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

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




Problem   /prˈɑbləm/   Listen
Problem

noun
1.
A state of difficulty that needs to be resolved.  Synonym: job.  "It is always a job to contact him" , "Urban problems such as traffic congestion and smog"
2.
A question raised for consideration or solution.
3.
A source of difficulty.  Synonym: trouble.  "What's the problem?"



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 |





"Problem" Quotes from Famous Books



... be. And what is marvelous to think of, the larger part of these persons are actually licensed by the State to get gain by hurting, depraving and destroying the people. Think of it, Mr. Dinneford! The whole question lies in a nutshell. There is no difficulty about the problem. Restrain men from doing harm to each other, and the work ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... daughter, a pretty young Frenchwoman, the only servant who remained behind when the household fled at the approach of the Germans, is both cook and housekeeper, and when I arrived I found the seven military attaches resolved into a board of strategy trying to work out the important problem of securing a pure milk supply ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... keeping tabs on the trail, though he realized that if there arose any knotty problem that Tony could not solve, his own ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... him. He was timid, uncertain, pious and given to tears—"bo'hn on a wet Friday"—as Archie B. had often said. He was always the effect of Archie B.'s cause, the illustration of his theorem, the solution of his problem of mischief, the penalty of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and then he repeated his question, "Shall I throw it up, and give him the lease back if he likes?" On a sudden he heard ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... problem which presented itself was how best to use the resources which were left to us. Our numbers were much reduced. Nine men had gone home before any hint of tragedy reached them. Two men had been landed from the ship. We were thirteen men for this last year. Of these thirteen it was almost certain ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... with the puritan use of scripture texts in divinity and morals, yet there is no want of hard-headed shrewdness in his remarks; indeed, in his rules for the adaptation of English words and accents to classical metres, he shows clearness and good sense in apprehending the conditions of the problem, while Sidney and Spenser still appear confused and uncertain. But in spite of his pedantry, and though he had not, as we shall see, the eye to discern at first the genius of the Faery Queen, he has to us the interest of having been Spenser's first, and as far as we can ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... only problem in his way. But that could be met later. For the moment, the man from ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey

... Father had taught himself with great thoroughness, because he was determined some day to go to America. America—that was his dream! But how to get there! It seemed certain that he could never save money enough to pay for so many. That problem ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... unmixed pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should, in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... remained in his room with his arithmetic or algebra. Mr. Root recently said that if his close application to problems in his boyhood did nothing else for him, it made him careful about jumping at conclusions. To every problem there was only one answer, and patience was the price to be paid for it. Carrying the principle of "doing everything to a finish" into the law, he became one of the most noted members of the New York bar, intrusted with vast interests, and then a ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... origin in the most direct pressure of the problem of government upon the minds of men continues the course of thought on which Machiavelli's "Prince" had formed one famous ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... dealing with the child. She found herself the object of the most passionate admiration which went far towards simplifying the problem of managing her. Tessa adored her and followed her like her shadow whenever she was not similarly engrossed with her beloved Tommy. Of Monck she stood in considerable awe. He did not take much notice of her. It seemed to Stella that he had retired ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... the individual out of the mass of the nation, this articulation of his immediate relation to God apart from Law, Temple and Race, achieved as it was by Jeremiah only through intense mental and physical agonies, opened to him the problem of the sufferings of the righteous. In his experience the individual realised his Self only to find that Self—its rights, the truths given it and its best service for God—baffled by the stupidity and injustice of those for whom it laboured and agonised. The mists of pain and ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... And the creaking of a shoe:— A problem left unsifted For the teacher's hand to do: The murmured hum of learning— And the flutter of a book; The smell of something burning, And the school's ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... OUT OF REACH Nan Davenant's problem is one that many a girl has faced—her own happiness or her ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... disturbed of the two. I was getting used to being a self-smuggler; while he, as the Japanese say, was "taihen komarimasu" (exceedingly "know not what to do"), a phrase which is a national complaint. In this instance he had cause. What to do with so hardened a sinner was a problem passing his powers. Here was a law-breaker who by rights should at once be bundled back to Tokyo under police surveillance. But he could not go himself, he had no one to send, and furthermore the delinquent seemed only too willing to escort himself there, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... crucial point is to safeguard our much-threatened position on the continent of Europe, we must first of all face the serious problem of the land war—by what means we can hope to overcome the great numerical superiority of our enemies. Such superiority will certainly exist if Italy ceases to be an active member of the Triple Alliance, whether nominally ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... domestic product has fallen substantially over the past 18 years because of the loss of labor and capital and the disruption of trade and transport. Much of the population continues to suffer from insufficient food, clothing, housing, and medical care. Inflation remains a serious problem throughout the country, with one estimate putting the rate at 240% in Kabul in 1996. Numerical data are likely to be ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... was fool enough to hand them in to his secretary without asking a receipt. After the contest, I called for my plans. Clerk told me he couldn't find them; couldn't find any record that they'd been received. I tell you my plans solved that central span problem. Who was it could use my plans?—who were they worth a mint ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... you taking so much interest in your work," said he one morning, pausing, in his round of inspection, to lay his hand kindly upon Bert's shoulder as the latter bent over his slate, working out a problem in proportion. "A good beginning ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... told you what I should do. Well, leave me here a week—and there's another problem for you. Do you find ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... problem, how to feed his army so as to put it in motion with the least possible delay, was all-important with General Burgoyne. The oldest, and most populous, of the Vermont settlements lay within striking distance ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... dropsy, in placid contentment with her lot. Assuredly she was born at a time well suited to her genius. Had she lived to-day, she might have been a 'Pioneer'; she might even have discussed some paltry problem of sex in a ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... lighted at even a passing interest, as he continued: "What I can't understand is this: It took all my money to pay for the supper, and yet I wake up with a first-class ticket to Panama and in possession of one of the best suites on the ship. It's a problem play." ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... with the rapidity of the air/missile threat and the need to integrate dynamically the offensive and defensive missile, air, sea, and undersea capabilities of a battle group and its joint components (e.g., AWACs). This concept was one way of solving the time problem while keeping the overall commander in the picture. The commander could then intervene and modify actions as necessary to conform to the broader strategy. This type of control was helped by the evolution of electronic links and ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... could not have deduced from that which she had found out for herself. She felt as far as ever from any satisfactory clew to his mysterious reasons for ever wishing to marry her. There lay the kernel of the whole matter, there the problem that she meant to solve. If her first husband was at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... situation at the Sub-Prefecture, Pascal had frequently come to his assistance. For his part he had remained a bachelor. He had not the least suspicion of the grave events that were preparing. For two or three years he had been studying the great problem of heredity, comparing the human and animal races together, and becoming absorbed in the strange results which he obtained. Certain observations which he had made with respect to himself and his relatives had been, so to say, the starting-point of his studies. The ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... delicate problem to solve. Sometimes a young man can give better advice than an older person," went ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.

