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

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




Unusual   /ənjˈuʒˌuəl/  /ənjˈuʒwəl/   Listen
Unusual

adjective
1.
Not usual or common or ordinary.  "A man of unusual ability" , "Cruel and unusual punishment" , "An unusual meteorite"
2.
Being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird.  Synonym: strange.  "A strange fantastical mind" , "What a strange sense of humor she has"
3.
Not commonly encountered.



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 |





"Unusual" Quotes from Famous Books



... wealth, but wallowing in ignorance, is put to the experimentum crucis of "his mark." The number of petty jurors—in rural districts especially—who can only sign with a cross is enormous. It is not unusual to see parish documents of great local importance defaced with the same humiliating symbol by persons whose office shows them to be not only "men of mark," but men of substance. We have printed already specimens of the partial ignorance ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... proprietor should exercise great care in the selection of a manager, but the circumstances of the estates in Mysore, which are always surrounded by a native population, and sometimes a very considerable population, are such that unusual care is required when appointing a manager. For in dealing with the people around him, he requires to exercise much tact, and careful circumspection, and great control over his temper, which is often sorely tried. And he needs it all the more for the first few years, because anything ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... died away in the course of the night, just as the ice was beginning to separate and to drift away from the shore; and, being succeeded by a wind off the land, which is here very unusual, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail upon the Griper at two A.M. on the 15th, in execution of the orders I had given him. As I soon perceived, however, that she made little or no way, the wind drawing more to the eastward on that part of the coast, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... "the Pilgrimage of Grace," among the rest we find the name of Robert Hobbes, late Abbot of Woburn. To this solitary fact we can add nothing. The rebellion was put down, and in the punishment of the offenders there was unusual leniency; not more than thirty persons were executed, although forty thousand had been in arms. Those only were selected who had been most signally implicated. But they were all leaders in the movement; the men of highest rank, and therefore greatest guilt. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... already surrendered. During 130 days, and that too in a winter of unusual severity, the great city had held out with a courage that neither defeats, schisms, dearth of food, nor the bombardment directed against its southern quarters could overcome. Towards the close of January famine ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... and seeing it scarred by mighty fissures, displaying huge distortions of the beds in the crust, had argued that geological change had taken place by a series of mighty catastrophes. The tremendous results which they saw seemed to them only possible on the theory that unusual and gigantic displays of force had caused them. On the other hand, Hutton and Lyell attempted to find adequate explanation of the greatest changes in the slow forces which may be seen in operation at the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... interview was published Mrs. Coolidge awoke, possessed by an uneasy feeling that something unusual was taking place. They were living then in the ancient adobe "Governor's palace," with its four-foot walls and its eventful history ante-dating the landing at Plymouth Rock, and for a half-waking instant ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... Libye, "Libya added to the mortality of the army;" nulla cruentae tantum mortis habet; "no other reptile causes a death so bloody." To one so unhealthily familiar with the idea, the reality, when it came, seems to have brought unusual terrors. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... travellers or residents, came pouring in one great revulsive stream, back on their own country; and with them crowds of Italians and Spaniards. Our little island was filled even to bursting. At first an unusual quantity of specie made its appearance with the emigrants; but these people had no means of receiving back into their hands what they spent among us. With the advance of summer, and the increase ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... institutions and best adapted to them, then there will come a further difficulty in the working out of that great future which lies before the American nation. To my anxiety on this account you must please ascribe the unusual character ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... and painting, with visits to sick- rooms and to the house of mourning, during the early half of this year, left little time for correspondence. Her letters were few and brief; but they are marked, as was her life, by unusual quietness and depth of feeling. Her delight was still to speak in them a helpful and cheering word to souls struggling with their own imperfections, or with trials of the way. A single extract will illustrate the gentle ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... rose up immediately with her usual glad look, behind which lay a doubtful surmising as to his errand. It was on her lips to ask what had brought him down