Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Absolute   /ˈæbsəlˌut/   Listen
Absolute

adjective
1.
Perfect or complete or pure.  "Absolute silence" , "Absolute truth" , "Absolute alcohol"
2.
Complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers.  Synonyms: downright, out-and-out, rank, right-down, sheer.  "An absolute dimwit" , "A downright lie" , "Out-and-out mayhem" , "An out-and-out lie" , "A rank outsider" , "Many right-down vices" , "Got the job through sheer persistence" , "Sheer stupidity"
3.
Not limited by law.
4.
Expressing finality with no implication of possible change.
5.
Not capable of being violated or infringed.  Synonyms: infrangible, inviolable.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books



... any beautiful things? And if there are such, are they the same or not the same as absolute beauty?' Socrates replies that they are not the same, but each of them has some beauty present with it. 'And are you an ox because you have an ox present with you?' After a few more amphiboliae, in which Socrates, like Ctesippus, in ...
— Euthydemus • Plato

... Stanley, he became in due time a member of the great Conservative opposition, and, as he never did anything by halves, became one of the most earnest, as he certainly was one of the most enlightened, supporters of Sir Robert Peel. His trust in that minister was indeed absolute, and he has subsequently stated in conversation that when, towards the end of the session of '45, a member of the Tory party ventured to predict and denounce the impending defection of the minister, there was no member of the Conservative party who more violently condemned ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... to intrust you with a message to your husband. Tell him from me to buy to-morrow ten thousand francs' worth of Moroccan stock which is at seventy-two, and I predict that before three months are passed he will have made eighty thousand francs. Tell him to maintain absolute silence. Tell him that the expedition to Tangiers, is decided upon, and that the French government will guarantee the Moroccan debt. It is a state secret I ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... continued, after a pause, "yet many, perhaps most of these wretched people, drained dry by their one idea, are devoted with absolute singleness of purpose to the pursuit of an honest thing. Let us consider whom and what we may be found fighting against. If these subverters do not altogether prove the truth of their own opinions, do they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... poetry lies in Imagination, and that the larger the amount of just liberty the Imagination enjoys, the better will be the poetry it produces. But then a further question arises, and this is the key of the whole position, How far does this liberty extend? Is Imagination absolute, supreme, and uncontrolled in its own sphere, or is it under the guidance and government of reason? That its dominion is not universal is obvious, but of its influence we are all conscious, and there is no exaggeration in the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... Francis, in about a year after his marriage the Duke of Tuscany died, and Francis, with his bride, hastened to his new home in the palaces of Leghorn. Though the duke mourned bitterly over the loss of his ancestral domains, Tuscany was no mean inheritance. The duke was absolute monarch of the duchy, which contained about eight thousand square miles and a population of a million. The revenues of the archduchy were some four millions of dollars. The army consisted ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... and labour, concluded their work, and found they were in error somewhere about the four-hundredth part of a second; although they tried to solve the problem by three distinct processes—namely, differences of zenith distance, absolute zenith distances, and by transits in ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: "Probably they were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the truth of the story was just what they did not trouble about, any more than some clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the stories they tell children from the pulpit. The application, the lesson, is the thing!" With their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought, I think, to sympathise. But there was one truth they had yet to learn, namely, that in order to ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... Iglau, in Moravia], so he remonstrated against this advice; indeed he reproached Hofrath Breuning as the person who had suggested such harsh measures. A note, still extant, written by Breuning to Beethoven, shows the state of matters, in which he still maintains, though in moderate language, the absolute necessity of the above precautions. This mode of argument seemed to make an impression on the maestro, who at last promised to yield his own wishes. By his desire, Breuning laid the codicil of three lines before him, and Beethoven at once proceeded to ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... should be all in all to her,—that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,—another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... their wants; and, in many instances, have afforded the most decided relief, by simply giving them a little cool water for drink. From the dread which some individuals have for cool air and cold water, it would seem that they were considered rather as destructive poisons than as absolute necessaries. I have no fear of either, when judiciously employed; and as prophylactics in cholera, I do not think ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... A failure—absolute and complete—however brought about, is a fair mark for mockery, if not for censure. Perhaps, however, I may hope that some of my readers, in charity, if not in justice, will believe that I have honestly tried to avoid over-coloring ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... answer them! I am oppressed by a nameless and mysterious suffering, . . my brain is darkened,—my thoughts but half-formed and never wholly uttered, and I,—I who once deemed human intelligence and reason all-supreme, all-clear, all-absolute, am now compelled to use that reason reasonlessly, and to work with that intelligence in helpless ignorance as to what end my mental toil shall serve! Woeful and strange it is!— yet true; . . I am as a broken straw in a whirlwind,—or the pale ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... how much she cares! On the very day of our final rupture she starts a flirtation with another man—an absolute stranger." ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... undertake, under the provisions of this bill, to fund the whole debt of the United States. The only limit as to amount is the public debt, now $2,700,000,000. The power conferred on the Secretary of the Treasury is absolute. It is not only for this year, or during the current fiscal year, or for the next year, but it is for all time, until the act shall be repealed. It gives him absolute power to negotiate bonds of the United States to the amount of $2,700,000,000, without limiting the rate at which ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... harder of digestion. Bread is in its best state the first and second day after it is baked. Economical bread, or bread of an inferior quality, depraved by other mixtures, has frequently been recommended to poor people in times of scarcity; but except where absolute necessity exists, this is a kind of policy that cannot be too severely condemned. The labouring classes, whose dependence is almost entirely upon bread, ought to be provided with what is of the purest and most nutricious quality, and at a reasonable price. They might then live upon their ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... on the contrary, in April its amount is much greater than in England, frequently