... had no difficulty in forming a Ministry; but when formed it was in an unusually difficult position. They were in power only because the Protectionists had chosen to send Peel about his business, and the Irish problem was growing more and more acute. The potato crop of 1846 was even worse than that of 1845, and Peel's system of public works had proved an expensive failure, more pauperising than almsgiving. The Irish population ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... so much to be done in the house that morning after the breakfast things were cleared away. Dinners and suppers would not be much of a problem for some days to come, for the house was well ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... question in silence until they reached the next corner; then Nimble Dick, tossing back his head as one who had thrown off an abstruse problem, and would have ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... philosopher's stone, he busied himself with the nature of drugs, vegetable and mineral, and with their action as remedies for disease. He was no anatomist, no physiologist, but rather what nowadays we should call a pharmacologist. He did not care for the problem of the body, all he sought to understand was how the constituents of the soil and of plants might be treated so as to be available for healing the sick and how they produced their effects. We apparently ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... know as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the mechanism of Lippius's clock-work; so, why these should have jostled themselves into the two first articles of my list—I leave to the curious as a problem of Nature. I own it looks like one of her ladyship's obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in finding out her humour as much ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... Sally Patterson, who, according to her own self-estimation, was the least adapted of any woman in the village, should have been the one chosen by a theoretically selective providence to deal with a psychological problem. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... which had actually made me travel abroad. The idea that soup could be made from a sausage skewer was to them such an out-of-the-way, unlikely thought, that it was repeated from one to another through the whole forest. They declared that the problem would never be solved, that the thing was an impossibility. How little I thought that in this place, on the very first night, I should be initiated into the manner ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... leading minds in town have begun to do, but there are difficulties. It is easy to love wisely, but the rich man may not marry you; and it is not very hard to reject wisely, but the poor man doesn't care. Altogether it is a precious problem. But shall we clamber out upon those shining blocks of rock, and find some of the little yellow shells that are in the crevices? I have ten minutes longer, and then ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... said, "that life is, in its way, as complex a thing here as in the greater cities. The people are very poor, and how to raise money enough to develop the country and pay our way without undue taxation is a very serious problem indeed. Then you must not forget that we live always in the shadow of a ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... there was only an occasional lull in the storm that came from out of the North. Before those ten days were half over, Jim and the mouse understood each other. The little mouse itself solved the problem of their nearer acquaintance by running up Falkner's leg one morning while he was at breakfast, and coolly investigating him from the strings of his moccasin to the collar of his blue shirt. After that ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... devised for fulfilling to the satisfaction of the community the duties prescribed by these grants of power. To conciliate the claim of the individual citizen to the enjoyment of personal liberty, with the effective obligation of private contracts, is the difficult problem to be solved by a law of bankruptcy. These are objects of the deepest interest to society, affecting all that is precious in the existence of multitudes of persons, many of them in the classes essentially dependent and helpless, ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... me in very different ways," said he, as he finished his toilet preparatory to going out. "Marietta Taliazuchi with the humility of a slave, Louise du Trouffle with the grateful passion of an elderly coquette. It would be a problem for a good arithmetician to solve, which of these two loves would weigh most. Marietta's love is certainly the more pleasant and comfortable, because the more humble. Like a faithful dog she lies at my ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... however, a thing transcends the ken of the senses, its existence (or otherwise) is affirmed by inference. This is the opinion of one set of persons. Others affirm that with destruction the attributes cease to be. Untying this knotty problem addressed to the understanding and reflection, and dispelling all doubt, one should cast off sorrow and live in happiness.[1449] As men unacquainted with its bottom become distressed when they fall upon this ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... that that the immense majority of women are demanding now? We want the women to stay at home just as much as you do. But how are you going to make that possible? At present the money spent on drink equals the total of the salaries paid to women. So the problem is to get rid of drunkenness. But the middle classes refuse to meet this evil straightforwardly because the votes which keep them in power are in the pockets of the publicans; and you socialist leaders refuse just as much ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... Charles of Denmark and Ferdinand of Graz, of Anhalt and Maximilian, of Brandenburg and Neuburg, of James and Philip, of Paul V. and Charles Emmanuel, of Sully and Yilleroy, of Salisbury and Bacon, of Lerma and Infantado; adroitly as he could measure, weigh, and analyse all these elements in the great problem which was forcing itself on the attention of Europe—there was one factor with which it was difficult for this austere republican, this cold, unsusceptible statesman, to deal: the intense and imperious passion of a greybeard for a woman ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... who have best expressed the need of a general and complete social reorganization have done so in the name of Socialism. Mr. J. R. MacDonald, recently chairman of the British Labour Party, for example writes that the problem set up by the Socialists is that of "co-ordinating the forces making for a reconstruction of society and of giving them rational coherence and unity,"[9] while the organ of the middle-class Socialists ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... [Chinese problem in America.] The increasing Chinese immigration already intrudes upon the attention of American statesmen questions of the utmost social and political importance. What influence will this entirely new and strange element ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... table. Mrs. Peck performed the same movement and we quitted the saloon together. Outside of it was the usual vestibule, with several seats, from which you could descend to the lower cabins or mount to the promenade-deck. Mrs. Peck appeared to hesitate as to her course and then solved the problem by going neither way. She dropped on one of the benches and looked ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James

