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Efficient   /ɪfˈɪʃənt/   Listen
Efficient

adjective
1.
Being effective without wasting time or effort or expense.  "Efficient engines save gas"
2.
Able to accomplish a purpose; functioning effectively.  Synonym: effective.  "Effective personnel" , "An efficient secretary" , "The efficient cause of the revolution"



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"Efficient" Quotes from Famous Books



... hospitality. Some club, however, or tavern, or perhaps, in the summer, some river bank would be chosen as the scene of these festivities. To a few,—if, as suggested, amidst summer flowers on the water's edge to men and women mixed,—he would be a courtly and efficient host; for he had the rare gift of doing such ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... benediction. Of course, if you can shut your eyes to facts, all this is very pretty and sentimental. If the Romans could be happy enough to possess the constitution of Thibet, and have a spiritual and a temporal Grand Llama, they could not have fixed on a more efficient candidate for the former post than the present Pope; but the crowds of French soldiers which lined the streets to coerce the chosen people, formed a strange comment on the value of pontifical piety. It is too true that the better the Pope the worse the ruler. Probably the thousands of Romans ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... morals, and for patriotic objects. No man has done better service in the temperance cause by public lectures during the past ten years, both in America and Great Britain, and during the war he was most efficient in stimulating the spirit which resulted in the preservation of the Union, and the destruction ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... ceremony of this important event in the town's history, condensed from the public journals of the day. The line was examined by the Government Inspector, Colonel Wynn, and a few days later Mr. Seymour Clarke, the G.N.R. manager, stated that it could not be in a more efficient condition. The opening ceremony was fixed for Aug. 12th, 1855. At an early hour the town was crowded with visitors and shops were closed. At 7 a.m. 2,500 lbs. of beef were distributed among the poorer people. Peals of bells were rung, the Horncastle and Spilsby bands added their music of ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... was full of officers, and they all looked very smart and efficient and satisfied with themselves and life. In my compartment they were talking together eagerly all the way, talking shop with unaffected appetite, as though shop were so interesting that even on Sundays they ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... that day may come—I think she too will be chary of resorting to the cataclysm theory; she and her handmaid History will hardly smile approval upon pretenders who are anxious to discover a single efficient cause for results which a million influences have combined to bring about, or who assume that every new phenomenon must disturb the equilibrium of the world. To take up with theories first in the hope, and sometimes with the determination, that facts shall be found to support them at last, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... the police in all the colonies have made such unremitting search, should have been discovered in our midst. Yet such is the case. On this very morning, from information received, our respected and efficient Inspector of Police, Sir Ferdinand Morringer, proceeded soon after midnight to the camp of Messrs. Clifford and Hastings. He had every reason to believe that he would have had no difficulty in arresting the famous Starlight, who, under the cognomen ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... "They shelved me because I wouldn't play the tricks of a clique that got into power before I could stop 'em. You were my pet appointee, so you went, too. It wasn't because we weren't efficient. They lifted the pin on me, and that meant you. So here we are. But"—and a fist banged on the table—"they're going to pay for it! This new crowd knows as much about railroading as a baby does about chess. I tried to tell that to the men with the money. They wouldn't ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... a Red Cross nurse for some time, and I helped in one big explosion of a munitions plant in New Jersey before I came over. That's one reason they let me come—because I proved that I could do things!" and she did look very efficient, in spite of her paleness, in spite of her, seeming frailness. There was an indefinable air about her which showed that she would carry through whatever she undertook. "I ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach

... cap that weren't mine—alone in mid-winter in the heart of South Germany. There was a man behind me looking for my blood, and soon there would be a hue-and-cry for me up and down the land. I had heard that the German police were pretty efficient, and I couldn't see that I stood the slimmest chance. If they caught me they would shoot me beyond doubt. I asked myself on what charge, and answered, 'For knocking about a German officer.' They ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... of this order come but very seldom, and they have much to which to attend, and every day they have more. For I, for only the time during which I governed the archbishopric of Manila, have, in consideration of the welfare of the Indians and the devotion and efficient method of administration which those of the Society preserve among them in all parts, entrusted them with new posts. Both in the island of Negros and in that of Mindoro, besides the old Christians, they have three or four thousand heathen ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... is an odd trait of certain mild people that a suspicion of threat, a hint of bullying, will rouse some unsuspected obstinacy deep down in their souls. The insolence of the man's speech woke a quiet but efficient little devil in Dickson. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... said impatiently, "Well, do we or don't we?" Her hair should have been in a pony tail, or bouncing on her shoulders, or at least in the new Etruscan revival style, not drawn back in its efficient bun. ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... not possess. In this particular of build, each served well as a foil to the other. Graham was all light and delight, with a hint—but the slightest of hints—of Prince Charming. Forrest's seemed a more efficient and formidable organism, more dangerous to other life, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... world's goods; and that society is bound in justice rather to make compensation to the less favoured, for this unmerited inequality of advantages, than to aggravate it. On the contrary side it is contended, that society receives more from the more efficient labourer; that his services being more useful, society owes him a larger return for them; that a greater share of the joint result is actually his work, and not to allow his claim to it is a kind of robbery; that if he is only ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... arrived, certain it was that Punch found himself able to move about again; and during the days and weeks that followed he it was who took the post of nurse and attended to the wants of Pen—wants, alas! too few, for the sufferer was a victim to something worse than a mere shot-wound susceptible to efficient dressing, for the most dangerous, perhaps, of all fevers had ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... Mr. Preston G. Orwig and my colleague, Rev. William A. Brown, have rendered me in the practical working out of many of the methods contained in this volume. Two articles written for the "Boys' Work" volume of the Men and Religion Messages, and one for "Making Religion Efficient" have been modified somewhat for this present work. The aim has been to set forth as completely as possible the relationship of the Sunday school and the boy of the teen years in the light of the genius ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander

