often in masses so large as to baffle all attempts at removal. Blocks of this kind have been known to furnish the natives in their vicinity for many years with sources of workable iron. ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... development of co-operation and communism in America has gone. It was prophetic of a more perfectly organized society. In the days of the kitty the fine Socialistic ideal of, "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs," was made specific and workable. And the inspiring romantic tradition of Robin Hood was also carried over into modern life. The kitty robbed only the rich and left ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... the southern limit of Russian control. At first I favoured a "neutral zone" from Mosul to Kut, and I shouldn't be surprised if that plan still finds favour at home. But frankly I see no prospect of a strong enough Government to make the neutral zone workable; on the contrary everything points to the absorption of the Persian neutral zone by either ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... too indefinitely framed to be workable. No officer is named to whom the petitions should go; no officer is obligated to submit the question; no method of authenticating the petitions is prescribed and no time for voting is fixed. The United States has no facilities of its own for conducting any ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... research has been expended on this question; but most of those who have dealt with it have been classical scholars possessing little or no practical acquaintance with seafaring conditions, and none of their proposed arrangements of three banks of oars looks at all likely to be workable and effective. A practical test of the theory was made by Napoleon III when his "History of Julius Caesar" was being prepared. He had a trireme constructed and tried upon the Seine. There were three banks of oars, ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... few centuries Christian and Muslim lived together upon a fairly workable basis of toleration. Massacres of Christians and destruction of their churches occurred periodically, either in revenge for Christian successes elsewhere, or in connexion with other Mussulman disorders when mutual assassination was popular. But, on the whole, pilgrims, ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... of human labour, they could get out as much of the metal as could now be done. They knew perfectly what was worth working and what was not; and I think it likely that what you have brought home, had been rejected by the ancients as unworkable[EN12]. Further search may lead to the discovery of workable stuff; but would doubtless require a good deal of time, unless lucky ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... far-reaching, description of the changes which result in the production of substances very unlike those which are changed; and he did this by experimentally analysing the conceptions of the element and the compound, giving definite and workable meanings to these conceptions, and establishing, on an experimental foundation, the generalisation that the sum of the quantities of the substances which take part in ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... its patience, inclusiveness, and mild, genial acceptance of types that before did not come, and could not by any effort of will be brought, within range or made to adhere consistently with what was already accepted and workable. He was less the egotist now and more the realist. He was not so prone to the high lights in which all seems overwrought, exaggerated; concerned really with effects of a more subdued order, if still the theme was a wee out of ordinary nature. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... branches into smaller and more workable proportions. Pixie unravelled string and wire, and the three elders worked steadily at their separate wreaths. At the end of an hour they had progressed so well that it was suggested that the three fragments should be tied together, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... I can't carry on. I came to you, hoping you might suggest a workable plan. Who is ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... late Richard Reynolds, Esq., of Bristol, so distinguished for his unbounded benevolence, was the original proprietor of the great iron-works in Colebrook Dale, Shropshire. Owing, I believe, partly to the exhaustion of the best workable beds of coal and ironstone, and partly to the superior advantages possessed by the iron-founders in South Wales, the works at Colebrook Dale were finally relinquished, a short time before the death of Mr. Reynolds. With a natural attachment ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... to myself what such people would say if land had always been communal property, and some one now proposed to hand it over absolutely to the dukes, the squires, the game-preservers, and the coal-owners. "'Tis impossible," they would exclaim; "the thing wouldn't be workable. Why, a single landlord might own half Westminster! A single landlord might own all Sutherlandshire! The hypothetical Duke of Westminster might put bars to the streets; he might impede locomotion; he might refuse ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... wagons, and public property in roads; private property in houses, and public property in forests; private property in automobiles, and public property in railway carriages. But any rule of property, like any other workable human law, must be applicable to all individuals that ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... water. Robt. Street adds to his description a note: "The quantity of spirits of tar or turpentine to be made use of is always proportional to the confined space, in general about 10 drops to a cubic foot." This engine is quite a workable one, although the arrangements described are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... get to work on that water-supply," he said. "The ground's workable still, and may stay so for a long time yet. What help ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... takes it as a matter of course that she would herself be able to construct a system of workable laws. In point of fact, the framing of a really useful law is a question of divining something which will apply to an infinite number of different cases and individuals. It is an intellectual feat on a par with ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... sand-bags are often provided, as was the case in the Egyptian campaign, when the Sirdar found the armoured train of great service. The man in command of an armoured train thinks first, when an emergency arises, of his engine. So long as that remains in workable condition the odds are on his side; but once the vital parts of the locomotive are damaged, the outlook becomes serious, for an armoured train can only carry a small body of men, who would be quickly surrounded by the enemy, who might number hundreds ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... in the world weak. He had as much notion of economy as the Morning Sun; and yet you could not lay your hand on any one item, and say: "Herein Phil Garron is extravagant or reckless." Nor could you point out any particular vice in his character; but he was "unsatisfactory" and as workable as putty. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... little encouragement they'll do it themselves—that is, the English, Danes, and Germans. One can trust them to evolve a workable system. It's in their nature. You can trace most things that tend to wholesome efficiency back to the old Teutonic leaven. By and bye, they'll proceed to put some pressure on the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... is a Workable Method. The teacher can apply it. Give every pupil a certain definite Search task. The teacher can adapt it to every age, and to every degree of Biblical knowledge. This series of text books will suggest plans ...
— A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible - Second Edition • Frank Nelson Palmer