... a Roman senator, of such eminent merit, and confessedly so much the foremost noble in all the qualities essential to the very delicate and comprehensive functions of a Censor, [Footnote: It has proved a most difficult problem, in the hands of all speculators upon the imperial history, to fathom the purposes, or throw any light upon the purposes, of the Emperor Decius, in attempting the revival of the ancient but necessarily obsolete office of a public censorship. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... midst of such doubts and difficulties, however, one duty shone out clear as day before him. Till the mystery was cleared up, till the problem was solved, he must see no more of Gwendoline Gildersleeve. He had engaged himself to her as the heir of Tilgate. She had accepted him under that guise, and looked forward to an early and happy marriage. Now, all was changed. He was, or might be, a beggar ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, "De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... busied on this perplexing problem when I espied a pleasant-faced fellow leaning over a ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... to me on another. To balance with the arms outstretched was not so difficult; but as the matches were then about six feet from the candle and there seemed no way of getting them nearer together the solution of the problem was as remote as ever. Three times I brought my hands together, and three times the ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... The problem how far either of these fountains fulfils the conditions postulated in the last verse of Horace's ode may be solved by every one according as he pleases. In fact, there is no other way of solving it. In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward leaping" ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... said, "but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth." He admired in Newton, not so much his theory of the moon, as his letter to Collins, in which he forbade him to insert his name with the solution of the problem in the "Philosophical Transactions": "It would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... here, sir, and I direct you to send all of your own people to the cellar at once. That will free our minds of any dread for the safety of your people, and will leave us open to handle the problem that is coming ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... the office, with his glazed hat hanging on a peg over his head, it was impossible to doubt the respectability of the concern. It went on doubling itself with every square inch of his red waistcoat until, like the problem of the nails in the horse's shoes, the total became enormous. People had been known to apply to effect an insurance on their lives for a thousand pounds, and looking at him, to beg, before the form of proposal was filled up, that it might be ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... his cousin's benefit. He had little considerate ways like that. It's coming from Scotland, et puis ca pese soixante-quinze kilos. Oh, it's big. It's enormous. The last one weighed,' he hesitated, forgetful, 'much, much less,' he finished. He paused, looking like a man who has solved a problem by stating it. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... in which we live is no longer a militant age. Today it is not so much the question of which nation can produce the greatest number of soldiers as of which can produce the greatest number of things the world needs to buy. It is a problem of industry and into this problem women, either by force or by desire, have come.... In olden times women could control the hours of their labor and the conditions affecting their health and the health of their families; they could regulate ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... near three-fourths of a century as a free and independent Republic, the problem no longer remains to be solved whether man is capable of self-government. The success of our admirable system is a conclusive refutation of the theories of those in other countries who maintain that a "favored few" are born to rule and that the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk

... to tender. I urged the taverner to hasten with my horse, and stood waiting in the squalid common-room, my mind divided 'twixt impatience to resume the road to Pesaro and fresh speculations upon the means I was to adopt to enter it and yet save my neck—for this was now become an obsessing problem. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... field on account of ill health, which made it impossible for him to undergo exposure to the hot sun, but his request had been denied, doubtless from a sincere desire on Grant's part to have the advantages of his services in the solution of the complicated problem which yet confronted the army. Had this request been granted when made, or had it been granted afterwards, and placed on the ground of a personal favor for the benefit of his health, which might well have been done, General ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... then he had a bad conscience, especially when his father in his newly-awakened thirst for knowledge, came to him for the solution of some problem or other, and he was at a loss for ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... Antediluvian period. How then are we to explain this striking literary resemblance to the structure of the narrative in Genesis, a resemblance that is completely wanting in the Babylonian versions? But that is a problem we must ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... introduced her other problem. At first Mrs. Perce gave a great laugh, and looked very sharply at Sally. She looked at her dress, at her face, at ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... "trust problem," which is so prominent in current political discussion, is the question of preventing the evils of combination in industry. These evils become evident when excessive prices are charged by persons who control certain lines of business; that is, when free competition is prevented ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... passed the days of her convalescence. As her mind cleared, the thought of Angelica began to give her uneasiness—she could not bear to think of leaving that young lady exposed to the misfortune of becoming Thurston's wife—and her mind toiled with the difficult problem of how to shield Angelica ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Europe was once quieted, America would engage the attention of Europe's arbiters. George Canning, the English foreign minister, soon discovered that this hint foreshadowed a new congress to be devoted especially to the American problem. Spain was to be restored to her sovereignty, but was to pay in liberal grants of American territory to whatever powers helped her. Canning is regarded as the ablest English foreign minister of the nineteenth century; at least no one better ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... allowed to help you with a lesson. You were unable to make head or tail of a problem in fractions; I don't think figures were your strong point! Miss Edgewood began to show you; an interruption came along. I happened to be at her elbow—I had a sort of reputation for figures—she called on me to help ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... logic on its side. If you have obstacles to overcome, discouragement will make them only that much harder to overcome. Do you make mistakes? Discouragement will only make it harder to overcome them. No matter what may be your trouble, or failure, or other problem, discouragement is a positive hindrance. And if it is given way to, it must ultimately be overcome, in addition to overcoming the obstacle which occasions the discouragement, before one ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... man: Ibsen. (He goes out by the staircase door followed by Sylvia, who kisses her hand to the bust as she passes. Craven stares blankly after her, and then up at the bust. Giving the problem up as insoluble, he shakes his head and follows them. Near the door he checks himself and ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw

... first he considered that the plan of sizing the pulp in the vat was impracticable. The real secret of fortune lay in the composition of the pulp, in the cheap vegetable fibre as a substitute for rags. He made up his mind, therefore, to lay immense stress on the secondary problem of sizing the pulp, and to pass over the discovery of cheap raw material, and ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... of a system which is the very antithesis of individual freedom.[Footnote: It is perhaps needless to remark that I have touched here only on the political meanings of the word Liberty. In the eighteenth century the word was much used in its philosophical sense, and the eternal problem of necessity ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... the orders of some of the military leaders, like Fremont, who without authority had sought to extend emancipation to slaves within the lines of their command. But as early as anyone he had foreseen the gradual emergence of emancipation as a war problem, at first dangerous to that wise "border state policy" which had prevented the more northern of the slave states from seceding. His first duty was to restore the Union and to that he gave all his energy, yet that emancipation, when ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... exercise his powers in a churchwarden version of the stage-parson with a tiresome wife. Miss HILDA MOORE looked charmingly wicked and acted with intelligence. The too serious role tossed lightly by the author into the broadest farce presents an impossible problem. Miss ELLEN O'MALLEY never mishandles a part. Sometimes, as here, a part is not too kind to her. As George's sister she could be no more than a competent peg. Miss MARIE HEMINGWAY had merely to look perplexed and pretty, which she did with complete success. Everyone was frankly delighted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various