... given himself up more and more to dissipation. Had it not been for the active and energetic manner in which the affairs of the shop were conducted by Gordon, every thing would have fallen into disorder. But in a fair ratio with the neglect of his principal was he efficient as ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... lengthen into as many years ere he again saw her. The trip begun for diversion was soon merged into one for business interests, as the prominent law firm of which he was a member had matters of importance to be looked after upon the other side of the water, and were only too glad to have so efficient a person ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... objected to the printing of Bibles in the languages of the masses. That most efficient shackle to the mind, that precept that there was no knowledge, whether material or spiritual, that was not contained in the Bible, how strenuously the Church upheld ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... are only fifteen feet wide or even less,—intolerable alleys a later age would call them,—and dirty to boot. Sometimes they are muddy, more often extremely dusty. Worse still, they are contaminated by great accumulations of filth; for the city is without an efficient sewer system or regular scavengers. Even as the crowd elbows along, a house door will frequently open, an ill-favored slave boy show his head, and with the yell, "Out of the way!" slap a bucket of dirty water into the street. There are many things to offend the nose as ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... the secretarial force of the American Missionary Association, in order to cut down current expenses and decrease the debt, has resulted in a serious loss in the effectiveness of the collecting field. The office at Cleveland, together with a most efficient and acceptable district secretary, was discontinued for economy's sake. The expenses, however, had to be cut down in some way, and so the burden was placed upon one of the secretaries in the New York office. With multiform duties already upon the hands ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 05, May, 1896 • Various

