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Shape   /ʃeɪp/   Listen
Shape

noun
1.
Any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline).  Synonyms: configuration, conformation, contour, form.
2.
The spatial arrangement of something as distinct from its substance.  Synonym: form.
3.
Alternative names for the body of a human being.  Synonyms: anatomy, bod, build, chassis, figure, flesh, form, frame, human body, material body, physical body, physique, soma.  "He has a strong physique" , "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"
4.
A concrete representation of an otherwise nebulous concept.  Synonym: embodiment.
5.
The visual appearance of something or someone.  Synonyms: cast, form.
6.
The state of (good) health (especially in the phrases 'in condition' or 'in shape' or 'out of condition' or 'out of shape').  Synonym: condition.
7.
The supreme headquarters that advises NATO on military matters and oversees all aspects of the Allied Command Europe.  Synonym: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
8.
A perceptual structure.  Synonyms: form, pattern.  "A visual pattern must include not only objects but the spaces between them"



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"Shape" Quotes from Famous Books



... much, I guess," was the answer of the aeronaut. "I've stopped the engine, and I don't like to start it again until I can see what shape we're in." ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it, and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the banquettes and at the clubs; and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover was a trifle snarled ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... silent stage, where sometimes unconsciousness continues for hours, a dry blanket should be laid on a bed, and another blanket must be rolled up and prepared with hot water as directed in Fomentation. Fold this until it is the size and shape of the patient's back, and lay her down on it, so that the whole back is well fomented. Take care not to burn the patient: soothing heat, not irritation, is required. Consciousness will usually return almost ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... another point. The Greek gods as we know them in classical sculpture are always imaged in human shape. This was not of course always the case with other nations. We have seen how among savages the totem, that is, the emblem of tribal unity, was usually an animal or a plant. We have seen how the emotions of the Siberian tribe in Saghalien focussed on a bear. The savage totem, the Saghalien ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... efficient service. But with the coming in of President Jackson the "spoils system" was introduced. This system, in practice, provides that political workers belonging to a victorious party may, as far as possible, receive reward for their services in the shape of some office. "To the victors belong the spoils of the enemy" is the familiar motto of those who have advocated this system. During the first year of President Jackson's administration 2000 officials were deprived of their offices, and friends of the administration were put in their positions. ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... old woman, who troubled all the Court with her howling, desired the Judges, that before I should be tormented on the racke, I might uncover the bodies which I had slaine, that every man might see their comely shape and youthfull beauty, and that I might receive condign and worthy punishment, according to the quality of my offence: and therewithall shee made a sign of joy. Then the Judge commanded me forthwith to discover the bodies of the slain, lying upon the beere, with ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... how soft are thy voluptuous ways! While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape The fascination of thy magic gaze? A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste, thy dear, delusive shape." BYRON'S ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... which to stand, and this enables it to retain its position, while making the drain, better than would be done by the round pipe. The orifice through which the water passes is egg-shaped, having its smallest curve at the bottom. This shape is the one most easily kept clear, as any particles of dirt which get into the drain must fall immediately to the point where even the smallest stream of water runs, and are thus removed. An orifice of about two inches is ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... at times as supernormal as second-sight or prophecy. But it is not on supernormal, but on normal dreams that animists base their explanation. We need not deny that dreams and delirium may have given palpable shape to the conception of a ghost, and may also have helped forward the notion of a spirit by furnishing something intermediary between the grossness of our waking sense-experiences, and the altogether elusive and difficult thought of unembodied will and ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... of wine might probably have taught her himself after too large potations of his own spirituous manufactories. I was ushered into a small parlour—where sat, sipping brandy and water, a short, stout, monosyllabic sort of figure, corresponding in outward shape to the name of Briggs—even ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... left his son, then a child, a cow-calf, which wandered in the desert till he came to age; at which time his mother told him the heifer was his, and bid him fetch her, and sell her for three pieces of gold. When the young man came to the market with his heifer, an angel in the shape of a man accosted him, and bid him six pieces of gold for her; but he would not take the money till he had asked his mother's consent; which when he had obtained, he returned to the market-place, and met the angel, who now offered him twice as much for the heifer, provided ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... wha first did shape That vile, wanchancie thing—a rape! It maks guid fellows girn