... wasting time in speculation," said Frank at last, "more especially as it does not look as if we can get any nearer to solving the problem in that way. The thing to do now is to get at the ivory and that as quickly as possible. If that man is the forerunner of a band that means to attack us, it is all the more reason that we ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... it. Three steps would take us across. Alternative: return along the ledge to attack the problem ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... estimates, and with as much benefit to the country at large. He was a man who breathed certainly in the present age, but the half of his life was spent in antiquity or algebra. Once carried away by a problem, or a Greek reminiscence, he passed away, as it were, from his present existence, and everything was unheeded. His body remained, and breathed on his desk, but his soul was absent. This peculiarity was well ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the cities of the country there is a shortage but not an acute one of apartments and small homes in Reno. However, the amount of building done in Reno this year was almost three times that of any previous year, and the housing problem is expected to be solved by the ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... Size of the Earth. Scientific attempts at measuring the earth The sacred solution of the problem Fortunate influence of the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... her, down into my garden, where the day grew hot and the flowers were beginning to droop. I stared upon them and could find no solution to the problem that worked in my heart. And then I glanced up, eastward, to the sun above the privet-hedge, and saw him coming across the flower beds, treading them down in wantonness. He came with a light step and a smile, and I waited for him, leaning ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... direction; and under our windows on the Grand Canal, great sheets of ice went up and down with the rising and the falling tide for nearly a whole month. The visible misery throughout the fireless city was great; and it was a problem I never could solve, whether people in-doors were greater sufferers from the cold than those who weathered the cruel winds sweeping the squares and the canals, and whistling through the streets of stone and brine. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... The problem is by no means so simple as it appears. It involves two separate questions: first, a historical one which has only an antiquarian interest, Did the philosopher know the Apostle? secondly, a more important one for the history of religious ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... give the reins to a learned fancy, and let loose conjecture on the trail of any dubious crotchet or the scent of any supposed allusion that may spring up in the way of its confident and eager quest. To start a new solution of some crucial problem, to track some new undercurrent of concealed significance in a passage hitherto neglected or misconstrued, is to a critic of this higher class a delight as keen as that of scientific discovery to students of another sort: the pity is that he can bring ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... is better able to solve this difficult problem than you," said Lord Evandale. "We will carry this box full of secrets to our boat, where you will, at your leisure, decipher this historic document and read the riddle set by these hawks, scarabaei, kneeling figures, serrated lines, winged uraeus, and spatula ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... steel maker in America—not one could make vanadium steel. I sent to England for a man who understood how to make the steel commercially. The next thing was to get a plant to turn it out. That was another problem. Vanadium requires 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The ordinary furnace could not go beyond 2,700 degrees. I found a small steel company in Canton, Ohio. I offered to guarantee them against loss if they would run a heat for us. They agreed. The first heat was a failure. Very little vanadium ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... question and it was beyond a doubt that that opprobrious young loafer Thompson would fail. But when the professor read the examination papers, Thompson, who had not answered another question, was the only man who had solved the polar problem. This was Thompson's answer: "Six seals and six polar bears." Thompson got ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... intensely pondering, discovers that it has: it is too small for Daun; not area enough for manoeuvring 65,000 men in it; who will get into confusion if properly dealt with. A most comfortable light-flash, the EUREKA of this terrible problem. "We will attack it on rear and on front simultaneously; that is the way to handle it!" Yes; simultaneously, though that is difficult, say military judges; perhaps to Prussians it may be possible. It is the opinion of military judges who have studied the matter, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the labor by which it has been obtained. All this is an excellent preparation for the twenty-first attempt, which may possibly reveal the way it can be done. When thousands of good heads are working upon a problem in this ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... mistake, Phil, when you interrupted me. No, do not speak," he raised his hand. "I was in possession of what sanity I've had since Arthur——" He did not complete the sentence. "I've deliberately decided that a quick shot was the only solution of my problem. Boy gone; home gone; my dearest ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... made themselves into honest men, criminals had become decent. Why, then, could not a coward school himself to become brave? It was merely a question of will power, not so hard, perhaps, as the cure of some drug habit. He made up his mind to attack the problem coldly, systematically, and he swore solemnly by all his love for Margherita that he would make himself over into a person who could not only win but hold her. As yet there had been no opportunity of putting the plan into operation, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... Bandwidth Version." The country data in the text version is fully accessible. We believe The World Factbook is compliant with the Section 508 law in both fact and spirit. If you are experiencing difficulty, please use our comment form to provide us details of the specific problem you are experiencing and the assistive software and/or hardware that you are using so that we can work with our technical support staff to find and implement a solution. We welcome visitors' suggestions to improve ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... he was sent to open the gates for the men that were driving the cattle to market. At other times, he carried corn to market, or attended the sheep. One day his uncle found him in a hay-loft, working out a mathematical problem, and he was sent to school. There he discovered his great and various talents. At the age of eighteen he was sent to the University at Cambridge, England, where he soon ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... "I don't know what nation to suspect. It seems that no one does. I think that is the problem you were ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... by that {78} art of algebra in geometry, 'twill be very easy to proceed in any natural inquiry, regularly and certainly.... For as 'tis very hard for the most acute wit to find out any difficult problem in geometry without the help of algebra ... and altogether as easy for the meanest capacity acting by that method to complete and perfect it, so will it be in the inquiry after ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... cannot help it. He has no tastes and he draws very large pay. His mind, therefore, broods over questions relating to the investment of money, the depreciation of silver, and the saving effected by purchasing things at co-operative stores. He never really solves any problem suggested by these topics. His mind is not prehensile like the tail of the Apollo Bundar; everything eludes its grasp, so its pursuits are terminable. The old Colonel's cerebral caloric burns with a feeble flicker, like that of Madras secretariats, and ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... sentiments of the people towards their present government had been problematical before, the visible effect of Dumouriez' conduct would afford an ample solution of the problem. That indifference about public affairs which the prospect of an established despotism had begun to create has vanished—all is hope and expectation—the doors of those who retail the newspapers are assailed by people too impatient to read them— each with his gazette ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... friends, who took them away in their canoes for burial. In the earliest days, I don't think they used the regular coffin; the common practice was to use boxes, and especially trunks. Of course for a man or woman a trunk would be a problem to an undertaker, but the Indian solved the problem easily, as they doubled the body up and made it fit the trunk. For larger bodies a box was made of plank, but I do not remember seeing one made the regulation length of six feet, even for an adult, as they always doubled ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... dear children, work out in life the problem or the method by which you shall be a great deal with your father and your mother. There is no joy in life like the joy you can have with them. Fun or learning, sorrow or jollity, you can share it with them as with nobody beside. ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... necessity, both in relation to God and nature. For at first the universe is governed by the immediate providence of God,—this is the golden age,—but after a while the wheel is reversed, and man is left to himself. Like other theologians and philosophers, Plato relegates his explanation of the problem to a transcendental world; he speaks of what in modern language might be termed 'impossibilities in the nature of things,' hindering God from continuing immanent in the world. But there is some inconsistency; for the 'letting go' is spoken of as a divine act, and is ...
— Statesman • Plato