so early, but she was prudently silent. He came forward quick and quietly, according to his wont, not at all as if she were about anything unusual, and giving her one of those greetings which did sometimes betray the grave feeling he kept so well in hand, he brought her back to ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... Mr. Harrington Surtaine arrived, hardly less tempestuously than his predecessor. He did not even greet Bim as he passed through the gate, which was unusual; but ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... for here and there were pretty blue and red and yellow wild flowers. A moment I forgot being in The Desert. The abundance of the herbage arises from there having recently fallen copious showers of rain—quite unusual in this thirsty country. But our route is the worst and most desolate of all the routes from Ghadames to Ghat. The other parallel routes always afford more herbage, besides having some inhabited tracts, with flocks ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... down to the ships to-day to see her brother Okotook; she was accompanied by Arnalooa, and on their arrival they were both sent for into the cabin. We observed, however, that they required an unusual degree of solicitation to make them go near Okotook, or even to the side of the cabin, where he lay concealed by a screen; and, after all, they remained in the opposite corner next the door; and, having talked ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... both the chief of state and head of government head of government: President Fabian ALARCON Rivera (since 11 February 1997); Vice President Pedro AGUAYO (since 1 April 1998); note-the president is both the chief of state and head of government note: in an unusual, out of cycle change in executive power, Congress on 11 February 1997 elected then Congress President ALARCON to be Interim President until August 1998 after ousting former President BUCARAM because of "mental incapacity"; ARTEAGA remained vice president until March 1998 cabinet: ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... spoke but somewhat of what she had in her heart Better we think than most other couples do Compliment from my aunt, which I take kindly as it is unusual Did go to Shoe Lane to see a cocke-fighting at a new pit there Dined at home alone, a good calves head boiled and dumplings Every man looking after himself, and his owne lust and luxury Excommunications, ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger

... stress of spur at their best speed. Birds that could not sing found voice, and chattered and shrieked as they dashed from tree to tree in aimless flight. Enormous bats hurtled in the air, blinded by the unusual light. From the dense undergrowth strange denizens of the woods, disturbed in their nightly prowl, leaped forth and scurried squealing between the galloping hoofs, reckless of anything save their own fear. Everything that was alive upon the ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... had been a sort of flying lizard that had nested in the mysterious, almost inaccessible Red Lava Range. Every echindul had had two gizzard-stones, and each matched pair of stones had an unusual property. ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis

... in the mouth and throat, and is then a dangerous medium of infection. Unless these extra-genital sources of infection are borne in mind, there is a danger of failing to recognise the primary lesion of syphilis in unusual positions, such as the lip, finger, or nipple. When the disease is thus acquired by innocent transfer, it is known as ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... have a mysterious air. They are in human form, and yet they are unlike ordinary visitors. Their attitudes, the flowing of the robes, their gestures, all denote something unusual. While the three stand with outstretched hands as if encouraging and blessing their host, Sarah peeps through the open door and listens to the talk. A country landscape, such as may be seen in the vineyards of Italy, stretches away in the distance. ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... had innumerable proofs during those tempestuous days, and certain it is that the memory of a harmless joke, enjoyed under circumstances of unusual stress and trouble, grows sweeter and is strengthened ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... mankind as he who is sensible of the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure. Now, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not in that state succeed each other in accustomed order. But if the words by which this excitement is produced are in themselves powerful, or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... the house before him. Old Tikhon, wearing a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in a whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door. Tikhon knew that neither the son's arrival nor any other unusual event must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince Andrew apparently knew this as well as Tikhon; he looked at his watch as if to ascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at home last, and, having assured himself that they ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... prevent the enemy from realizing that the assault is about to take place. Bayonets must not be allowed to show. No increase in rate of artillery fire. No unusual movements must be made in the trenches, and there must be no indication of the impending assault until the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... suffered for