an' gape, Wi' chokin dread; An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape, For ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... to the manner and time of eating. The appearance of food, and the manner in which it is offered, have much to do with its acceptance, or rejection by the patient. Let the nourishment be presented in a nice, clean dish, of a size and shape appropriate to the quantity. More food than can be eaten by the patient should not be placed before him at one time, since a great quantity excites disgust and loathing. In taking nourishment, drink, or ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... so. I suppose it's just chance—the shape of it, but it is such an unusual looking thing that the fellows got interested in him and then of course there was the story about his mother being killed in a railroad wreck. That got around school some way; Teeny-bits himself told it, I think; so there isn't any harm in my repeating it. ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... thing—circumstance included—but he is not a sort of moral spider; he can't spin it out of his own inside. He wants something to make it of. The formative force comes from within, but he must have material, just as much as a sculptor must have his marble before he can shape his statue. There is a subtle relation between character and conditions, and it is this relation that determines Fate. Fate is as the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... so?" exclaimed John Clemens quickly. "At any rate, I'd rather be the shape of a mast than ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay

... danced in front, looking about her with alluring eyes, and scattering petals of dead roses from a basket which she bore. Different was the second companion, who stalked behind; so thin, so sexless that none could say if the shape were that of man or woman. Dry, streaming locks of iron-grey, an ashen countenance, deep-set, hollow eyes, a beetling, parchment-covered brow; lean shanks half hidden with a rotting rag, claw-like hands which clutched miserably at the air. Such was its awful ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... an ancient manor-house. The manor was called Fionn-uisge, pronounced finniske, which signifies clear or fair water, and this term easily became corrupted into Phoenix. The land became Crown property in 1559, and was made into a park in 1662. It was immensely improved and put into its present shape by the earl of Chesterfield, author of the Letters—one of the best viceroys Ireland ever had—about 1743. The area is seventeen hundred and sixty acres. With the exception of Windsor and our own Fairmount, no public park in the world can compare with it. The ground undulates charmingly, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... not even convey a meagre description of its amazing loveliness. For cheapness—God's riches were inexhaustible, hence it was not necessary to take this into consideration. For ease of being wrought—think of the vast amount of labor it requires to cut and shape even one large diamond, it being said to require in some cases years of incessant toil; yet God could afford to build the wall of this city of such material. Oh, wonders of God's handiwork! How inexpressibly ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... in a doorway between two rooms and cut six holes, the size and shape of eyes, each pair a distance apart, in it, some up ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann

... he told her, "and he may be sicker before we get him into shape again. But you needn't be worried right now; I think he's not in immediate danger." He turned at the sound of Mrs. Madison's step, behind him, and repeated to her what he had just said to Laura. "I hope your husband didn't give himself away enough to be punished when we get him on his feet ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... a certain "bald" among the Great Smoky Mountains there lie, just at the verge of the strange stunted woods from which the treeless dome emerges to touch the clouds, two great tilted blocks of sandstone. They are of marked regularity of shape, as square as if hewn with a chisel. Both are splintered and fissured; one is broken in twain. No other rock is near. The earth in which they are embedded is the rich black soil not unfrequently found upon the summits. ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... changed, and followed by a horrid train of dogs, he is forced to run an impious race over the moors and through the villages; nor is allowed an interval of rest until the dawning Sabbath terminates his sufferings, and restores him to his human shape."—From Lord Carnarvon's Portugal and Gallicia, vol. ii. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various

... always tell how a colt will shape, can they, Mike?" spoke Porter, for Mike's fanciful description was almost bringing a smile to ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... From all approaches it was far beyond the reach of Julius, since it was impossible for him to climb along the wire roof and thus reach the string. Two boxes were placed on the floor of the cage several feet from the point directly under the banana. The one of these boxes was heavy and irregular in shape, as is shown in figures 21, 23 and 24 of plate V. Its greatest height was twenty-one inches; its least height, eighteen inches; its other dimensions, twelve and sixteen inches respectively. The smaller and lighter box measured twenty-two by twelve by ten inches. According to the experimenter's ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... went to live in Portugal, a land near the great sea, whose people were far more venturesome than had been those of Genoa. Here he married a beautiful maiden, whose father had collected a rich store of maps and charts, which showed what was then supposed to be the shape of the earth and told of strange and wonderful voyages which brave sailors had from time to time dared to make out into the then unknown sea. Most people in those days thought it was certain death to any one who ventured very far out ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... is concealed by the clothes we wear, so our mind is veiled in lies. The veil is always there, and it is only through it that we can sometimes guess at what a man really thinks; just as from his clothes we arrive at the general shape of his body.] ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... of Whyte's old mate, Bill Johnson, died and the house of Whyte had an additional inmate in the shape of a tousled-haired little girl, removed from a tenement in Little Bourke Street, one of the lowest slums in Melbourne. When Amy Johnson found herself in the midst of these novel surroundings, and experienced the delights ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... the marshal answered, with a somewhat rueful laugh. "Twenty miles' ride to North Wilkesboro', and back. But I'll do it, of course. I wouldn't miss it for a good deal. I'll have my men waiting at Trap Hill. If things shape right, I'll make the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... the next place, view the objection as regards Optional Morality, where positive beneficence has full play. The principal motive in this department is Reward, in the shape either of benefits or of approbation. Now, there is nothing to hinder the supporters of the standard of Utility from joining in the rewards or commendations bestowed on works of charity ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; if they did, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided with one of those half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to whole doors as spencers worn by old folk are to coats. They speak of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... Price, who had thus voluntarily provoked his resentment, was daily exposed in some new shape: there was every day some new song or other, the subject of which was her conduct, and the burden her name. How was it possible for her to bear up against these attacks, in a court, where every person was eager to obtain the most insignificant trifle that came from the pen of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... like a massive bulk, or ghost in the gloom. Unable to imagine what this might be, or how any other human creature save himself would venture to sail with the dead on a voyage whose end could be but destruction, he advanced a step towards that looming shape, and started back with a cry, as he recognised the very man he had been thinking ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... the frequency with which women are lacking in this essential element of womanhood, and the young man of to-day, it has been said, often in taking a wife, "actually marries but part of a woman, the other part being exhibited in the chemist's shop window, in the shape of a glass feeding-bottle." Blacker found among a thousand patients from the maternity department of University College Hospital that thirty-nine had never suckled at all, seven hundred and forty-seven had suckled all their children, and two hundred and fourteen had suckled only some. The ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... fading, like that varied gleam, Is our inconstant shape, "Who now like knight and lady seem, 90 And now like dwarf ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... three days after St. Scholastica died in her solitude. St. Benedict was then alone in contemplation on Mount Cassino, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he saw the soul of his sister ascending thither in the shape of a dove. Filled with joy at her happy passage, he gave thanks for it to God, and declared her death to his brethren; some of whom he sent to bring her corpse to his monastery, where {392} he caused it to be laid in the tomb which he had prepared for himself. She must ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... of threat filled the air. All about the grave of the buried sun, the clouds were angry with dusky yellow and splashes of gold. They lowered tumulous and menacing. Then, lo! they had lost courage; their bulk melted off in fierce vapour, gold and gray, and the sharp outcry of their shape was gone. As I recall the airy scene, that horizon looks like the void between a cataclysm and the moving afresh of the spirit of God upon the face of the waters. I went on and on, I do not know why. Something enticed me, or I was plunged ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... may remember, said that Salammbo was purple to him, and L'Education Sentimentale gray. Carthage and Paris—a characteristic fancy! But why is it that these scientific gentlemen who account for genius by eye-strain do not reprove the poets for their sensibility to the sound of words, the shape and cadences of the phrase? It appears that only prose-men are the culpable ones when they hear the harping of invisible harps from Ibsen steeplejacks, or recognise the colour of Zarathustra's thoughts. In reality not one but thousands sit listening in the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... Paris, when, on his way home under the stars, Joan, with her brown hair and laughing eyes, tip-tilted nose and the spirit of spring in her breath, had come out of his inner consciousness and established herself like a shape in ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... was with sensations of chilling horror that they explored its dungeons beneath the very foundations of the towers. Some were cells for solitary confinement, of the shape of a tomb and not much larger, the stone doors of which shut with a gloomy solemn sound—the knell of ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... off my mind, and I went 'ome and ate a tea that made my missis talk about the work-'ouse, and orstritches in 'uman shape wot would eat a woman out of 'ouse and 'ome if she would ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... opened at the ends, and manipulated with tools while hot, until it is the shape of a drain-pipe; then cut down one side and opened out upon a flattening-stone until the round pipe is a flat sheet; and it is this stone which gives