... possible? Good Corny invented many solutions of the problem: he fancied one hour that his daughter was sacrificing herself from duty to him, or complaisance to her aunt; the next hour, he settled, and with more probability, that she was piqued by Harry ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... felt certain now that despite her promise of secrecy Mrs. Wilson had betrayed her confidence and told Peter Dillon about the borrowed money. Why she had done so was a mystery and why he had lied to Bab in saying Mrs. Wilson was out was also a problem Bab ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... a scrutiny tolerably cool of the shifts of human nature. Human nature, he had observed, must needs account to itself for itself. If it met with what it did not understand, it was prompt to state the problem in a phrase which it could not explain. The simplicity of the plan was as little to be denied as its convenience was obvious. It was thus that Can Grande II. understood the emotions of Verona; it was thus, indeed, that he himself, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... times and his order drifting through his mind, Strathmore's thoughts floated onward to a piece of statecraft then numbered among the delicate diplomacies and intricate embroglie of Europe, whose moves absorbed him as the finesses of a problem absorb a skilful chess-player, and from thence stretched onwards to his future, in which he lived, like all men of dominant ambition, far more than he lived in his present. It was a future brilliant, secure, brightening in its ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... refugees to provide for their own needs and it lessened to some extent the congestion of refugees in border towns like Windsor and Sandwich. It is a debatable question whether segregation of these people was wise or not. At that time it seemed almost the only solution of the very pressing problem. After the Civil war many of the Negroes in Canada returned to the United States and those who remained found conditions easier. There was usually work for any man who was willing to labor and it ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... meantime he watched his sister with a growing admiration and with a growing concern. Instantly she had a problem on her hands. For the moment Terence heard that the great sheriff himself had joined the party, he was filled with happiness. Vance watched them meet with a heart swelling with happiness and surety of success. Straight through a group came Terry, weaving his ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... marvels, and, perhaps, miracles, before we come back, but why should there be anything in Creation that the eyes of created beings should not look upon? Anyhow, there's one thing we shall do I hope, we shall solve once and for all the great problem of the worlds. ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... connection with India took place in the earlier part of the year. Lieutenant Waghorn, whose enterprising genius led him to prosecute the problem of an overland route to India, saw his labours at last crowned with success. The government resolved, with certain modifications, to adopt the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... established at Scapa Flow and Thurso at the beginning of the war, but, owing to damage from a gale in November, 1914, aircraft operations with the Fleet were carried out from the seaplane carrier "Campania." The problem of using carriers with the Fleet had not been seriously tackled before the war, and though experiments were strenuously carried out, and there were fourteen carrier ships in commission in 1918, and a seaplane carrier operated with the Battle Cruiser Squadron ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... hard nut at best and needed brain food. I couldn't tell where the hare would be, and I can't now; nor do I believe that some of you wise heads, grown hairless with constant thinking, could really tell how the hare came out. If I saw one of my children headed for me with such a problem in hand, I confess that I should make a prompt engagement outside. The old folks who brought me up, had sterner ways of enforcing education. They decided that the boy should live on brown bread and water until he did that example. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... cobwebs, and Mauville watched with increasing interest the uses to which these ponderous tomes had sunk—but serving the bloodthirsty purpose of the nimble architect, evolving its delicate engineering problem in ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... with Katy immediately. These were the terms of the problem now before Albert His plan was to take her to visit friends at the East, and to keep her there until Westcott should pass out of her mind, or until she should be forgotten by the Privileged Infant. This ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... desirable number of 'square meals' per day; but that individual limited his acquirements in that way for the day then closed to four. Finn then touching on the number of drinks, the Buster, being driven into conjecture and a corner by the problem, was thrust out of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... left to Bridgie to make the final decision, and in after years she used to wonder what would have happened if she had refused her consent! It was a difficult problem, for to her old-fashioned notions it was a trifle infra dig for a girl to work for herself, and it hurt her tender heart that the Piccaninny of all others