... more efficient in the struggle for existence with the state of nature, or with other societies, it works in harmonious contrast with the cosmic process. But it is none the less true that, since law and morals are restraints upon the struggle for existence ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... visualized an extraordinary personality. Where was I to find such a man and the efficient confederates who were helping him in his schemes? One or more of them must have been present at each robbery, and would no doubt be amongst those who had lost property. Theory, of course, but we now come to something practical—the house at ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... would, upward or downward. Just because I was more original in my private thoughts than any of my compatriots, there was absolutely no possibility of turning these into aspirations of practical account, and thus in practice I remained an efficient aid esteemed by all and feared by none. My sudden breaking away was looked upon as a lapse, and I was in fact more pitied than scorned. I was said to have fallen prey to an ambitious, selfish woman, as indeed sometimes happened ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... often are efficient psychic remedies for functional affections, in direct proportion to the user's faith in them. A certain sense of mystery seems essential. Given that, and plenty of confidence, and it matters not whether the inscriptions are biblical verses, unintelligible jargon, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... Spirit is withdrawn, and who are in a state of hopeless departure from God. God is no respecter of persons nor of churches; and if the Protestant churches apostatize from him, will they not be just as efficient agents in the hand of the enemy as ever pagans or papists have been? Will they not then be ready for any desperate measure of bigotry and oppression in which he may wish to enlist them? After the Jewish church had finally rejected Christ, how soon they were ready ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... think that in some of our past expressions, we must have been very efficient, if the experience of Mr. Symons be typical, so indefinite are we becoming here. Just here we are interested in many things that have been found, especially in the United States, which speak of a civilization, or ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... success. The older colleges will do well to inquire into causes, and to ask themselves if their young rival is not possessed of a new power—if sturdiness of character and independence of thought are not more efficient than mere routine. After all, is it surprising that the institution which is most liberal should attract to itself the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... the island and then used the same tactics in crossing the other deeper channel. Here they upset the ferry three times and two persons came near being drowned. The Mohaves, who are good swimmers, rendered prompt and efficient assistance in saving the floating wreckage. They were also supplied with their kind of raft, made of bundles of rushes tied together with willow twigs (see cut on page 30), which they handled dexterously. Such rafts were and are in use all the way from here to the gulf. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... smaller dimensions, and I shall now give my reasons for using one so large. If a hive is too small, then in the Spring, the combs are soon filled with honey, bee-bread and brood, and the surprising fertility of the queen bee, can be turned to no efficient account. If the honey-harvest in any year, is deficient, such a colony is very apt to perish in the succeeding Winter; whereas in a large hive, the honey stored up in a fruitful season, is a reserve supply, in time of need. In very large hives, I have seen large accumulations of ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... means of a ladder; the unglazed window openings few in number and too narrow to permit the passage of a human being through them; the roof flat, and protected by a breast-high parapet; the structure, as a whole, constituting a very efficient miniature stronghold. The crops appeared to be of the most varied character, starting with sugar cane on the outside margin of what may be called the agricultural belt, and then gradually changing to various ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... They are far more curious and widely interested outside of their own calling than either of the other professions. I like to talk with 'em. They are interesting men, full of good feelings, hard workers, always foremost in good deeds, and on the whole the most efficient civilizing class, working downwards from knowledge to ignorance, that is,—not so much upwards, perhaps,—that we have. The trouble is, that so many of 'em work in harness, and it is pretty sure to chafe somewhere. They feed us on canned meats mostly. They cripple our instincts and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... be the same. No one wants an ideal type of the female athlete, unless we wish to restore the race of Amazons, but we do sorely need to have before our eyes types which embody the physical ideal of efficient womanhood. At present while nude womanhood in art conforms in a great measure to the Greek tradition, clothed womanhood follows the types of the street, modified by the baseless caprices of fashion. The two stand in unreconciled ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... so-called oxygen helmets. Most of these are of European make and find favor in Great Britain, Belgium, France, or Germany, largely according as they are of domestic design and manufacture. As yet nothing has been produced in the United States which fulfills all the requirements of a thoroughly efficient and safe breathing apparatus for ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... used, will protract your days till you shall have seen your country ruined. I shall not pretend to disturb your understandings, which are none of the strongest, with a hotchpotch of unintelligible terms, such as Aristotle's four principles of generation, unformed matter, privation, efficient, and final causes. Aristotle was a pedantic blockhead, and still more knave than fool. The same censure we may safely put on that wiseacre, Dioscorides, with his faculties of simples— his seminal, specific, and principal virtues; and that ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... continued to be organized on national lines, after the churches had been rent in twain by sectional forces. Of the two party organizations in Illinois, the Democratic party was numerically the larger, and in point of discipline, the more efficient. It was older; it had been the first to adopt the system of State and district nominating conventions; it had the advantage of prestige and of the possession of office. The Democratic party could "point with pride" ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... does the potato, forming on the leaves dark, discolored spots, which spread rapidly under favorable conditions, killing the foliage in a few days. The fruit is also attacked and becomes covered with the mildew-like spore-bearing threads of the fungus. Bordeaux mixture properly applied is an efficient preventive. ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... batteries for igniting them were connected with a button inside the car, within easy reach of the pilot. Lieutenant Verdane, our French second-in-command, was to supervise our practice on the field. We were glad of this. If we failed to "spear our sausage," it would not be through lack of efficient instruction. He explained to Drew how the thing was to be done. He was to come on the balloon into the wind, and preferably not more than four hundred metres above it. He was to let it pass from view under the wing; ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... men has done much to dispel the old belief that colored soldiers will fight only when they have efficient white officers. This may well have been true at one period of the civil war when the colored race as a whole had never even had the responsibilities attaching to free men. It is growing less and less true as time passes and better ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... that followed the shooting of the moose and the disappearance of Bill the sled-team driven by Jean and Jake was perhaps the finest and the most efficient in all that white world of hard-bitten, hard-trained, hard-working men and dogs. And, by that token, there was no happier team living, and none in better condition. There are not many teams, of course, whose members eat moose-flesh every day. But quite ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... a prerequisite of good memory, and in fact there can be no memory at all unless some degree of attention is given. The degree of memory depends upon the degree of attention and interest. And when it is considered that the work of today is made efficient by the memory of things learned yesterday, the day before yesterday, and so on, it is seen that the degree of attention given today regulates the quality ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... a lay-figure in his hands, but Chatar Sahib must needs take it upon himself to direct and correct operations in an unpleasant parade voice, causing many unnecessary starts and much perturbation of mind to a highly efficient servant who had most definite ideas on the subject of what his Sahib should wear to a burra khana. Gerrard's horse and groom came round, and Charteris's self-imposed task was not over until he had seen him safely mounted. Before starting, Gerrard ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... masses. The autonomy granted to the provinces needs more control than the civil government originally intended, and ends in an appeal on almost every conceivable question being made to one man—the Gov.-General: this excessive concentration makes efficient administration too dependent on the abilities of one person. There are many who still think, and not without reason, that ten years of military rule would have been better for the people themselves. Even now ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... to walk up and down after a while, marvelling, trying to reconstruct his ideas once more, and to take in the astonishing system and organization whose signs were so evident about him. Certainly it was thorough and efficient. There must be countless institutions—hospitals, retreat-houses, cloisters, besides all the offices and business centres necessary for carrying on this tremendous work; and yet practically no indication ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... statement is not borne out in the ordinary religious life of individuals. Many, very many of the best, most efficient, and most steadily growing Christians in the church exhibit habitually a keen relish for amusements, and for some which are most sternly condemned, and participate ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... i., 1863-4, chaps. iv. and viii.) has discussed at considerable length what he designates as physiological units. These agree with my gemmules in being supposed to multiply and to be transmitted from parent to child; the sexual elements are supposed to serve merely as their vehicles; they are the efficient agents in all the forms of reproduction and in the repairs of injuries; they account for inheritance, but they are not brought to bear on reversion or atavism, and this is unintelligible to me; they are supposed to possess polarity, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... tradition has passed—a sailor of another kind, but just as efficient and just as heroic in another way—the way of his day—is rapidly creating another tradition. The lad who in the lusty days of his youth can thus hold himself in check is a pretty good product of American development. He pretty generally ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... In the periods of science immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena, enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good—they do not always end ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... till vengeance