the glass the different texture, the dimpled surface which ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... with Stock Exchange information by a bandy-legged Jew, a very Solomon in funded wisdom, who pens paragraphs at a penny a line for the papers, and puts into them whatever the projectors dictate, in the shape of a puff, at per agreement. The knot of swarthy-looking athletic fellows, many of whom are finger-linked together, and wear rings in their ears, are American captains, and traders from the shores of the Atlantic. That jolly-looking ruby-faced old gentleman in black, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... door was opened we saw that there was no such thing. It was a room with eight sides. Denny says it is the shape called octogenarian; because a man named Octagius invented it. There were eight large arched windows with no glass, only stone-work, like in churches. The room was full of sunshine, and you could see the ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... passes through the side of the dredger, and then forms an elbow bent downward at an angle of 45 deg. To this elbow is attached a flexible pipe, E, 12 in. in diameter and 25 ft. long, made of India-rubber, with a coil of iron inside to help it to keep its shape. At the lower end of this pipe is an elbow-shaped copper nozzle which rests on the bottom, and is fitted with a grating to prevent stones getting into the pump and stopping the work. The flexible tube is supported by chains that pass over the head of a derrick, F, mounted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... is here; of course it is. Where did you think it was? My books will show exactly how much of it has found its way over to Eschenbach in the shape of interest and loans. My books are open to inspection; the accounts have been kept right up to this very day. I have made considerable progress in life. A man who has lived as I have lived does not need to fear a living soul. Do you imagine for a minute that Jason Philip ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... sat in a singular abstraction. No conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters. When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time she studied her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were already ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... by their fellow citizens, the danger and difficulties which must attend the execution of so odious a task, and expressed the united desire of the city that they would renounce the commission, and engage not to intermeddle with the ship or cargo in any shape whatever. Some of the commissioners resigned in a manner that gave general satisfaction, others in such equivocal terms as desired further explanation. However, in a few days the resignation was complete. In this situation things remained for ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... first monastery, women had not been a temptation to him, but here that temptation arose with terrible strength and even took definite shape. There was a lady known for her frivolous behaviour who began to seek his favour. She talked to him and asked him to visit her. Sergius sternly declined, but was horrified by the definiteness of his desire. He was so alarmed that he wrote about it to the starets. And in addition, to keep ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... the forest. There a large buck lifted its antlered head among the berry bushes and stood for a moment at startled gaze. But Ham made no movement to raise the rifle that swung at his side, and as the red-brown shape disappeared with a soft clatter, the boy did not even throw a glance after it. He was saying to himself: "William the Conqueror was a baker's son; Napoleon was the friend of a washer-woman; Cecil Rhodes was a poor boy—but they didn't stay tied ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... places, the obtrusive spirit of the brick boxes rode about, thinly disguised, in children's carriages, drawn by nursery-maids; or fluttered aloft, delicately discernible at angles of view, in the shape of a lace pocket-handkerchief or a fine-worked chemisette, drying modestly at home in retired corners of back gardens. Generally, however, the hostile influences of the large incomes and the small mingled together on the neutral ground of the moderate incomes; turning it into the dullest, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... absorbed his entire life for the moment—his love for Blix, and his novel. Little by little "In Defiance of Authority" took shape. The boom restaurant and the club of the exiles were disposed of, Billy Isham began to come to the front, the filibustering expedition and Senora Estrada (with her torn calling card) had been introduced, and the expedition was ready to put to sea. But here a new ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... and therefore concrete content is to have its adequate sensuous form and shape, this sensuous form must—this being the third requirement—also be something individual, completely concrete, and one. The nature of concreteness belonging to both the content and the representation of art, is precisely the point in which both can coincide and correspond to each other. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Frog lives in a bog, And his coat is bottle-green; Yellow his vest; handsomely dressed, His pretty shape is seen. Puffing with pride, there at his side His dame is sure to be: Smiling, she says, "No one could raise A finer family! Singing Coa, ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various