should be the one to go out ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... was threading her way through a fleet of small fishing-boats, as I could tell by the reduced speed, the hooting of the siren, and the constant and prolonged rattle of the steering rods. Soon she would bring up to the quay in Palma harbour. Why should I not get ashore there and work out the hard problem that ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... buried, there are still a great many purses which possess that quality. The sum-total they contain is expressed in arithmetic by a circle, and whether it be added to or multiplied by its own amount, the result of the problem is more easily stated than any ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... property, the next question which presented itself for their consideration, was in what way they should punish the thief. To such men as they, this was not a difficult problem: without much deliberation, it was determined that he must be at once driven from the country. The "days of grace," usually given on such occasions, were ten, and in pursuance of this custom, it was resolved that ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... may go to the blackboard and demonstrate the Fifth Theorem; Dennison, you the Sixth; Westby, you the Eighth. The rest of you will solve at your seats this problem." ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... for on information the modern general depends. And this information had to come from the very centre of the Turkish defence. It was the hour for a man, and that man had to be found. That was the problem which faced the Chief of Staff. He knew that almost every officer would volunteer. He thought of many Australians; but no, their reckless bravery might wreck his schemes. And then he pictured in his eye the New Zealanders he knew. One by one they passed in review. At ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... general's haversack," says one of Jackson's staff, "were always three books: the Bible, Napoleon's Maxims of War, and Webster's Dictionary—for his spelling was uncertain—and these books he constantly consulted." Whether the chronicles of the Jewish kings threw any light on the tactical problem involved at Kernstown may be left to the commentators; but there can be no question as to the Maxims. To hurl overwhelming numbers at the point where the enemy least expects attack is the whole burden of Napoleon's teaching, and there can be no doubt but that ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... downsizing and could too easily drift into becoming advocacy or marketing documents. As the services are forced into more jealously guarding a declining force structure, the tendency to "stove-pipe" and compartmentalize technology and special programs is likely to increase, thereby complicating the problem of making full use of our extraordinary technological resources. This means that some external thinking, removed from the bureaucratic pressures and demands, may be essential to ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... for the queen's entertainment, I said good night, and left my cousin brooding over as complicated a problem as man ever tried ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... considered the most remarkable spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a place where there are no luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to little more than a shilling a day, is a problem for the wise. His son, ruined as the family was, went as far as Paris to sow his wild oats; and so the cases of father and son mark an epoch in the history of centralization in France. Not until the latter had got into the train was the work ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the room. When I did not see Meg Hawkes, I beheld Madame darkly eyeing first one then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over some problem, and in one of her most savage moods—sometimes muttering to herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... triumph crossed his lips, and addressing the two men, who were mortified at having brought him no more definite news, he cried: "My lads, I know all I want to know. Go to bed and sleep sound; my word, you deserve to!" He himself, setting the example, slept like a man whose brain has solved a problem of the utmost importance which has long ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... seriousness, after the custom of their race and time, when the two friends, the young educationalist and the older man of wealth, with similar vision, sat late in discussion of the Canadian educational problem and of plans ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... meeting of country ministers an attempt was made to define what is the problem of the rural church. The definition as framed is herewith presented: "The rural task of the church is the nurture and development of all phases of human welfare in those communities where the general life and thinking of the people are ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt



Words linked to "Problem" :   difficulty, question, matter, teaser, brain-teaser, case, pressure point, Gordian knot, poser, rebus, deep water, problem-oriented language, hydra, riddle, growing pains, balance-of-payments problem, enigma, sticker, trouble, can of worms, toughie, stumper, head, job, koan, puzzle, problematical, conundrum, problematic, mystifier, pons asinorum, race problem, puzzler, problem solver, homework problem



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com