equalling 13 degrees of difference; and I have seen 16 degrees at 7,500 feet; but the minimum temperature at the time is 51 degrees, and the absolute amount of cold therefore immaterial. The mean minimum of London is 38 degrees, and, when lowered 5.5 degrees by radiation, the consequent cold is very considerable. Mr. Daniell, in his admirable essay on the climate of London, mentions 17 degrees as the maximum ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... absolutely necessary, and the baquet might be dry. The lid was pierced with a certain number of holes, whence there issued jointed and moving iron branches, which were to be held by the patients. Absolute silence was maintained. The patients were ranged in several rows round the baquet, connected with each other by cords passed round their bodies, and by a second chain, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... intellectuality, genius; brains, cognitive powers, intellectual powers; wit &c. 498; ability &c. (skill) 698; wisdom &c. 498; Vernunft[Ger], Verstand[Ger]. soul, spirit, ghost, inner man, heart, breast, bosom, penetralia mentis[Lat], divina particula aurae[Lat], heart's core; the Absolute, psyche, subliminal consciousness, supreme principle. brain, organ of thought, seat of thought; sensorium[obs3], sensory; head, headpiece; pate, noddle[obs3], noggin, skull, scull, pericranium[Med], cerebrum, cranium, brainpan[obs3], sconce, upper story. [in computers] central ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... lets loose the dogs of the hunt, and rushes out of its walls, with game-bag slung and fowling-piece on the shoulder, together with a hurly-burly of hounds, cracking of whips, and blowing of whistles and hunting-horns. It's splendid to see! Unfortunately, there's a lack of game, an absolute dearth. ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... those Congresses which, among other good and evil, purged with great effect the ancient German political system. By the regulations then determined on, that country was freed at one fell swoop from the vexatious and harassing dominion of the various petty Princes who exercised absolute sovereignties over little nations of fifty thousand souls. These independent sovereigns became subjects; and either swelled, by their mediatisation, the territories of some already powerful potentate, or transmuted into a state of importance some more ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... species is an absolute necessity to ensure accurate identification. Little special remark is called for here, since the methods adopted for other objects will be available. Specimens which have become dry may be placed ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... by Russia between 1865 and 1885, Turkmenistan became a Soviet republic in 1924. It achieved its independence upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. President NIYAZOV retains absolute control over the country and opposition is not tolerated. Extensive hydrocarbon/natural gas reserves could prove a boon to this underdeveloped country if extraction and delivery projects were to be expanded. The Turkmenistan Government is actively ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... justifying the war—though not at all clear as to the right of taxing the colonies—no doubt expressed his honest convictions in making this explanatory speech to the House. There was much, also, that was true in his words; but, whatever the absolute cause, the fact did not then, and cannot now escape notice, that in preparing to uphold the authority of Parliament, and preserve the integrity of her empire in America, Great Britain, in 1775, found it impossible to induce a sufficient number of her own ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... accurate, and available for all necessary purposes, but cold and naked, and wholly destitute of the mimic charm produced by landscape-painting. These defects are partly remediable, and even without an absolute violation of literal truth, although by methods rightfully interdicted to professors of biographical exactness. A license must be assumed in brightening the materials which time has rusted, and in tracing out half-obliterated ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... danger puts no more strain upon the nerves of a man of good fibre than does a great joy; and it seemed to me that Esperit's absolute steadiness, under this sudden fire of happiness, showed him to be made of as fine and as manly stuff as went to the making of his kinsman who beat the pas-de-charge up the slope at Arcolo at the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... money here outlined makes the value of paper money a special case of monopoly value. As the power of any private monopoly over price is relative, not absolute, so is that of the government over the value of political money. The money use is the source of value of the paper notes. It is this which gives the economic condition for value in paper money and strictly limits the power of the government—a fact overlooked ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... a "low old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street," which would have served for the "umble" dwelling of Uriah Heep and his mother, but none can be pointed out with absolute certainty as being the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... undisturbed by my ghost stalking solitary through your slumbers. May no fumes from my pipe interfere with the violet de parme you represent. If you want any advertising done, just call on me, William Canfield Brewer. I write poetry, draw pictures, make up stories, and prove to the absolute satisfaction of the most skeptical public that any article is even better than you say it is. I command a princely salary,—but I can't command it long enough. Adieu, I go, my lady, ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... that sinneth it shall die," is often produced in support of the scholastic idea that the law of God was inexorable, that is absolute or unconditional, not to be moved or its penalty escaped by ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various

... Absolute loss of reaction to electrical stimulus from above was the only pathognomonic sign of actual section, unless the position of the nerve was such as to allow of palpation, when the presence of a bulbous end at once settled the difficulty. In many cases of superficial ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... necessity of discussing this important memorandum, under the cloak of the Colonial Office's decision in favour of inaction, the Premier went on to say that he was "most anxious to avoid the resumption of hostilities on the one hand or the abandonment of the territory on the other." There was an absolute ignoring in this statement of Gordon's deliberate opinion that the only way to solve the difficulty was by granting Basutoland semi-independence on the terms of a Convention providing for the presence of a British Resident, through whom all external matters were to ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... and waited. She had tossed off her shawl, and the firelight fell on her pale, proud face; her lips were very firmly set, and her resolute eyes looked into the fire. Inwardly she was faint and sick, for she had not tasted food that day; but she was unconscious of absolute hunger, all the energy within both soul and body ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade

... alcohol ninety-four per cent can be obtained, which is the best commercial article, though most grades fall far below this. Five per cent more can be removed by distilling with CaO, which has a strong affinity for water. The last one per cent is removed by BaO. One hundred per cent constitutes absolute alcohol, which is a deadly poison. Diluted, it increases the circulation, stimulates the system, hardens the tissues by withdrawing water, and is the intoxicating principle in all liquors.—It is very inflammable, giving little light, and much ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... same theory to heat, electricity, and magnetism, and this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a correlation, material connection, and transmutability of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in absolute suspense until very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not already established as a system, it promises soon to become so. At least, it is generally received as a tenable and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... discover who among our fellow-citizens in this city are the greatest adepts in the various branches of knowledge. [14] I had been struck with amazement, I remember, to observe on some occasion that where a set of people are engaged in identical operations, half of them are in absolute indigence and the other half roll in wealth. I bethought me, the history of the matter was worth investigation. Accordingly I set to work investigating, and I found that it all happened very naturally. ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... with his insufferable claptrap about absolute unity as a blanket under which to gather votes while the very existence of the nation is threatened more ominously than anybody west of the Alleghanies—or in Washington, for that matter,—seems to realize, the sooner he goes home and takes his damned ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... it[69], or wherein its not being the chief and ruling affection, is charged on persons professing themselves Christians, as being sufficient to disprove their claim to that appellation, or as being equivalent to denying it[70]. Let not therefore any deceive themselves by imagining, that only an absolute unqualified renunciation of the desire of the favour of God is here condemned. God will not accept of a divided affection; a single heart, and a single eye are in express terms declared to be indispensably required of us. We are ordered, under ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... to the manner of his Government, it is Tyrannical and Arbitrary in the highest degree: For he ruleth Absolute, and after his own Will and Pleasure: his own Head being his only Counsellor. The Land all at his Disposal, and all the People from the highest to the lowest Slaves, or very like Slaves: both in Body and Goods wholly at his Command. Neither wants He those three ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... Zac watched patiently. He had not the heart to rouse her, unless compelled by absolute necessity. In this case, however, no necessity arose, and he left her to wake herself. When at length Margot awoke, the sun was high in the heavens, and Zac only smiled pleasantly when she reproached him for ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... and vet he seemed to live very much better after Marcia went. There is no doubt but he lived very much more at his ease. One little restriction after another fell away from him; he went and came with absolute freedom, not only without having to account for his movements, but without having a pang for not doing so. He had the sensation of stretching himself after a cramping posture; and he wrote Marcia the cheerfulest letters, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... the last degree wonderful! Are you not ashamed of your weakness? How can a man be so poor-spirited as to let his wife have absolute power over him, and never dare to oppose ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... women, so accustomed to seeing them take on themselves the onus of entertainment, was himself so unused to being at the smallest trouble, that when the 'Order' was exhausted, had Vida not invented another topic, there would have been an absolute cessation of all converse till Mrs. Graham Townley had again caught him up like a big reluctant fish on the hook of interrogation. At a reproachful aside from Lord Borrodaile, Miss Levering broke off in the middle of her second subject to substitute, 'But I am monopolizing ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... which, but for the presence of armies, promised an abundant harvest. Day after day passed, in quiet repose, and the Sabbath found us still waiting on the banks of the Pamunkey. It was marvelous that such silence could exist where a hundred thousand men were crowded together, yet almost absolute stillness reigned throughout the vast camp during the whole of this pleasant Sabbath. Save that here and there the notes of Old Hundred or some sacred air was heard from the band of some regiment whose chaplain had gathered his men for religious services, no sound disturbed ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... went into effect we may date the larger growth of the University. The selection of the Regents is as far removed from political influence as it is possible to make it under our electoral system, and they are given absolute control of the income of the University and the appropriations of the Legislature, once they are made; provided of course they are used for ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... under law, that is by your own effort, sin shall have dominion over you: but the moment you step from under the shadow of Sinai, throw yourself upon the simple grace of Christ and His free and absolute gift of righteousness, and take Him to be to you what He has pledged Himself to be, your righteousness of thought and feeling, and to keep you in spite of everything, that ever can be against you, in His perfect will and peace, the struggle is practically over. Beloved, do you really know ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... free and where the rulers are responsible to public opinion, and, on the other hand, a nation where public opinion is still muzzled or powerless and where the masses are still under the heel of an absolute government, a reactionary party, a military ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... of Tuscany, the party entered the Papal States—a country occupying the centre of Italy, with Rome for the capital of it. The Papal States are so called because they are under the dominion of the pope. Of course the Catholic religion reigns here in absolute supremacy. ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

... Herkimer, and within two feet of the three men whose duty it was to shoot him with the rifles they had concealed under their blankets in case an absolute attack was made, and there watched the antics of his painted crew until perhaps five minutes had passed, when the savages sank down upon the ground as if exhausted, looking like so many ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... heavens—Indra's the lowest, Brahma's the highest; or it was driven back to become the life of a worm, a fly, a fish, or a brute. The reward for perfect observance was Beatitude, or absorption into the being of Brahm, which was not existence as much as absolute rest." ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... that you regard the 'divorce' of the drama from literature as unfortunate. I think the divorce should be made absolute and final; that the Drama should no more be wedded to literature, on one hand, than it is to the art of painting on the other, or to music or mechanical science. Rather, perhaps, I should say, we should recognize poligamy for the Drama; and all ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... gaze at her in silence. There she sat, the living image of his dead wife, talking musical matters in a foreign tongue; an absolute stranger to him, and yet he felt drawn toward her in a strange and unusual way. Who was she? What was she? Had the dead come to life? What had happened? He could only look at her, and feel so very, very happy. What did ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... these days is raised after the automatic drop-a-nickle-in-the-slot manner, it is surprising how they thrive. He was a tiny, human toy a little while back; now he is the autocrat of the house, the absolute boss. Riding or driving, walking or autoing—he is first. He sits at the head of the table. If he desires aught, his desires are gratified. It is only those who have crossed the apex and begun the descent on the other ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... away; instead of returning the Pilgrim's brazenly cheerful "Hello," he scowled and rode on without so much as giving a downward tilt to his chin. For Charming Billy Boyle was never inclined to diplomacy, or to hiding his feelings in any way unless driven to it by absolute necessity. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... her once more that she had behaved with absolute impartiality; and she proved to her by a process of reasoning quite irrefragable that it was only a question of time, with which place had nothing to do, when she and Burnamy should come together again, and all should be made right between them. The fact that she did not know where he was, any ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... not have Morgan's wise, courageous course as war governor, Union general, and United States senator to guide him, but he knew that his personal character was of the highest, his public life without stain, and that he had wielded the power of absolute disinterestedness. Morgan was a fine specimen of manhood. He stood perfectly erect, with well poised head, his large, lustrous eyes inviting confidence; and the urbanity of his manner softening the answers that showed he possessed a mind of his ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... active to a noteworthy degree. Although the numerals are already well known to the child, he still confounds them on all occasions, and in view of the absolute failure of the many attempts to teach the child the significance of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one might infer that he has not yet perceived the difference between, e. g., 3 matches and 4 matches; yet counting is already taking place, though in very unexpected fashion. The child began, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... folks will now have discovered what reliance there is to be placed on a capricious and absolute man. It was clear from the first that he had resolved upon this Italian speculation, and that as soon as he could mitigate the universal feeling and opinion against him, he would have his way. The congress, whether suggested ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... not give me any opportunity for worship. That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute devotion from their wives as their right; that ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... myself. I was filled with the desire to absorb, as much as possible, the mighty, living beauty and force that was raging on the steppe; and to get closer to it. A tempest at sea, and a thunderstorm on the steppes! I know nothing grander in nature. And so I shouted to my heart's content, in the absolute belief that I troubled no one, nor placed any one in a position to criticize my action. But suddenly, I felt my legs seized, and I fell helpless into a ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... missionaries who will volunteer. To teach mothers the need for boiled water as a necessary drink for baby and older children is alone a worthy avocation. To impress upon one of these willing but ignorant mothers the absolute necessity for washing her hands before preparing baby's food, that she must keep a covered vessel in which the soiled napkins are placed until washed, that she should frequently sponge her baby in hot weather,—and explain thoroughly ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... this memorable occasion has extorted the applause of his most inveterate enemies. He seated Valentinian on the throne of Milan; and, without stipulating any present or future advantages, restored him to the absolute dominion of all the provinces, from which he had been driven by the arms of Maximus. To the restitution of his ample patrimony, Theodosius added the free and generous gift of the countries beyond the Alps, which his successful valor had recovered from the assassin of Gratian. [101] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... the room, as Mark Davenport suggested, I cannot say. But when Squire Clamp left the office, it was as still as a tomb. No cricket chirped under the hearth, no fly buzzed on the window-pane, no spiders came forth from the dilapidated, dangling webs. Silence and dust had absolute dominion. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... 'Content,' or 'Not Content.' If the affirmatives and negatives should happen to be equal in number, the question is invariably presumed to be in the negative, (semper praesumitur pro negante,) and the Not Contents have the effect of an absolute majority. In the House of Commons, the members vote by Ayes and Noes, altogether: but if it be doubtful which is the greater number, the House divides. If the question be whether any bill, petition, &c. is to be brought into the House, then the Ayes, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various

... first look even more awe-compelling than her imagination had pictured; so much so indeed, that her resolution faltered, and she took a quick step backward; which seeing, he smiled and her heart and hopes grew warm again. That he could smile, and smile with absolute sweetness, was her great comfort when later—But I am introducing you too hurriedly to the catastrophe. There is much to ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... the substance existing in linseed, and in many other seeds, and which communicates to them the property of swelling up and becoming gelatinous when treated with water. It is found in a state of considerable purity in gum tragacanth and some other gums. Its composition is not known with absolute certainty, but it is either C{24}H{19}O{19}, or C{12}H{10}O{10}; and in the latter case it must be identical ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... very much. I think it was splendid how she stood up to all the reproaches, and even ridicule; she told me that she had once, and only once, in her life been untrue to herself (she meant in accepting Charlie), and since then she has spoken the absolute truth to everybody about it all. She has been very plucky, and very straightforward, and only good can come of it. Honesty and pluck, especially for a girl—it's made so difficult for girls—they're the finest things in ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... people,—must it be dead forever?—Perhaps yes,—and kill me too into the bargain. Really I think it very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to &c., &c., and leave all at home lying buried as a nonentity. Were I absolute Sovereign and Chief Pontiff here, there should be a study of the Old English ages first of all. I will pit Odin against any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would have given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... that much of the sympathy we lavish upon martyrs is wanton waste, because to many minds, if not in fact to all, there is a positive pleasure in considering oneself a martyr. More absolute truth is contained in this than appears at the first blush. There are very few who do not roll under their tongues as a sweet morsel the belief that their superior goodness or generosity has brought them trouble and affliction from envious and ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... time and difficulty, Dr. Dorn Smith was located. When asked for some proof of his subterranean origin, the doctor was unable to provide same. His descriptions of the life and government of his claimed underground "State" could with a little imagination, have been derived from any textbook on the absolute ...