... of the most thoughtless and pretty of the gay tribe to him one day, as Francis sat in a corner abstracted from the scene around him, "when do you mean to favor the world with your brilliant ideas in the shape of a book?" ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... a little ship-shape again Redwood went and stared at the huge misshapen corpse. The brute lay on its side, with its body slightly bent. Its rodent teeth overhanging its receding lower jaw gave its face a look of colossal feebleness, of weak avidity. It seemed not in the least ferocious ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... be called Round Island, I guess because it wuz kinder square in shape. It is a handsome place with a immense hotel[A] settin' back most a quarter of a mild, and jined by a long railed balcony with another, makin' room enough, it seemed to me, for an army. The broad, handsome path leadin' up to it wuz bordered with beautiful flowers and shrubs, ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... herself in. A world of guilty thoughts and unresisted temptations, a chaotic world where black, unscalable rocks, like a circle of the Inferno, hemmed her in on every side, while devils whispered in her ears the words which gave shape and substance to her secret wishes for the death of her "rival," as she regarded the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Swift was writing the message he wished his son to take to the village, the young mechanic inspected the motor-cycle he had purchased. Tom found that a few repairs would suffice to put it in good shape, though an entire new front wheel would be needed. The motor had not been damaged, as he ascertained by a test. Tom rode into town on his bicycle, and as he hurried along he noticed in the west a bank of ugly-looking clouds ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton

... freedom and independence once more. "I shall never, never forget your loving kindness and protection," continued the young girl, tenderly. "You will let me come to you always when you want me; but you will let me also shape my life anew, and work for my living." The duchess turned her grave, half humorous face towards her. "That means you have determined to seek HIM. Well! Perhaps if you give up your other absurd idea of independence, ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... the laughter of babies, and kisses gently given ... and all estrangements of friends and lovers would be eased there, and they would be brought together in a magical trysting-place, and there would be no unharmony.... All the horses one had ever loved would take shape in the air, with necks stretched and whinnying recognition.... All the great ships one had wondered at would appear when called, their spread of snowy canvas, their tapering spars.... All the dogs one had had would be there ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... the cuttlefish. Of these, Sepi vel Lolligines calamari, Muffet says, they are called also 'sleewes' for their shape, and 'scribes' for their incky humour wherewith they are replenished, and are commended by Galen for great nourishers; their skins be as smooth as any womans, but their flesh is brawny as any ploughmans; therefore I fear me Galen rather commended them upon hear-say ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... reached out her hand, and Menard, catching her wrist, helped her to her feet, and fairly carried her down the slope of the bank, laying her behind the tangled roots of a great oak. Already the sky was clearer, and the trees and men were beginning to take dim shape. The river rushed by, a deeper black than sky and woods, with a few ghostly bits of white where the foam of ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... near ship-shape as you can. Watch the papers, or they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch the Times, although there's mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend as much time at the Trescotts' as ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... or so on the ground he came to, and finding he was in a sad plight, he set up a series of yells, which soon brought assistance in the shape of a passing farmer, who lifted him into his wagon, carted him home, and ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... depends less on what they directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, the smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are introduced ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... These are the things that ought to go to your Lordships' hearts. You see a country wasted and desolated. You see a third of it become a jungle for wild beasts. You see the other parts oppressed by persons in the form and shape of men, but with all the character and disposition of beasts of prey. This state of the country is brought before you, and by the most unexceptionable evidence,—being brought forward through Mr. Hastings himself. This evidence, whatever ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... readily answered. About this time he received a summons from his father, and we parted. Like most girls of my age, I cherished an unconquerable bashfulness against admitting any confidant to my attachment; hence my parents knew nothing of the affair until it burst upon them in the cruelest shape. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... no form. There was no light, no shape, nothing but eternal, dismal, unbroken blackness. This was the Void, the place where time had not yet come. Roger Strang shuddered, and felt the cold chill of the blackness creep into his marrow. He had ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse

... but an instant later he knew it was no kiss of love that met his own, and he felt her tremble violently in his arms. He saw in a flash that he was on unknown ground; but his one thought was that Fulvia was in trouble and looked to him for aid. He gently freed himself from her hold and tried to shape a soothing question; but she caught his arm and, laying a hand over his mouth, drew him across the garden and into the house. The lower floor stood dark and empty. He followed Fulvia up the stairs and into the library, which was also empty. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... was hardly more than a cupboard but it was full. Spread-eagled against the wall was a four-limbed creature whose form was so smothered in a bulky suit that Varta could only guess that it was akin in shape to her own. Hoops of metal locked it firmly to the wall, but the head had fallen forward so that the face plate in the helmet ...