appeased it—and not an ordinary vengeance either, but his enemy's absolute death—nothing less; a man whose face would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a foe and had him at a disadvantage. A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the inn was much larger than at Fettercairn, but not nearly so nice and cheerful; there was a drawing-room and a dining-room; and we had a very good-sized bedroom. Albert had a dressing-room of equal size. Mary Andrews (who was very useful and efficient) and Lady Churchill's maid had a room together, every one being in the house; but unfortunately there was hardly anything to eat, and there was only tea, and two miserable starved Highland chickens, without any potatoes! No pudding, ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... is a matter of primary importance, doubtless, to the British people. It is a matter, too, of hardly less than primary importance to the people of my own country. Unfortunately it does not rest with us to devise or to apply an efficient check ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... constant supply of pure water—a complete system of efficient and innoxious sewers—a service of street hydrants—when the Thames shall cease to be the cloaca maxima, are questions to which, however seriously asked, it is not easy to get an answer. Add to these grievances, the delay of proper regulations for abolishing intramural interments, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... British government offered him a subsidiary force of six battalions, and to guarantee him against any further aggression by the Mahrattis, he accepted the proposal; but in a half-hearted way, that showed he could not be relied upon for any efficient assistance in disarming his ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... each passenger boat engaged in the Transatlantic service should be instructed to slow down to a few knots when in the iceberg region, and should be fitted with an efficient searchlight. ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... and almost speechless as they drove out into the country behind the dappled chestnuts with the cream-colored tails and manes. The seat was upholstered, high-backed, and comfortable; and Billy raved about the wonders of the efficient brake. He trotted the team along the hard county road to show the standard-going in them, and put them up a steep earthroad, almost hub-deep with mud, to prove that the light Belgian sire was ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... capacities, it is thought on that ground to have a special nobility and greatness, and a special power of evoking in the student the feelings themselves. The mathematician, dealing with conic sections, spirals, and differential equations, is in danger of being ultimately resolved into a function or a co-efficient; the metaphysician, by investigating conscience, must become conscientious; driving fat oxen is the way to ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... approaching, to run to the opening and call him. Now, snakes were among the few things that Maka was not afraid of, and so long as he thought these were the enemies to be watched, he would make a most efficient sentinel. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... landlord welcomed us on the perron, obsequiously cringing; we entered in a respectful hush that might have flattered his Grace of Wellington himself; and the waiters, I believe, would have gone on all-fours, but for the difficulty of reconciling that posture with efficient service. I knew myself at last for a Personage: a great English land-owner: and did my best to command the mien proper to that tremendous class when, the meal despatched, we passed out between the bowing ranks to the door where our chaise ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... compensations." As parliament was to meet as soon as convenient after Christmas, and the statement of the regenerated ministry was then to be made immediately, every one held his hand, as they all felt the blow must be more efficient when the scheme of ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... given up thinking in German. Bersenyev is in Heidelberg; he has been sent abroad at the expense of government; he has visited Berlin and Paris and is not wasting his time; he has become a thoroughly efficient professor. The attention of the learned public has been caught by his two articles: 'On some peculiarities of ancient law as regards judicial sentences,' and 'On the significance of cities in civilisation.' It is only a pity that both articles are written in rather ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... privilege of worshipping God according to their own ideas of what was good and profitable to their souls. The talents and the elevated piety of William Brewster rendered him both a very valuable teacher, and also, in the eyes of the Puritans, an efficient substitute for their ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... them into a pacific departure? The Indians were twelve in number, exclusive of their chief, all fierce and determined. They, with the soldiers, nine; for neither Mr. Heywood nor Le Noir seemed disposed to count upon any efficient aid from Ephraim Giles, who, during this dumb scene, continued whittling before the Indians, apparently as cool and indifferent to their presence, as if he had conceived them to be the most peaceably disposed persons in the ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... justice—that while the purity of the faith would be protected, there would be no unnecessary oppression or cruelty or persecution dictated by private interests and personal revenge. Their unlimited popularity was also a warrant that they would receive far more efficient assistance in their arduous labors than could be expected by the bishops, whose position was generally that of antagonism to their flocks, and to the petty seigneurs and powerful barons whose ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... either of marriage or ambition. Ten times he might have been made Prime Minister, yet he never aspired to it. "That is a man," said Quesnay to me, one day, "who is very little known; nobody talks of his talents or acquirements, nor of his zealous and efficient patronage of the arts: no man, since Colbert, has done so much in his situation: he is, moreover, an extremely honourable man, but people will not see in him anything but the brother of the favourite; and, because he is fat, he is thought dull ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... critics the Alexandrine War is also by his hand. From these two treatises, which are written in careful imitation of Caesar's manner, we form a high conception of the literary standard among men of education. For Hirtius, though a good soldier and an efficient consul, was a literary man only by accident. It was Caesar who ordered him to write, first a reply to Cicero's panegyric on Cato, and then the Gallic Commentary. Nevertheless, his two books show no inferiority in taste or diction to those of his illustrious ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... The Congress of 1860, or of 1862. was a fair average of the wisdom, the talent, and the virtue of the country, and not inferior to that of 1776, or that of 1789; and the Executive during the rebellion was at least as able and as efficient as it was during the war of 1812, far superior to that of Great Britain, and not inferior to that of France during the Crimean war. The Crimean war developed and placed in high command, either with the English or the French, no generals equal ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... emerging market with an abundant supply of natural resources; well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors; a stock exchange that is 17th largest in the world; and modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. Growth has been robust since 2004, as South Africa has reaped the benefits of macroeconomic stability and a global commodities boom. However, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... there was no knowing, for almost immediately the Freiherrinn and Father Norbert entered, and Ursel returned with them. Nay, the message given, who could tell if Heinz would be able to act upon it? In the ordinary condition of the castle, he was indeed its most efficient inmate; Matz did not approach him in strength, Hans was a cripple, Hatto would be on the right side; but Jobst the Kohler, and the other serfs who had been called in for the defence, were more likely to hold with the elder than the younger lady. And Frau Kunigunde herself, knowing well that ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the efficient and active manner in which Acting-master Porter, executive officer, performed his duty. The conduct of the Assistant-surgeon, Edward S. Matthews, both during the action and afterwards, in attending to the wounded, demands my unqualified commendation. I would also ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... to be expected. The other was that, possessing power, of which it was now impossible to strip themselves, they should assume the responsibility for its exercise, and create for their subjects a just and efficient system of government. But the company would not see this. They had never desired political power, but had drifted into the possession of it in spite of themselves. They honestly disliked the idea of establishing by force ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... again when he came out. She took him into her father's office, and introduced him to her father's secretary. Compared to Sally she was an extraordinarily plain woman. She wore a sorrowful expression. But she looked very efficient. ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... an imperfection. If the French sometimes supply their want of kindness, or render disappointment less acute at the moment, by a sterile complacency, the English harshness is often only the alloy to an efficient benevolence, and a sympathizing mind. In France they have no humourists who seem impelled by their nature to do good, in spite of their temperament—nor have we in England many people who are cold and unfeeling, yet systematically aimable: but I must still persist in not thinking it a defect ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... replaced newspaper, book, schoolmaster, and letter, to live outside the range of the electric cables was to live an isolated savage. In the country were neither means of being clothed nor fed (according to the refined conceptions of the time), no efficient doctors for an emergency, no company ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... the huge buildings loomed up over me; the bus entered a street of the city abruptly from the country. One moment on a country road, the next moment among towering buildings. We sped along swiftly through a busy metropolis, bright, airy, efficient looking. The traffic was dense but quiet, and I was confident that most of the vehicles were electric; for there was no noise nor gasoline odor. Nor was there any smoke. Things looked airy, comfortable, efficient; but ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... kindly and efficient, but professionally non-committal. The boy was badly injured, and he must be moved at once to the nearest house. Somehow they lifted Joseph and held him so as to break the jar of stone and rut as the doctor drove his ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... Nelly, who was efficient in the management of a canoe, took the paddle, and dipping it in the water the boat moved slowly toward the shore. Harold sat with his rifle across his knees, looking intently over the bows of the boat toward the bush from which the shot ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... presses used in the press houses in the Calcutta district are made in Liverpool, and are provided with the most efficient type of pumps and mechanical parts. Fig. 5 illustrates one of these huge presses with a number of natives in close proximity. Two or three distinct operations are conducted simultaneously by different groups of operatives, and ingenious mechanism is essential for the successful ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour

... haul-rope and drew his leaping sled up to the wheel-dog. He caught the animal by the hind legs and threw it. With a snarl of rage it tried to slash him with its fangs, but was dragged on by the rest of the team. Its body proved an efficient brake, and the two other teams, still abreast, dashed ahead into the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... business of her butler, as if it were a matter of horses. She never attached herself to her servants; the death of the best of them would not have affected her, for money could replace the one lost by another equally efficient. As to her duty towards her neighbor, I never saw a tear in her eye for the misfortunes of another; in fact her selfishness was so naively candid that it absolutely created a laugh. The crimson draperies of the great lady covered an iron nature. The delightful ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... verses threw enraptured tutors into paroxysms of praise, while debating societies hailed with acclamation clearly another heaven-born minister. He went up to Oxford about the time that the examinations were reformed and rendered really efficient. This only increased his renown, for the name of Ferrars figured among the earliest double-firsts. Those were days when a crack university reputation often opened the doors of the House of Commons to a young aspirant; at least, after a season. But Ferrars ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... to assert that it would be an excellent plan to decide first upon a good system of ventilation and then to build the schoolhouse around it. Without involving great expense there are simple systems of ventilation and heating combined which are very efficient for such houses. In former times, and in some places even yet, the usual method of heating was by an unjacketed stove which made the pupils who sat nearest it uncomfortably warm, while those in the farther corners were shivering with cold. With new systems ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... to be done on the balloon, it was soon in shape for an efficient test, and that afternoon Tom, Ned and Mr. Damon went up in it to the no small wonder, fear and delight of the Mexicans. Some, who had never seen an air craft before, fell on their knees and prayed. Others shouted, and when Tom started the motor, and showed how he could control his ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton

... of doing what would have been desirable for the Church, and the worry and harass that his sister-in-law did not spare, all told as his office work had never done, and in spite of quiet, happy hours with his Mary, and her devoted and efficient aid whenever it was possible, a course of disabling neuralgic headaches had set in, and a general derangement of health, which had become alarming, and called for ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... salaried officials of the Socialist State or municipality, they might nevertheless mix water with the milk to obtain milk for their own consumption and that of their families, and to diminish the labour of milking. Adulteration may be abolished by efficient supervision and well-devised ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... Crew of a Trireme.—So much for the "Invincible" herself, but obviously she is a helpless thing without an efficient crew. The life of an oarsman is far from luxurious, but the pay seems to be enough to induce a goodly number of THETES (the poorest class of the Athenian citizens) to accept service, and the rest can be supplied by hired metics or any kind of foreign nondescript ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... if Mr. Ferguson would pay him the same salary he had himself received, he would make up any part that he might not earn. But I am glad to say that Maurice turned over a new leaf, and stimulated by the double pay now received, became so much more efficient that Gilbert was not called upon to make good any deficiency. As for Gilbert himself, at the suggestion of Mordaunt, his roommate, he decided to study law, entering the office of the latter, now in successful practice. ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... its close he resigned and returned to his country home, where he continued to live until 1861, when he entered the Confederate army, and, rising by rapid promotion to the rank of major-general of cavalry, closed his efficient and faithful military career in 1865, when he again returned to country life, and died at the seat of his ancestors, at Ravensworth, ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... of such cavalry, I would capture the Southern Cross. Magnificent! magnificent! I remember, when I was in it—" For, while he was yet deriding, from points a little distant apart, single, winged horsemen dropped from the far sky, whither, I suppose, they had soared to keep more efficient watch; and though we heard no whisper of sound, by some means (inaudible bugle-call, positively maintains the Count) the camp was instantly roused and soon astir like seething broth. Tents were struck and withdrawn to the rear. Arms and harness, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... they had had opportunities of observing the sinister influences at work in American affairs, beneath the attractive exterior. Quebec rallied to a man, and the latent military strength of the province was developed under efficient leaders to a formidable degree. Invaders would have met with a warm reception in this quarter. Manitoba and the whole North-west were up and ready, prepared to fight, more to preserve their own independence, ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius

... while Mr. Wellington and his daughter were devoted to motoring, Mrs. Wellington would have none of it, and that the boys were inclined to horses also. Ronald Wellington left things pretty much to his wife and she was a "Hellian," as Ryan put it, to those about her who were not efficient and faithful. But otherwise, she was a pretty decent sort and ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... men, however, in the South, wise, conscientious and "to the manner born," who take entirely different views of this great problem. The Hon. J.L.M. Curry, once a General in the Confederate Army, subsequently the efficient Secretary of the Peabody Fund, more recently our Minister in Spain, and now again at his post as Secretary of the Peabody Fund, utters himself in ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various

... cost to herself, a very inferior company in California. Before starting, she made large advances to every one of them; paid their passages from America (where they were nearly all heavily in debt) to Australia; and trusted that, in return for her immense outlay, she would at least receive efficient assistance from them. But this band of obscure performers not only loaded her with insults while they continued to live on her, but on their arrival in Sydney they one and all refused ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... gathered up all the tarpaulin he could find, and had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop running on sandbags. Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable surprise, had taken hold of his ARP assignment, and was doing an efficient job in organizing for fire-fighting, damage-control and first aid. Colonel Jarman had his airjeeps and combat-cars working in ever-widening circles over the countryside, shooting up everything in sight that even looked like ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... was abhorrent. I rebelled. I tried to show the guards a score or so of more efficient ways. I was reported. I was given the dungeon and the starvation of light and food. I emerged and tried to work in the chaos of inefficiency of the loom-rooms. I rebelled. I was given the dungeon, plus the strait-jacket. I was spread- ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... task when we remember how gallantly our Allies have fought. It will be, in our own language, "some job," and for this reason we must use every means within our power to accomplish it. So we must not forget happiness as an asset to efficient soldiering. We will all smile where the coward would whimper, and laugh where the weakling would whine, and buckle down to what Robert Louis Stevenson called "The ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... markets of the mechanic and farmer extended, and the wealth of the nation promoted. It is thus, also, that the free labor of the country finds remunerating markets for its products—though at the expense of serving as an efficient auxiliary in ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... you haven't, you wouldn't be very efficient perhaps, and so you might resign yourself to sitting on that log and holding the berries in your lap, while ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Country. Sending his vessel, the Explorer, back to Fort Yuma under the command of Robinson, its efficient captain, the gallant lieutenant now struck out across country, having received new supplies and his pack-train. Under the guidance of an intelligent Mohave Indian, Ireteba, they reached Diamond Creek, and there not ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... through the agency of the state. Divided as they were, dependent on the support of the civil government and hampered, at least to some slight extent, by their more liberal tendencies, the Protestants never had instrumentalities half as efficient or one-tenth as terrible as the Inquisition ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans' lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency. In a conflict that demands effective and efficient communication with Iraqis, we are often at a disadvantage. There are still far too few Arab language—proficient military and civilian officers in Iraq, to the ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... years the affairs of the monastery were administered by Godfrey, one of the monks. He was an able and efficient administrator. In his time the king sent a number of knights and gentlemen to live at Ely, and he supported them out of the revenues of the house. The names and armorial bearings of these pensioners ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... longer in existence as manhood-training schools. This is the more clear when it is remembered that, according to the army standard, both the German peasant and the urban dweller are steadily deteriorating. In ten years the percentage of physically efficient men in the rural districts decreased from 60.5 to 58.2 per cent., and this decrease is even more marked in particular provinces. Infant mortality, despite better hygienic conditions and more education, has not decreased, and in some districts has increased; while the birth-rate, especially ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... not more important than any other acre of the plateau. We followed in the steps of a polar expedition which brought back more results than any of its forerunners: Scott's Discovery voyage. We had the largest and most efficient scientific staff that ever left England. We were discursive. We were full of intellectual interests and curiosities of all kinds. We took on the work ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... tent, after yet another unsuccessful attempt, it suddenly occurred to Lumsden that Dilawur must have an astonishingly intimate knowledge of every path, nullah, and pass in the district to thus evade capture, as well as a remarkably efficient intelligence department, to give him timely warning. "Just the man for the Guides," exclaimed Lumsden. "I'll send for him." A polite note was accordingly written inviting Dilawur Khan to come into the Guides' camp, at any ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... foretold. But I believed and proclaimed that I should, erelong, fly to St. Louis and claim and receive the one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward offered by the Commission of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition for the most efficient airship to be exhibited. The moment the thought winged its way through my mind, I had not only a flying-machine, but a fortune in the bank. Being where I could not dissipate my riches, I became a lavish verbal spender. I was in a mood to buy anything, and I whiled ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... himself the accuser? It will readily occur, from the fate of Ho-tchung-tang, that there is not that line of independence drawn between the executive and juridical authority, which the ingenious author of the Spirit of Laws has clearly proved to be the grand foundation of a just, legal, and efficient security of the life and property of the subject. In fact, in all state crimes, the Emperor becomes both the accuser and the judge. In the case of Ho-tchung-tang he may likewise be said to have ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... useful than formerly; but her master remained inflexible. Her very faithfulness probably operated against her now, and he found it less easy than he thought to give up the profits of his faithful Bell, who had so long done him efficient service. ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... out, but who has spent great pains in disciplining his mind into that state in which it shall always be able to produce good material. Which of these has made best progress towards the end of being a good and efficient preacher? Give me, I should say, on the whole, the solid material stock, rather than the trained inind. I look with a curious feeling upon certain very popular preachers, who preach entirely extempore: who make a few notes of their skeleton of thought; but trust for ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... outside the passengers' quarters to the upper dirigible projectors," and he led the way down a series of steep steel stairways, through bulkheads and partitions of steel. "One thing I forgot to tell you about—the detectors. They're worked on the same principle as the lights, and are just about as efficient. Instead, of light, though, they send out cones of electro-magnetic waves, which set up induced currents in any conductor encountered beyond our own shell. Since all dangerous meteorites have been shown to contain conducting material, that is enough to locate them, for radio finders ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... three women, aided by children, would suffice to make ready the daily repasts; instead of buying wood and charcoal in fractions,(33) and so paying for it double its value, the association of my workmen would, upon my security (their wages would be an efficient security for me in return), lay in their own stock of wood, flour, butter, oil, wine, etc., all which they would procure directly from the producers. Thus, they would pay three or four sous for a bottle of pure wholesome wine, instead of paying twelve or fifteen ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Lieutenant Hardman succeeded Captain Bromley, on December 15, 1814, as Lieutenant and Adjutant in the corps in which he had commenced his military career; a sufficient proof of his having been a zealous, active, and efficient non-commissioned officer, when serving as such in the regiment. He embarked at Ramsgate with the service squadrons of his regiment in April, 1815, and landed at Ostend, whence the 10th regiment proceeded to Brussels: it was present at Quatre Bras, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various