a while from a great exhaustion. He had been terribly anxious, too, about his father, but a letter written just after the battle of Perryville, and coming through with unusual promptness by the way of Chattanooga and Richmond, had arrived the day before, informing him of Colonel Kenton's safety. In this letter his father had spoken of his meeting with Dick Mason in his home at Pendleton, and that also contributed to his new lightness of heart. Dick was not a ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... not long before they attracted sufficient attention, for they were two rather unusual looking figures to be engaged in such an occupation, to say nothing of the contrast between them; the weather-beaten, rugged, by no means handsome old sailor standing guard, as it were, over the daintily ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... great preponderance of Coleoptera over the other orders. Some European forms are common; and several species, as the weevil, apple aphis, slug, &c., have been introduced, and prove most injurious, as they increase with unusual rapidity. The domestic bee was brought to Van Diemen's Land from England by Dr. T. B. Wilson, R.N., in the year 1834; and so admirably does the climate of this island suit this interesting insect that in the first year sixteen swarms ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... far you are acquainted with England; "there is a wonderful lot of things to be seen in the island." Tells you all sorts of unusual places to go; how, somewhere in the north, you can walk along a Roman wall for ever so long, "a wonderful experience." Makes your head spin, he knows so much that you ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... why Scott published this strikingly original work anonymously; perhaps it was because of his unusual modesty, and the fear that he might lose the popularity he had already enjoyed as a poet. But it immediately placed him on a higher literary elevation, since it was generally suspected that he was the author. He could not altogether ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... publications of the city were tireless in their efforts to sustain the enterprise, and to set forth its unusual attractions. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... Bellefonds' he had the same sort of questioning and scrutiny to undergo, till he grew quite impatient under it, and betrayed a degree of temper altogether unusual to him. Then everybody looked astonished; some whispered their remarks, and others expressed them by their wondering eyes, till his brow knit, and his pallid cheeks became flushed with anger. Neither could he divert attention by eating; his parched mouth would not allow him to swallow ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... nature more good than they assign to it, but that there is more knowledge of what is good; not that men do better than these writers allege, but that they have a greater sense of what they ought to do. Those who maintain the absolute and unusual corruption of conscience may also be reminded of the remarkable differences which are admitted to exist in different men, and the manner in which moral feeling is gradually obscured or overpowered by a course of personal depravity. The facts are universally admitted ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... graphic capacity might have made him the poet of an Odyssey, a Sappho, or a Catullus, or, say! just such a poet as, just because he was so attractive, would have been disfranchised in the Perfect City; was become the creature of an immense seriousness, of a fully adult sense, unusual in Greek perhaps even more than in Roman writers, "of the weightiness of the matters concerning which he has to discourse, and of the frailty of man." He inherits, alien as they might be to certain powerful influences in his own temper, alike the sympathies and the antipathies of that strange, delightful ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... listened to more willingly, because of the trouble I and my family were in; while in the house, although we had never been anything else than a loving family, it was easy to discover that we all drew more closely together in consequence of our common anxiety. Previous to this, it had been no unusual thing to see Wynnie and Dora impatient with each other; for Dora was none the less a wild, somewhat lawless child, that she was a profoundly affectionate one. She rather resembled her cousin Judy, in fact—whom she called Aunt Judy, and with whom she was naturally a great favourite. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... of which a meadow lay softly stretched, like the lawn of an English garden. A number of evergreen hedges, defining irregular pieces of property which were planted with trees, gave to this carpet of verdure a character of its own, and one that is somewhat unusual among the landscapes of France; it held the teeming secrets of many beauties in its various contrasts, the effects of which were fine enough to arrest the eye of the most ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... is proud to put upon the market a book of such high value and dignity. It is quite unusual for the subscription book market to see such a princely book come into its midst. Here we have ten dollars worth of new ideas, packed into cream form, all for one dollar, and we positively assert that nothing like it can be found anywhere in literature. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden in his pocket, and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with. He, for his part, took a great draught of the wine, and spoke with the most unusual solemnity. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... nourished by the repeated accession of fresh soil, and the trench as it deepens serves the purpose of keeping the beds dry, and of carrying off the superfluous water. The potatoes are always rich and mealy, containing an unusual quantity of ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... out of the village," answered Miss Elting, the guardian of the party of young girls who were embarking on their summer's vacation under somewhat unusual circumstances. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... had to give him, or which could be extracted from the quipus (the records of knotted cord), and from the commemorative pictures of his ancestors. Garcilasso had access, moreover, to the "torn papers" of Blas Valera, an early Spanish missionary of unusual sense and acuteness. Christoval de Moluna is also an excellent authority, and much may be learned from the volume of Rites and ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... penny he possesses. And that is why so few purchasers are found in this market; they do not feel able or willing to pay down the impoverishing entrance-price. As a matter of fact, it is a very unusual thing to find a young man who has been so well taught about this market by his parents, his schoolmasters, or even by his ministers, that he is fit to enter early on its great transactions. And increasing years do not tend of themselves to reconcile ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... among those engaged professionally by aesthetic problems, who habitually and automatically distinguishes the genuine, from the imitation. He may doit now and then; he may even preen himself upon is on unusual discrimination; but given the right woman and the right stage setting, and he will be deceived almost as readily as a yokel fresh ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... The hour was too early for the train which was to be met, but a lighted candle would reveal the vigil, and moonlight on the meadows was attractive at eighteen. Gentlemen of soberer and maturer years might be incredulous, but surely it was not so strange or unusual for a lad, who indulged in visions of adventure, to find a moonlight walk by the river-side more inviting ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the United States after the Revolution thus passed through certain well-marked phases. First there was a short period of prosperity, owing to an unusual demand for American products; this was followed by a longer period of depression; and then came a gradual recovery through acceptance of the new conditions and adjustment ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... mounted to Magdalena's hair, as with an alertness of motion unusual to her, she shook ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... day of trial came, the court was crowded in a very unusual manner; and the publick appeared to interest itself, as in a cause of general concern. The witnesses against Mr. Savage and his friends were, the woman who kept the house, which was a house of ill fame, and her maid, the men who were in the room with Mr. Sinclair, and a woman of the town, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... commenced, giving the names of all the sons. But in this family of Canaan, after naming the two sons Sidon and Heth (who settled Sidon, Tyre and Carthage, and were white as is plainly shown) it breaks off abruptly to these ites. Why this suffix of ite to their names? It is extraordinary and unusual; there must be some reason, a peculiar reason for this departure from the usual mode or rule, of which this is the only exception. What does it mean? The reason is plain. The progeny of the horse and ass species is never classed with either its father or mother, but is called ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne

... appearance at dinner, and they sat down without him. This was not so very unusual as to cause surprise; he was occasionally detained at ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... determined to pay off the notes at once. Du Tillet gave Raoul a letter to Gigonnet, who counted out the money on a note of Nathan's at twenty days' sight. Instead of asking himself the reason of such unusual facility, Raoul felt vexed at his folly in not having asked for more. That is how men who are truly remarkable for the power of thought are apt to behave in practical business; they seem to reserve the power of their mind for their writings, and are fearful ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... take home!... Just what did Raymond mean by giving Kitty Allen a lock of his hair? And doing it before Missy herself—"Kitty, here's that lock I promised you"—just like that. Then he had laughed and joked as if nothing unusual had happened—only was he watching her out of the corner of his eye when he thought she wasn't looking? That was the real question. The idea of Raymond trying to make her ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... that, on the second day after the burning of the granary, they noticed the absence of all Indians from the vicinity of the fort. Scouts were sent to the Indian encampment to discover the cause of this unusual state of affairs, and they soon returned with the report that the place was wholly deserted, and that not an Indian was ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... till the 29th, when, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, there was an unusual stir about the kingbird castle. I