— The Gifts of Asti • Andre Alice Norton

... Juanita to realise the grim fact that—shape our lives how we will, with all foresight—every care—the history of the world or of a nation will suddenly break into the story of the single life and march over it ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate; olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to his employers, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... well-formed mouth; and her dark eyes, which were not cast down, but rested quietly on the royal family, expressed so much spirit and intelligence that it was evident she was no ordinary woman, but a firm and resolute one, who had courage to challenge fate, and, if necessary, to shape her own destiny. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... than the emaciation of a baby. Its sunken temples and evident cheekbones, the line of its jaw, the piteous parted lips and thin neck were all reflected in Marie's eyes. Her entire figure softened, and passionate motherhood filled her. She took the still pliant shape from Zelie, held it in her hands, and finally pressed it against her bosom. No sign of mourning came from ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... reader, a distinct and connected whole. There is perhaps no more of the intended fabric of the history erected in the mind than the mere skeleton of the building; but this frame-work, however defective in the details, is complete both as to shape and size, and is a correct model of the finished building from top to bottom. This is the state of every advanced pupil's mind, after he has for the first time closed the reading of any portion of history or biography. If the narrative itself has been correct, this general outline,—this ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... which the "Lancashire witches" rendered themselves so famous—it may readily be imagined that a number of interesting legends, anecdotes, and scraps of family history, are floating about, hitherto preserved chiefly in the shape of oral tradition. The antiquary, in most instances, rejects the information that does not present itself in the form of an authentic and well-attested fact; and legendary lore, in particular, he throws aside as worthless and unprofitable. The author ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... be surmounted and overcome*. From whatever source these elements of experience proceed, even if from blind chance, or from fate (which denotes the utterance or decree of arbitrary and irresponsible power), the strong man will brace himself up to bear them; the wise man will shape his conduct by them; the man of lofty soul will rise above them. But the temper in which they will be borne, yielded to, or surmounted, must be contingent on the belief concerning them. If they are regarded as actual evils, they will probably be endured with sullenness, or submitted to with ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... came into these parts for his health and to study the shape of trees and rocks as they really grow. He put up at the tavern in the village and spent his time among the hills, taking pictures of the scenery, as he called them. He took a fancy to the old house here, and I caught ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... said; 'it is impossible! What shall I be when I come out of this? I shall not come out, except as metal to be cast in another shape. No more the same Siegmund, no more the same life. What will become of us—what ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... American Union, more especially in those States bordering upon his Majesty's North American dominions, to return to their relations of peace and amity with this country." The admiral was to encourage such dispositions, and should they take shape in formal act, making overtures to him for a cessation of hostilities for that part of the country, he was directed to grant it, and to enter into negotiations for commercial intercourse between the section thus ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... soul and spirit, for the good of the upper. It is so in England; it is so everywhere; and yet all Christendom stands aghast, with virtuous indignation, because we do the thing in a little different shape from what they ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... rest, thanks again to my Drops. I went to breakfast in better spirits, and received a morning welcome in the shape of a ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... deem it a great honor to be, in any shape, joined with your lordship in so good a work. But if you hope service from any influence I may be supposed to have, drop all thoughts of procuring me any previous favors from ministers. My accepting them would ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... interpretation of the phenomena it dealt with was put forward by F. Tisserand in 1895.7 It involved the action of no third mass, but depended solely upon the progression of the line of apsides in a moderately elliptical orbit due to the spheroidal shape of the globes traversing it. Inequalities of the required sort in the returns of the eclipses would ensue; moreover, their duration should concomitantly vary with the varying distance from periastron at the times of their ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... What Shape or Appearance the Devil took up to enter into a Conversation with Cain upon the Subject, that Authors do not take upon them to determine; but 'tis generally supposed he personated some of Cain's Sons or Grandsons to begin ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... is, extant among us, a part of our habits, the creed of many of us, the growth of centuries, the symbol of a most complicated tradition—there stand my lord the bishop and my lord the hereditary legislator—what the French call transactions both of them,—representing in their present shape mail-clad barons and double-sworded chiefs (from whom their lordships the hereditaries, for the most part, don't descend), and priests, professing to hold an absolute truth and a divinely inherited power, the which truth absolute our ancestors ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... were all locked. We got all the old keys we could, but they were all the keys of desks and workboxes and tea-caddies, and not the right size or shape for doors. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... man. At one stroke, the legislative shears cut out of the same stuff, according to the same pattern, thirty-six thousand examples of the same coat, one coat indifferently for every commune, whatever its shape, a coat too small for the city and too large for the village, disproportionate in both cases, and useless beforehand, because it could not fit very large bodies, nor very small ones. Nevertheless, once dispatched from Paris, people had to put the coat on and wear it; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... was cluster'd o'er a brow Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth; Her eyebrow's shape was like th' aerial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, Mounting at times to a transparent glow, As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth, Possess'd an air and grace by no means common: Her stature tall—I ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... no tears fell on the little worn garments. Poor little garments, so pathetically bringing to mind the wee lost personality! Darned socks which had covered active little feet; tiny short "knickers" patched at the knees; shabby coat—moulded, it would seem, into the very shape of the chubby figure—the mother ironed and polished them, and laid them in a tidy heap. As she worked she tried to talk of other things, but her face told its own tale, and I went away ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... to leave next morning as early as the wild horses they had hobbled could be gotten into shape to travel. Wiggate expected the riders he had sent for to arrive before noon the next day; and it was his opinion that he would have all the horses he had purchased out of there in a week. Pan and Blinky did ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... find that they supply ample evidence to the effect that already at a very early time, viz. the period antecedent to the final composition of the Vedanta-sutras in their present shape, there had arisen among the chief doctors of the Vedanta differences of opinion, bearing not only upon minor points of doctrine, but affecting the most essential parts of the system. In addition to Badaraya/n/a himself, the reputed author of the Sutras, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... which had been taking shape for some few minutes were turned almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw towards him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a challenge. He saw that all was over, and was starting to his feet to declare himself, and thus fall ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... and built this bit thing here that ye call the praetorian, to be a shelter for us in a sore time of rain, at auld Aiken Drum's bridal. And look ye, Monkbarns, dig down, and ye will find a stone (if ye have not found it already) with the shape of a spoon and the letters A.D.L.L. on it—that is to say ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... letter, taxes Augustus with being the son not only of a baker, but a usurer. These are his words: "Thou art a lump of thy mother's meal, which a money-changer of Nerulum taking from the newest bake-house of Aricia, kneaded into some shape, with his hands all discoloured by the fingering ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... chattering teeth was not needed. The women of the tribe shivered more from the cold than from fear as they gathered together their belongings, their furs and hides and crude stone implements; and the shambling man-shape, called Gor, led them to the hole down which a strong man might climb, led them down ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... the Rev. Mr. Tyerman, had been on a tour of inspection to the islands of the South Seas, and to whose tales of travel rustic audiences listened with delight. Once upon a time—but that was later—the Religious Tract Society sent a deputation in the shape of a well-known travelling secretary, Mr. Jones. This Mr. Jones was inclined to corpulency, and I can well remember how we all laughed when, on one occasion, the daughter of a neighbouring minister, having opened the door in reply to his knock, ran delightedly into her papa's study to ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... act upon a body its particles assume certain relative positions, and it has what is called its natural shape and size. If sufficient external force is applied the natural shape and size will be changed. This distortion or deformation of the material is known as the strain. Every stress produces a corresponding strain, and within a certain limit (see elastic limit, in FUNDAMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... things, even in the matter of furnishing a large house with competent servants, and by six o'clock Vera had contrived for the domestic machine to run a little more smoothly. At any rate, she was in a position now to provide Fenwick with something in the shape of a respectable dinner on ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... given to such beings to harm those who went about to try to do what little good was in their power, to which Jenny tremblingly assented; but the mistress's theory had little effect on the maid's practice until she had sewn two pieces of red flannel in the shape of a cross ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... eighteen months concealed his irritation with the system and the subordinates of his office. A square peg forced into a round hole, he had felt like a daily outrage that long established smooth roundness into which a man of less sharply angular shape would have fitted himself, with voluptuous acquiescence, after a shrug or two. What he resented most was just the necessity of taking so much on trust. At the little laugh of Chief Inspector Heat's he spun swiftly ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... experimentum crucis, which they yield in the progress of their development on behalf of the entire doctrine of Kant—a test which, up to this hour, has offered defiance to any hostile hand. The test or defiance which I speak of, takes the shape of certain antinomies (so they are termed), severe adamantine arguments, affirmative and negative, on two or three celebrated problems, with no appeal to any possible decision, but one, which involves the Kantian doctrines. A quaestio vexata is proposed—for ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... red with a blue border around the unique shape of two overlapping right triangles; the smaller, upper triangle bears a white stylized moon and the larger, lower triangle ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... different forms of the party-coloured glass bead or amulet known under the name of Adder-beads or Snake stones.[226] In Scotland he found various materials used as healing amulets, particularly some pebbles of remarkable shape and colour, and hollow balls and rings of coloured glass. "They have also," he says, "the Ombriae pellucidae, which are crystal balls or hemispheres, or depressed ovals, in great esteem for curing of cattle; and some on May-day put them into a tub of water, and besprinkle all their cattle with ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... scented glades of the tropics were mine to wander through. Yes, a dreamer's Paradise, for I was only sixteen then, and untroubled by any thoughts of Love; yet sometimes Its shadow would enter and vaguely perplex me, a strange shape, waiting always beyond, in the midst of my glowing gardens, and I sighed with a prescient pain. How have I known Love since those days? As yet it has brought me but two things—Sorrow and Expectation. In that fragmentary love-time that ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... glances with them. It was a long time since I had seen a Romany, and, as usual, I knew that I was going to astonish them. They were singularly attired, having very good clothes of a quite theatrical foreign fashion, bearing silver buttons as large as and of the shape of hen's eggs. Their hair hung in black ringlets down their shoulders, and I saw that they had come from the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... such a trip as ours unless he will refuse to jeopardize the welfare of his associates by any delay caused by a weakness or ailment of his. It is his duty to go forward, if necessary on all fours, until he drops. Fortunately, I was put to no such test. I remained in good shape until we had passed the last of the rapids of the chasms. When my serious trouble came we had only canoe-riding ahead of us. It is not ideal for a sick man to spend the hottest hours of the day stretched on the boxes in the bottom ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson

... it, all issuing from the great root that lies deep underground—the root of five hundred years ago; and the tree overshadows all the garden and the little crystal brook that sparkles along by the side of the wall. As I gazed at the stately shape, with its shining black berries and its glossy dark leaves, I knew that I had found the keynote to much of Petrarch's music—not always that of his best and most inspired moods. The resemblance of the name of Laura to the laurel; the antique fable of the transformation of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... position with the intention of demonstrating against them, and the daring idea—somewhere in the background—of attacking and seizing one prominent feature which jutted out into the plain, and which, from its boldness and shape, we had christened 'Bastion Hill.' The composite regiment, who watched the extreme left, were directed to support us if all was clear in their front at one o'clock, and Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry, who kept touch ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... often asked himself the reason, and while he was asking it he came to a long low mound, covered with trees of smaller growth than those in the surrounding forest. At first he took it for a hill just like the others, but its shape did not seem natural, and, despite the importance of time he looked again, and once more. Then he walked a little way up the mound and his moccasined foot struck lightly against something hard. He stooped, ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... prospered. "It's nigh two years since we licked Burgoyne an' they don't make much headway. Reckon we'll hev to go back an' show 'em how we used to do it. But, if we ain't needed, it will be too bad to leave things here just as we've got 'em into shape." ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane



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