... its means and energy; but was due in a still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt directed his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is furnished by the attempt to get a workable eight-hour ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... as yet only in a gaseous condition, vague and nebulous, and so not leading to the practical results, both individual and collective, which might be expected of it, if it were consolidated into a more workable form. We are like some amateurs who want to paint finished pictures before they have studied the elements of Art, and when they see an artist do without difficulty what they vainly attempt, they look upon him as a being ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... now the amateur armorer must have some helmets to add to his collection. There is no limit to the size of the helmet, and it may be made as a model or full sized. In constructing helmets, a mass of clay of any kind that is easily workable and fairly stiff, is necessary, says the English Mechanic, London. It must be kept moist ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... a "workable unemployment act." The Labour Party had previously introduced a more radical measure which very nearly received the support of a majority of Parliament. The third measure called for old-age pensions. Mr. Carnegie remarked of this ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... rearing, terrified creature circled round him and then the rope began to shorten to a more workable length. There was no haste, no flurry. Surely and steadily the rope shortened (but the horse went to the man not the man to the horse; that was to come later). With the shortening of the rope the compelling power ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... but eventually yielded because he believed his friend's interest would need looking after in his absence. After some discussion they agreed on a workable scheme, which was put down in writing and witnessed by the hotel-keeper. Then Jernyngham borrowed a saddle and ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... supposed, General Hume had no opinion. He merely expressed himself as being prepared to accept any sound theory, or portions of such theories as might be advanced, and arrive at a workable conclusion therefrom. Which was exactly what ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... that faculty. It has been my pride and pleasure to cultivate in you what I believed to be a decided mentality. I've tried to show you how to get down to fundamentals, to work out a philosophy of life that's really workable. Knowledge is worth having for its own sake. Once you find yourself in contact with the world—and for you that time is bound to come—you'll apply all the knowledge you've absorbed to problems as they arise. If there's a rational solution to any situation that faces you, you'll make an ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... occur at about such a date, and then forced the market up till they themselves had a good surplus. All this I know for a fact, because I was on the inside. Just at this time the syndicate intrusted to me three hundred thousand as a workable margin for certain future investments. My orders were to invest in this prepared stock only after October fifteenth. Meanwhile the manipulation of this amount was in my ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... you, not primarily as a philosopher, but rather as an anthropologist, a student of prehistoric man. I must therefore define progress, not in the philosophic or ultimate way, but simply as may serve the strictly limited aims of my special science. As an anthropologist, I want a workable definition—one that will set me working and keep me working on promising lines. I do not ask ultimate truth of my anthropological definition. For my science deals with but a single aspect of reality; and the other aspects of the real must likewise be considered on their merits before ...
— Progress and History • Various