— Out of the Earth • George Edrich

... attitude of superiority toward him, carrying on their conversations in a strange tongue, and allowing him little part in their common life. Dave's spirit, which had always been accustomed to receive and be received on a basis of absolute equality, rebelled violently against the intangible wall of exclusion which his fellow workers built about themselves, and as they had shown no desire for his company, he retaliated by showing still less for theirs, with the result that he found himself very much alone ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... would have been astonished at the satisfaction which now discovered itself in the master or in any on board; for the storm still raged with great violence, and the daylight, which now appeared, presented us with sights of horror sufficient to terrify minds which were not absolute slaves to the passion of fear; but so great is the force of habit, that what inspires a landsman with the highest apprehension of danger gives not the least concern to a sailor, to whom rocks and quicksands are almost the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... their unanimity is irresistible. Prohibition may give zest to enjoyment, and provocation to curiosity, but can never overcome the instincts of nature or cravings of nervous irritability, and he who rises in rebellion against her absolute decree will respect the limits and study the laws of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... her face was so turned that he could not see the quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... taken an absolute hatred to Mr. Greenwood. You had better not mention the poor old gentleman's name to him. Shut up as I am here, I have no one else to speak a word to, and for that reason, I suppose, he wishes to get rid of him. He is absolutely talking of sending the man away after having had him with him for ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... act he mortally offended his relations. Thenceforward he was entirely disowned and rejected by them. They refused to contribute any thing to his support. All intercourse ceased, and he received from them merely that treatment to which an absolute stranger, or detested ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... the cold shoulder there, and by this time, reasoned Cranston, he must have had sense enough to discontinue his visits. Here, however, he underrated Elmendorf's devotion to his principles, for such was the tutor's conviction of their absolute wisdom and such his sense of duty to humanity that he was ready to encounter any snub rather than be balked in his determination to right the existing wrongs. Cranston did not want to go to the Allisons' and ask for Elmendorf. He ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... Jerusalem. In return, as compensation, a Mohammedan mosque has given place to a modern fort. The march of improvement or of change shows itself in a yet more modern array of cottages erected for the accommodation of English visitors. Here these gentry hide themselves in an absolute forest of fruit trees of the kinds familiar at home—apple, apricot, cherry, etc. The lovers of the apricot may be interested to learn that it is par excellence the fruit of this soi-disant Eden, this glittering attic-window upon the Roof ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... soldier confirmed in my own mind the opinion, entertained and acted upon by others from the formation of the Government, that the maintenance of large standing armies in our country would be not only dangerous, but unnecessary. They also illustrated the importance—I might well say the absolute necessity—of the military science and practical skill furnished in such an eminent degree by the institution which has made your Army what it is, under the discipline and instruction of officers not more distinguished for their solid attainments, gallantry, and devotion to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... adjoining room. It was a woman, the baroness, who was speaking, and the quivering of her clear and somewhat shrill voice betrayed a violent irritation, which was only restrained with the greatest difficulty. "It is hard for the wife of one of the richest men in Paris to see a bill for absolute necessities disputed in this style," she ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... I confess I am not only very much disposed to lay down the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages of the art, but am of opinion that the study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our whole life without any danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged, of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... your country, while seeking only to cripple the power of your political opponents? Are not the dearest interests, and, indeed, the very life of the nation, of necessity, so dependent upon a cordial and constant support of the Government, that active hostility to its principal measures, or even absolute neutrality, strengthens the hands and increases the confidence of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... waistcoat, from tree to tree. He flutters to the fence, and from the fence to the garden path, and so to the door and into the kitchen. If you will give him decent encouragement he will come on to your hand and take his meal with absolute confidence in your good faith. Then he will trip away and resume his ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... generally more refin'd and pure, and withal more elaborate than this Poet's; yet undoubtedly, Plautus was a most absolute Master of his Tongue, and in many Places there appear such a Sharpness and Liveliness of Expression, nay and such a Neatness and Politeness too, that is scarce to be found in Terence; and this, perhaps, may have ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard

... the first, the absolute! When you and I have triumphed you shall reign; And you and I will ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... complex, beyond the utmost power of such minds as ours. Every day of life drives that conviction further home. And it is possible to maintain that in perhaps quite a great number of ethical, social, and political questions there is no absolute "truth" at all—at least for finite beings. To one intellectual temperament things may have a moral tint and aspect, differing widely from that they present to another; and yet each may be in its own way right. The wide differences in character and quality between one human ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... absolute character of his nature and the finality of youth, he saw in a very decisive manner the plunge he was about to make. He was to leave one life and enter another, just as much as if he should leave Chicago and move to Calcutta—more so, indeed. He was to leave one set ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... and its substantial quality, it will effect no real difference in its subject, but, in a phrase which aims at interpreting what we can hardly understand, a difference of persons. For it is a canon of absolute truth that distinctions in incorporeal things are established by differences and not by spatial separation. It cannot be said that God became Father by the addition to His substance of some accident; for he ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... induced to tell it, was neither new nor startling. She had long been a widow. Her children had been called from her, till now she had but one, and he, being a cripple, could do little more than supply his own absolute wants by his work as ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various