saw that something had happened, and this must open a new chapter. But before beginning the chronicle of the kingbird babies, I should like to give my testimony about one member of the family. As a courteous and tender spouse, as a ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... an unusual amount of shipping at the Albany wharves as we glided in, and a great number of wagons and people scurrying about. In fact, I had never before observed such a bustle in Albany streets, but thought nothing of it at the moment, for I had not seen the town since war began. As the schooner ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... extracted it as an highly accredited narrative of supernatural dealings. The beds of the Commissioners, and their servants, were hoisted up till they were almost inverted, and then let down again so suddenly, as to menace them with broken bones. Unusual and horrible noises disturbed those sacrilegious intromitters with royal property. The devil, on one occasion, brought them a warming-pan; on another, pelted them with stones and horses' bones. Tubs of water were emptied on them in their sleep; and so many ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... salting-tubs, she came up again, carrying something in her apron. Quenu was just then cutting up a pig's fry. She waited till he had finished, talking awhile in an easy, indifferent fashion. But there was an unusual glitter in her eyes, and she smiled her most charming smile as she told him that she wanted to speak to him. She led the way upstairs with seeming difficulty, impeded by what she had in her apron, which was strained ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... to place the estate on the market, get the best possible return for it, and then with his shrewd business sense, prayerfully to place the proceeds where he felt they would help best the cause of Christ. And to a friend who expressed appreciation and approval of such unusual action, he quietly said, "I want no praise for this; if the poor Jew had to give one-tenth, surely a rich Christian can do very much more." That was what obedience, at ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... hair was brown. His features no more then comely: the brow full, the eyes wide apart and deep-seated, the lips rather thin, but expressive, the chin solid and square. It was a face of power, and capable of harshness; but relieved by an eye of unusual color, between hazel and gray, and wonderfully tender. In complexion he could not compare with Rosa; his cheek was clear, but pale; for few young men had studied night and day so constantly. Though but twenty-eight years of age, he was literally a learned physician; deep ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... which made home so satisfying at autumn dusk. Faint and far off he thought he could hear the lowing of his cow and calf. To remember they were exiled gave him the pang of the unusual. He was just chilled through, and therefore as ready for his own hearth as a long journey could have made him, when a gray thing loped past in the flinty dust, showing him sudden awful eyes and tongue of ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... saw Pete suddenly throw up his head and suspiciously sniff the air, at the same time sharply scanning the windward side of our camp. Living so long with this strange man made me familiar with his actions and quick to detect anything unusual and I now knew that something of interest had happened. To the windward and close by us was a mound thickly covered with bullberry bushes and underbrush, and so far as could be seen there was nothing suspicious in the appearance of the thicket. Fixing my eyes on Big Pete, I saw a peculiar expression ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... appeared everything that happy day! How bright the sunshine, even though but some pale wintry beams struggling through the cold gray sky; how nice everything they had to eat seemed—was it, perhaps, that the kind-hearted cook in her sympathy took unusual pains?—how Auntie smiled, nay, laughed right out, when Molly suddenly checked herself in saying something about what o'clock it was, forgetting that it was no longer a painful subject! How grateful they all felt ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... Miss Lake, and it is precisely for that reason that I have taken the liberty of waiting upon you, at what, I am well aware, is a somewhat unusual hour.' ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... elder brother, rather lacking in height, but his head and throat, and the manner of their rising from his shoulders, were truly beautiful, His colouring was unusual—the ivory pallor of his skin, the inky blackness of his densely thick hair, the heavy lids of his glowing eyes were all Oriental, and they gave a touch of mystery to his face when it fell into gravity—but there was ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... herself to exert her influence to induce the King to consent to the arrangement, for which service she was to receive one-fifth of the proceeds resulting from the tax. Extraordinary as such a demand must appear in the present day, it was, according to Sully, by no means an unusual one at that period; when, by his rigorous retrenchments, he had greatly reduced the revenues of the Court nobles, and put it out of the power of the monarch to bestow upon them, as he had formerly done, the most lavish sums from his own privy purse; thus inducing them to adopt every possible expedient ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... forefend suspicion of his