... else bronze should come to be used, the bronze-weaponed people must ultimately cross over and subjugate the stone-weaponed aborigines of the island. Moreover, bronze was certain to be first hit upon in those countries where tin and copper were most easily workable—that is to say, in Asia. From Asia, the secret of its manufacture spread to the outlying peninsula of Europe, where it was quickly adopted by the Aryan Celts, who had already invaded the outlying continent, armed only with weapons of stone. As soon as they had learnt the use of ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... no need for copying Benz. Charles wisely differed from Benz in placing the flywheel forward, thus eliminating the need for the long driving belt of the Benz carriage. Yet he did reject the bevel gears used by Benz, which might well have been retained, as Frank was later to prove by designing a workable transmission that incorporated such bevel gears. The initial plan, as conceived by Charles, also included the details of the axles, steering gear, countershaft with its friction-drum, the 2-piece angle-iron frame upon which the ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile

... be of any help to you," said Meldon, "you can count on me. I have a good deal of natural talent for ambuscades. Trot out the details of your scheme, and I'll be able to tell you in two words whether it's workable or not." ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... growing band of those who have risen in rebellion against the Charles-Darwinian system on the one hand, and Messrs. Darwin and Wallace with the greater number of our more prominent biologists on the other, involves the very existence of evolution as a workable theory. For it is plain that what Nature can be supposed able to do by way of choice must depend on the supply of the variations from which she is supposed to choose. She cannot take what is not offered to her; and so again ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... frequently the case, that such means of improvement are easily availed of. While these chemical effects are being produced, there may be an equal improvement in the mechanical character of the soil. Thus stiff clay soils are rendered lighter, and more easily workable, by an admixture of sand, while light blowy sands are compacted, and made more retentive of manure, by a dressing of ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... it. It isn't crazy at all. On the contrary, it should be perfectly workable, and if it proved so, there would be a mine of money ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... as it finally grew into a workable fact was in reality nothing more than the renting of a large building formerly used as a warehouse for a brewery, reconstructing it and living in it themselves in the very heart of a territory where the saloon ruled with power, where the tenement was its filthiest, where vice ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon

... wages. It tended toward paternalism. Paternalism has no place in industry. Welfare work that consists in prying into employees' private concerns is out of date. Men need counsel and men need help, oftentimes special help; and all this ought to be rendered for decency's sake. But the broad workable plan of investment and participation will do more to solidify industry and strengthen organization than will any social work ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... from the decisions of the Children's Courts might be usefully made explicit in the Child Welfare Act. We agree also that it might be well to provide for the right of appeal against the Superintendent in certain circumstances. If the system is to be workable and not brought to a standstill by a mass of frivolous appeals, it will be necessary to restrict the right of appeal. If an appeal were to lie every time the Superintendent shifted a ward of State, the proceedings would be endless. The only appeal, we think, ...
— Report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee • Ronald Macmillan Algie