... that these Belgians have no means of securing the information they need, as the Germans have almost absolute possession of their country and are, as might be expected, not furnishing any information as to the amount of destruction, or the quantity of materials which can be used again, or in any other way. It is stated that the Germans have practically looted the whole country, carting off the machinery ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... older and wiser he would not have yielded so readily to despair; experience would have taught him that a woman's "No" is not a refusal; wisdom would have told him that the absolute does not exist. But, being neither experienced nor wise, he mistook the downfall of his castle for the wreck of the universe, and it never occurred to him that he could salvage something, or, if need be, rebuild ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... induction or of refusing to induct. Without the consent of these representatives of the people the candidate could secure for himself no more than the people should from year to year consent to allow him. It was the only protection of the people from absolute spiritual despotism. The power might be used to repel a too faithful pastor, but if there was sometimes a temptation to this, the occasion was far more frequent for putting the people's reprobation upon the unfaithful and unfit. The colony, growing in wealth ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... is that of making the truth of our religious beliefs consist in their 'feeling good' to us, and in nothing else. I regret to have given some excuse for this charge, by the unguarded language in which, in the book Pragmatism, I spoke of the truth of the belief of certain philosophers in the absolute. Explaining why I do not believe in the absolute myself (p. 78), yet finding that it may secure 'moral holidays' to those who need them, and is true in so far forth (if to gain moral holidays be a good), [Footnote: ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... letter in the following words:—"I am convinced that these evils cannot be avoided without a change in the law. No matter how the managing of the public works may be extended, you will still find that unless there is an absolute power given to the owners and occupiers of land, to have the money raised from the land expended upon it, you will have such a mass of jobbing and jealousy to contend with, that very few works of private ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... was usually a difficult thing to decide upon the three best theses to be read publicly at the commencement, since all were more or less indifferently written, this year the theses were all so good, that it was necessary, to avoid doing absolute injustice, to select thirteen from which parts should be read. Does not this prove that the stimulus of the one sex upon the other would act rather favorably than otherwise upon the profession? and would not the very best tonic that could be ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... will allow. We want capital here. That we can make it here in time, there is no doubt, but we must labor long to secure a plus of labor that we can dry and store for future use. Meanwhile we want to build a suitable unitary building, which is almost an absolute necessity; farming implements and various appliances are wanted to suit the new conditions under which we live, and many things for comfort, too ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... succeed in doing, as we afterwards discovered. But it had been enough to cause an exodus. No one dreamt that in less than three weeks' time the town would be packed with refugees, and that to get either a bed or a meal would be for many of them almost impossible. Everywhere we found an absolute confidence as to the course of the war, and the general opinion was that the Germans would be driven out of Belgium in less than ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... was more absolute than any ever experienced in Europe. Two remarkable peculiarities were that when a sinner was pardoned by a priest, the certificate afterward saved the culprit from being legally punished for any offense; secondly, there could be no pardon for an offense once atoned for if the offense ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... flaws and occasional overstatements. Some persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but perfect chords and simple melodies,—no diminished fifths, no flat sevenths, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... counter-thrusts, while Chinese offensives had as a rule very little success, and at all events no decisive success. In the course of time, however, the Chinese gained a certain influence over Turkestan, but it was never absolute, always challenged. After the Mongol empire had fallen to pieces, small states came into existence in Turkestan, for a long time with varying fortunes; the most important one during the Ming epoch was that of ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... dark night, and had we been seen assembling all would have been lost. There was some scattered shelling, and Lieut. Brodribb, commanding "A" Company, was wounded in the leg. He had it dressed at the R.A.P., and, finding he could still walk, rejoined his Company before the advance began. In absolute silence we lay in shell holes waiting for Zero. A mist had started to blow up from the valley, and the Battalion was almost invisible. Here and there a few heads, the muzzle of a Lewis gun, the end of a stretcher ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... assurance, at any rate without trepidation. It was, he thought, probable that the father, at the first attack, would neither altogether accede, or altogether refuse. The disposition of the man was averse to the probability of an absolute reply at the first moment. The lover imagined that it might be possible for him to take advantage of the period of doubt which would ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... daring deed of his whole life. He entered the sacred city of Benares attended by an escort of a mere handful of men, and in Benares, in the midst of a hostile population, and practically in the power of the Rajah, he acted as if he were the absolute master of prince, people, and city. He insisted upon his full demands being complied with, and as the Rajah's reply appeared to be unsatisfactory he immediately ordered his assistant, Mr. Markham, to place the Rajah under arrest. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... this up with an indignant grunt, and a puff of smoke, so thick, and propelled with such vigour, that it rolled and curled in fantastic evolutions towards the ceiling, as if it were unable to control itself with delight at the absolute certainty of Charley being tamed ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... bulk. Equal weights of quicksilver and water at the same temperature do not contain the same quantities of heat, any more than equal bulks of those liquids contain the same quantity of matter. The absolute quantity of heat in any body is not known; but the relative heat of bodies at the same temperature, or in other words their specific heats, have been ascertained and arranged in tables,— the specific heat of water being taken ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... felt that he could not go, and it was not until long after, when he felt the absolute necessity of obtaining food and help, that he at last tore himself away, but with the one satisfaction of knowing that Sir Godfrey had dropped into ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... sat gazing out of the window, yet seeing nothing, with the letter lying open before her. Her promise to her dead husband bound her to answer favourably. What should she do with Phoebe? After some time of absolute silence, she startled Rhoda with ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... is no sense in the words. A snare! Who could spread one for you in this house but myself? Now will you, in your turn, tell me if you have absolute faith in me? I have been anxious to coax you from your studies and your solitude, and I was glad when I saw you come in to-night. Now, my dear fellow, dismiss these fancies. Take my arm and make a ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... prohibit our own vessels from participating of it. This has raised a general indignation in America. The States see, however, that their constitutions have provided no means of counteracting it. They are therefore beginning to vest Congress with the absolute power of regulating their commerce, only reserving all revenue arising from it, to the State in which it is levied. This will consolidate our federal building very much, and for this we shall be indebted ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... to underline in the most emphatic way that it is possible to have this Great State, essentially socialistic, owning and running the land and all the great public services, sustaining everybody in absolute freedom at a certain minimum of comfort and well-being, and still leaving most of the interests, amusements, and adornments of the individual life, and all sorts of collective concerns, social and political discussion, religious worship, philosophy, and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... herein are always to be reprobated as universal outlaws. Excepting in the case of capital offenders—expressions ancestrally vulgar or irreclaimably degenerate—absolute proscription is possible as to serious composition only; in other forms the writer must rely on his sense of values and the fitness of things. While it is true that some colloquialisms and, with less of license, even some slang, may be sparingly employed in light literature, for ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce

... seemed a servant's bedroom, untenanted. The other introduced him to a kitchen of generous proportions and elaborate appointments—cool, airy, and aglow with glistening white paint and electric light; everything in absolute order with the exception of the central table, where sat a man asleep, head pillowed on arms folded amid a disorder of plates, bottles and glasses—asleep ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... say I regret to be forced to address you thus is no mere lip service, contradictory of real sentiment and conviction, for I was one of the three Southern Senators who were sufficiently impressed with the absolute necessity of woman suffrage to step beyond the sacred portals of State rights and vote for the amendment to the constitution of the United States, removing from the electoral franchise the limitation of sex, and I am glad ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... deep (down-slanting like a man walking on tiptoe), the heel marks were also very deep, and between toe and heel marks there were no other marks at all. In other words, the thing's feet must have been arched like a croquet wicket. And It's heels were not rounded; they were perfectly round—absolute circles they were, about the diameter of the smallest sized cans in which Capstan tobacco is sold. If ever a wooden idol had stopped squatting and gone out for a stroll on a beach, it would have left just such a track. Only it might not have felt that ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... sign of absolute finality. Some of these, however, were rather of nomenclature than of substance, and hardly affect the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... of this matter too. I once heard tell of a great city whose citizens had, from old time, the custom of taking some foreigner and stranger, who knew nothing of their laws and traditions, and of making him their king, to enjoy absolute power, and follow his own will and pleasure without hindrance, until the completion of a year. Then suddenly, while he was living with never a care in rioting and wantonness, without fear, and alway supposing that his reign would only terminate with his life, they would rise up against him, strip ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... half the interest due to him, and at the same time gave the heir a severe caution not to continue the aforesaid riotous living. The heir, now quite brought down to earth after his momentary exaltation, saw the absolute necessity of acquiescence. With a little management he paid the interest—leaving himself with barely enough to work the farm. The uncle, on his part, did not act unkindly; it was he who 'backed' the heir up at the bank in the matter of the continuation of the loan of the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... absolute power over the ocean and its inhabitants, he nevertheless bowed submissively to the will of the great ruler of Olympus, and appeared at all times desirous of conciliating him. We {104} find him coming to his aid when emergency demanded, and frequently rendering him valuable assistance ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... looking young fellow in a dingy, comfortless room on the top floor of a South London tenement-house; and yet there was a triumphant ring in his voice, and a clear, bright flush on his thin cheeks that spoke at least for his own absolute belief in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... light they borrow; whenas truly he differs from them in kind and beyond any reach of degrees. One can no more estimate Shakespeare's genius in comparison with this, that, or the other man's of the sixteenth century, than Milton's in comparison with any one's of the seventeenth. Some few men are absolute and can ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... of fresh air somewhat revived him, and he stood still for a moment to collect his thoughts. He felt the need of absolute solitude for a while, to help him to realize—or at any rate to understand—this thing which had happened, and with almost feverish haste he called a hansom from the other side of the road. The man whipped up the horse, but hesitated ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... friend, is no hope; it's absolute necessity. Our population density is fifteen hundred to the square mile. We must expand or smother. There'll be too little food to eat, too little oxygen ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance

... over truth. Absolute truth is in God's hand. But the university has class-rooms and libraries, apparatus and laboratories, which are intended for the discovery and furtherance of truth. The university is not a place to cry out for big salaries. The salaries should be living salaries. The ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... the hill-crest was attacked as soon as ever the village was properly cleared. The Australians went at it in the night across a wide strip of waste hill-top. The thistles there, and the brown earth churned up in shell craters, and the absolute absence of any kind of movement (simply because it was too dangerous to move), call to one's mind Shakespeare's old stage direction of a "blasted heath." There had been a short artillery preparation; the attack reminded one of our old raids up on ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... to wait for darkness, and made a hearty meal of biscuit. It was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose. The fog had now buried all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island. And when, at last, I shouldered the coracle, and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow where I had supped, there were but two points visible ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... consign the regicides to their deserved punishment. And we know what exuberance of joy there was when Charles the Second was restored. If Charles the Second had bent all his mind to it, had made it his sole object, he might have been as absolute as Louis the Fourteenth.' A gentleman observed he would have done no harm if he had. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, absolute princes seldom do any harm. But they who are governed by them are governed by chance. There is no security for good government.' CAMBRIDGE. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... me, then! I was going to plead for an extra sovereign to carry me to the end of the quarter, for I've spent my last cent, and there are one or two absolute necessities which I shall have to get by hook or by crook, or stay in bed until the next allowance is due. Well; something will turn up, I suppose! It's always the darkest the hour before the dawn, and, financially speaking, it's pitch black at the present ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... toastmaster, and there was a curious note in his voice, "I ask your absolute silence. Middleton, whom you all know is one of the editorial staff of the Sphere, has just come in. He can stay only a few minutes. He came especially to tell ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... celestial ranks of the heroic—to rise to the immortal gods, to the ineffable powers, onward, upward ever, through ages and through eternities, till I find my home at last, and vanish in the glory of the Nameless and the Absolute One!.... ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... a long form, more sombre than all that is sombre, passes by him, passes very quickly,—always in this same absolute silence which is the characteristic of these nocturnal undertakings: one of the large Spanish barks!—Yet, thinks he, since all are at anchor, since this one has no sails nor oars—then, what?—It is I, myself, who am passing!—and ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... her authority, and fearing lest the holy pearls should pass into profane custody. In this century also S. Elizabeth of Hungary shines out with sweetness and purity, while Eckhart (A.D. 1260-1329) proves himself a worthy inheritor of the Alexandrian Schools. Eckhart taught that "The Godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not only by man but also by Itself; It is darkness and absolute indeterminateness, Nicht in contrast to Icht, or definite and knowable existence. Yet It is the potentiality of all things, and Its nature is, in a triadic process, to come to consciousness ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... to be absolute oracles," said he. "I will tell you what I told him—I hardly think his will ever be sound health again, but I see no reason why he should not have many years of comfort, and there is no cause for you to disquiet yourself on his account—you ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... second kind often spoils everything precisely because he wishes to do too much, and falls into those exaggerations which have lent truth to the saying, "Absolute right is absolute injustice." "He who would rule well," runs an ancient aphorism, "must rule with a slack hand." We must not hold our horse's bridle over tightly, for though we may save him from stumbling we ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... wished afterwards to kill him, Henry's clothes might not be stained with blood! With the intention of assassinating him, in fact, he dragged Henry along to a region of bushes and sandhills, and then produced a knife and attempted to execute his purpose. But with the rage and strength of absolute despair Henry wrenched himself free, pushed his would-be murderer on one side, and ran for ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... State. The Free Kirk, then, did cut themselves adrift, but they kept on maintaining that they were the Church of Scotland, and that the State ought in duty to establish and maintain them, while granting them absolute independence. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... neither mad nor pious. He was the very opposite of a worldling. He was, as he said of himself in his early thirties, "of a very singular temper, and very unlike all the men that I have ever conversed with." While claiming that he was not an absolute fool, he added: "If I was as fit for the next world as I am unfit for this—and God forbid I should speak it in vanity—I would not change conditions with any saint in Christendom." Had Horace lived ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... favours of all sorts, was of a most extraordinary character; and he certainly never lost any chance of preferment for want of asking. In this respect, Jason was always a moral enigma, to me; there being an absolute absence, in his mind, of everything like a perception of the fitness of things, so far as the claims and rights of persons were connected with rank, education, birth, and experience. Rank, in the official sense, once possessed, he understood and respected; ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... room of Mr. Daniel Payne. William Stephenson was placed under the commissary as a store-keeper, in the room of Mr. Thomas Smyth; and George Barrington, whose conduct, still uniform and upright, recommended him to the notice of the governor, was, after receiving an absolute pardon under the seal of the territory, appointed a superintendant of convicts, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum, in the room of Mr. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... much to me, an absolute stranger?" she asked, searching his face. "Might I not hand you over to the detectives who, you say, will soon be looking ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... extension on the east side and Simpson a prearranged projection on the S.E. corner, so that on all sides the main building has thrown out limbs. Simpson has almost completed his ice cavern, light-tight lining, niches, floor and all. Wright and Forde have almost completed the absolute hut, a patchwork building for which the framework only was brought—but it will be very well adapted ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... then waiting to be conveyed to Mexico. The offer was accepted; and the wretch boasted that he had made 700 dollars, or 150l. sterling, by the transaction! The laws of this great and free country had, however, consigned these helpless young women to his absolute disposal! Alas! for Freedom, had she no holier home than the Southern States of the American Union! And yet of the country in which this licentious bargain was made, even John Todd, the excellent author of "Lectures to Children," thus writes,—"This land is free. The mind ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies



Words linked to "Absolute" :   relative, unquestioning, unalienable, abstract, arbitrary, absolute majority, living, univocal, absolute magnitude, unequivocal, absolute scale, inalienable, complete, abstraction, implicit, direct, unambiguous, infinite



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com