... far as the immediate needs of the Belt cities were concerned, was a big, whopping thirty-six per cent oxygen. In the Belt cities, they had soon learned that, physically speaking, the stuff of life was not bread. And no matter how carefully oxygen is conserved, no process is one hundred per cent efficient. There will be leakage into space, and that which ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett

... Potchefstroom, and called public meetings at all the centres of population. At these meetings there was an expression by a large majority in favour of immediate adoption of a Constitution which should provide for an efficient Government and an ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... on the estate of eight hundred French acres, with all its industries, in a perfect system. In a fine old mansion built in the days of Louis IX, Lafayette lived with his two daughters and their families under an efficient household system. Sometimes twelve cousins, brothers and sisters, would be there together. The combined family formed a perfect little academy of its own; and just to live at La Grange was an education in itself. The walls were covered with pictures and memorabilia, to know which would mean to ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... good, and his shrewd friend Cheek is capitally drawn. It was a peculiarly happy thought to make Cheek into a railroad-conductor, and finally into a "gentlemanly and efficient" superintendent. Nothing else would have suited his character half so well. The business-like religionists, Moustache and Breastpin, are not so good as the author meant to have them. The young bookseller is very well done, and Dr. Gilbert very natural and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... our tea," she said, turning back from the window and pulling down the blind. "It was a good meeting—didn't you think so, Sally?" she let fall, casually, as she sat down at the table. Surely Mrs. Seal must realize that Mary had been extraordinarily efficient? ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... fitted with an efficient reflux condenser, are mixed 750 g. of 95 per cent alcohol, 750 g. of concentrated sulfuric acid and 450 g. of benzyl cyanide. The mixture, which soon separates into two layers, is heated to boiling over a low flame, for six to seven hours, ...
— Organic Syntheses • James Bryant Conant

... commander. Officers who had served with him in the old French war and in the Revolution, members of Congress, politicians, and magistrates from distant States, were among the guests at Mount Vernon; so that Washington's time would thus have been completely taken up but for the efficient aid which he received in discharging the duties of hospitality from the ease, urbanity, and excellent management ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... fact observable in the times of Dante is that it was an age of inquiry and of efficient craftsmanship. Many of our generation think that Dante's day being so far removed from the age of printing and the spirit of positivism, and being given to the upholding of authority almost as an unexhaustible source of knowledge, was wholly ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... with efficient power, which neither does nor can exist save where the finite will is one with the absolute Will. That Luther was practically on the right side in this famous controversy, and that he was driving at the truth, I see ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge



Words linked to "Efficient" :   effectual, economical, businesslike, efficacious, inefficient, economic, competent, cost-effective, efficiency, expeditious, high-octane, streamlined



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