... you that Larry will make us no more trouble," he said. "Mr. Clavering has a workable scheme, and it will only need the Sheriff and a few men whom I will choose ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... Lermontoff explained the purposes of the battery, meanwhile examining it thoroughly, and finding that many of the cells had been all but ruined in transit, through the falling away of the composition in the grids. Something like half of the accumulators, however, were intact and workable; these he uncoupled and brought into the dynamo room, where he showed the Governor the process of charging. He saw in the store room a box containing incandescent lamps, coils of silk-covered wire and other material that made his eyes glisten ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... been given less hazardous assignments." He explained that at first Negroes would be used only on the large auxiliaries, and their number would be limited to not more than 10 percent of the ship's complement. If this step proved workable, he planned to use Negroes in small numbers on other types of ships "as necessity indicates." The White House answered: ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... workable constitution was ever written exclusively by scholars. Recall the ordinance for the government of Carolina devised by the philosopher Locke. It failed; yet it reads well. Time and again theorists with highest purpose and broadest book wisdom have formulated ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... heart or shaking its nerve. It is the difficulty produced by the loose foundation or the vague scheme that breaks the heart—when a luckless fatuity has over-persuaded an author of the "saving" virtue of treatment. Being "treated" is never, in a workable idea, a mere passive condition, and I hold no subject ever susceptible of help that isn't, like the embarrassed man of our proverbial wisdom, first of all able to help itself. I was thus to have here an envious glimpse, in carrying my design through, of that artistic rage ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... civilians, after Hobart and Blackstone, came our modern utilitarians, or sophists, Bentham, Mill, Austin, and others, who have vigorously maintained with weighty arguments the utilitarian theory of justice; and that theory is now generally accepted by lawyers and statesmen as at least the most workable theory in human affairs. There still exists, however, in the minds of many the belief that above and behind all the turmoil and strife of politics, all the flux and reflux of social movements and public sentiment, the confusion of enactments, ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... mainland, cropping up again in many of the Aegean islands, and some of the ores, of which there is a great variety, are rare and valuable. The lack of transit facilities is partly remedied by the fact that workable veins often lie near enough to the sea for the produce to be carried straight from mine to ship, by an endless-chain system of overhead trolleys; so that, once capital is secured for installing the plant and opening the mine, profitable operations ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... A workable scheme of attack has now been put into such shape as to let Stopford dovetail his Corps orders into it, and first thing ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... foreseen—and prepared to meet. Thanks to his foresight, Mr. Campbell was able to take out of his pocket several long and carefully worded telegrams giving a resume of the situation. They suggested a workable compromise; it was adopted, and peace pourparlers began once more. The I.G.'s one stipulation on entering upon them was that they should be kept absolutely secret. And this time they were. Except Prince Ching and ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... to the boat-house where my launch lay. She was a tidy little boat, and had the advantage of being workable by one man without any difficulty. All I had to arrange was how to embark in her unperceived. I summoned the boatman in charge, and questioned him closely about the probable state of the weather. He confidently assured me it would be fine ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... could to make a workable lock of one that had been ready to fall to pieces before his father heaved against it; hammered in the loosened screws in the hinges, tossed the rock out into the scuffed sod before the shack, and picked up his hat. He had not once looked ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... a male emerges and makes a round of exploration. A bore is made in workable earth, close beside the brick. This is a trial excavation, to reveal the nature of the soil; a narrow well, of no great depth, into which the insect plunges to half its length. The well-sinker returns to the other workers, who arch their backs, and the load progresses a finger's-breadth towards ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... they might imitate, with art, the unpremeditated. Above all, here, for the snatched instants, they could breathe so near to each other that the interval was almost engulfed in it, and the intensity both of the union and the caution became a workable substitute for contact. They had prolongations of instants that counted as visions of bliss; they had slow approximations that counted as long caresses. The quality of these passages, in truth, made ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... genius in our political life at that time, while Pitt was a mere shadow in comparison, though it is fair to state that the former always believed that he and Pitt would have made a workable combination. As to the rest, they were pretty much on the level of the Lilliputians with whom the late traveller, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, had such intimate and troublesome relations. The book by the Dean of St. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... draft did not slavishly follow the Virginia propositions, for the committee embodied some valuable suggestions which had occurred to them in their deliberations. Nevertheless, it substantially put the Virginia plan into a workable plan which proved to be the Constitution of the United States ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... the 21st September these articles were provisionally adopted by the joint drafting committee of the First and Third Committees. At this stage, therefore, for the first time, the substance of a workable text on the subjects referred to the First Committee began to emerge from ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller

... such useful privileges as the right to graze a cow, a pig, geese or other small animals. It also discouraged him by tending to the extinction of small tenancies and freeholds that were no longer workable at a profit when common rights ceased to go with them. The industrious labourer could previously nourish a hope of bettering his condition by obtaining a small holding. Yet though the labourer suffered, impartial study does not show any intentional injustice. He held a very weak ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the great and important series of the Carboniferous Rocks, so called because workable beds of coal are more commonly and more largely developed in this formation than in any other. Workable coal-seams, however, occur in various other formations (Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary), so that coal is not an exclusively Carboniferous product; whilst ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... themselves are composed of various qualities of chalk; some of such a hard, smooth and workable material that, as will be seen presently, the columns in some of the Downland churches are made from this native "rock." While the upper strata is soft and contains great quantities of flints, the middle layers are brittle and yield plenty of fossils, lower still is the marl, a greyish ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... have laboured to impress them, and I hope successfully. It is this: that the faithful carrying out of the principles of Constitutional Government is a departure from the American model, not an approximation to it, and, therefore, a departure from republicanism in its only workable shape. Of the soundness of this view of our case I entertain no doubt whatever; and though I meet with few persons to whom it seems to have occurred (for the common belief of superficial observers ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... answered. "Scattered among the cranks and castle builders were several brilliant, solid-headed men. There was Moses G. Farmer, for example, one of the foremost electricians of that time, who had many an excellent and workable idea and who taught young Watson no end of valuable lessons. Then one day into the workshop came Alexander Graham Bell. In his hand he carried a mechanical contrivance Watson had previously made for him and ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... clearness. They must convert others, they must communicate sympathy and win over the unconvinced. Upon the whole, they must show that their object is possible, that it is compatible with existing institutions, or at any rate with some workable form of social life. They are, in fact, driven on by the requirements of their position to the elaboration of ideas, and in the end to some sort of social philosophy; and the philosophies that have driving force behind them are those which arise after this fashion out of the practical demands ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... Hannah J. Patterson of Pittsburgh had charge of organizing the Woman Suffrage Party along political lines out of the State association, and to Mrs. Roessing and her belongs especial credit for the strong, workable organization which was built up so carefully in preparation for the campaign year. The State convention was held in Scranton, November 19-24. There was every indication that the next Legislature would submit a constitutional amendment and the Executive Board asked for a campaign fund of $100,000, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... only for cash, and lent to them only at usury, he undoubtedly would have silenced the wily senator, and saved the people from a great imposition. The Conscript Fathers were fathers only of their own line. As for the common people, they were regarded as an impure race, exploitable, taxable, and workable at the discretion ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... fact in any fundamental workable truth about human nature is that all the people who have any are very much alike. The best we can do about it—most of us—is to recognize the fact that in spite of the thought of the people it mixes us up with, the best ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee

... position without force of arms. I am aware that general disarmament is not popular among statesmen, that it has been denounced by an eminent authority as a "will-o'-the wisp", that arbitration has been styled a "Jack-o'-lantern", but this is not the first time a good and workable scheme has been branded with opprobrious names. The abolition of slavery was at one time considered to be an insane man's dream; now all people believe in it. Will the twentieth century witness the collapse ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... doing away with the utilitarian scale for measuring both men and women, together with its conceptions of the relations of the sexes and of man to man, can alone supply that foundation for all the elements of the new social order, intellectual and emotional, which will make it workable and permanent, and of which monogamy is but one element.[L] He does not see that representative government and popular rights cannot stand for any length of ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... performance in dramas sincerely intended to be works of art, it is difficult to treat his art seriously. A step farther: one cannot accept as a work of dramatic art a piece that does not seek to cause an illusion, or any play which formally admits the existence of the audience. A workable distinction may be found in using the terms "drama" and "entertainment," "actor" ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... marks of my strivings and my strugglings, of what I had learnt and unlearnt." {69c} He recognised the possibilities that lay in every man, only awaiting the hour when they should be called forth. He believed implicitly in the power of the will. {69d} He possessed ambition and a fine workable theory of how success was to be obtained; but he lacked initiative. He expected fortune to wait for him on the high-road, just as he knew adventures awaited him. He would not go "across the country," to use a phrase of the time common to postilions. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... I move that this matter be referred to the executive board to develop a workable plan to secure the purposes which ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... the social unit of human scale and brought in the gigantic aggregations of peoples, money, manufacture and labourers, where man can no longer function either as a human unit or an essential factor in a workable society. ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... mines and taxes, in conjunction with the Military Treasurer and the Commissioners of the Theoric fund, in the presence of the Council, and grant, to the persons indicated by the vote of the Council, the mines which are let out by the state, including both the workable ones, which are let for three years, and those which are let under special agreements years. They also sell, in the presence of the Council, the property of those who have gone into exile from the court of the Areopagus, ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle

... that transformation of the Roman Empire which was the background of all these centuries, how a mystical view of man's dignity must have this effect. A table that walked and talked, or a stool that flew with wings out of window, would be about as workable a thing as an immortal chattel. But though here as everywhere the spirit explains the processes, and the processes cannot even plausibly explain the spirit, these processes involve two very practical points, without which we cannot ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton



Words linked to "Workable" :   executable, work, possible, practicable, feasible, viable



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