motives, or else he did not think it necessary, or, worse still, did not care; and so his "high-handedness," as it had at first appeared to her, took sinister color from her unusual situation and his too easy advantage. Now she had about arrived at the comfortable conclusion that Steve Brown was simply one who saw what ought to be done ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... is named, both by the public and the company, the "Corridor Train," because a coach with a corridor is an unusual thing in England, and so the title has a distinctive meaning. Of course, in America, where there is no car which has not what we call an aisle, it would define nothing. The corridors are all at one side of the car. Doors open thence to little compartments made to ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... an unusual man, even for the northland. He was, above all other things, a creature of environment—and necessity, and of that something else which made of him at times a man with a soul, and at others a brute ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... also had a word to say. Her eyes were like brown beads, and her nose very long, which gave her indeed a hawk-like appearance, somewhat unusual in a woman; but her gravity was rather that ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... brought before Sir Elijah Impey and a jury composed of Englishmen. A great quantity of contradictory swearing, and the necessity of having every word of the evidence interpreted, protracted the trial to a most unusual length. At last a verdict of guilty was returned, and the Chief Justice pronounced sentence of death on ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... window to listen. Presently he caught the sound of voices shouting in a tongue with which he was unacquainted, followed by another sound, that of a boat being beached upon the shingle immediately below the Abbey. Now guessing that something unusual must have happened, Morris took his hat and coat, and, unlocking the Abbot's door, lit a lantern, and descended the cement steps to the beach. Here he found himself in the midst of ten or twelve men, most of them tall ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... either," Helen Cameron said. "But we'd better hear both sides of it. And a missing treasure box, and papers to prove that an old hunter is owner of an island in Tallahaska, sounds—well, unusual, ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... Sandy River) and of the Kentucky River. Thomas Hutchins in 1788, who became a Captain in the 60th Royal American Regiment of Foot, was appointed Geographer General under General Nathanael Greene and had unusual opportunity to observe geographically the vast wilderness beyond the Alleghenies. On his map the Kentucky River (where Boone was to establish a fort) was called the Cuttawa, the Green River was the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... Emily had again opened her soft eyes and assured her father that she was not much hurt, that any notice was taken of the very unusual fact of Edward ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... side shows a seated lady in a green dress, playing a lute left-handed. This most unusual position is probably not really intentional, but the drawing has accidentally been reversed. She is surrounded, like her companion with the hawk, by flower sprays, a thistle, cornflower, strawberries, ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport

... son of Rizal," sometimes referred to as occurring at Dapitan, has for its foundation the consequences of this accident. A sketch hastily penciled in one of his medical books depicts an unusual condition apparent in the infant which, had it regularly made its appearance in the world some months later, would have been cherished by both parents; this loss was a great and common grief which banished thereafter all distrust ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... Marschner's work. He is, it is true, not quite original and often reminds one of Weber, but that cannot well be called a fault, almost every genius having greater prototype. This opera was so long neglected on account of its libretto, the {342} subject of which is not only unusual, but far too romantic and ghastly for modern taste. It is taken from Lord Byron's tale of the same name and written by Marschner's own brother-in-law. The scene is laid in Scotland in the seventeenth ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... near, those on board watched these curious manoeuvres of the birds with feelings of interest. They saw, moreover, that the "trumpeter" had arrived among them, and the ducks seemed to take no notice of him. Lucien was struck with something unusual in the appearance of the swan. Its plumage seemed ruffled and on end, and it glided along in a stiff and unnatural manner. It moved its neck neither to one side nor the other, but held its head bent forward, until its bill almost touched the water, in ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... scented death afar off; for her the air was always tainted with ominous perfumes. Every unusual look or dubious word thrilled her with a sense of danger. Suspicion is the baleful instinct of self-preservation with which the devil gifts his children; and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... importance they should all be able to do so." Nothing like sails, said my friend the sailmaker; nothing like leather, says the shoemaker. I mentioned this shortly afterwards to one of my colleagues, himself an officer of unusual mathematical and scientific attainment. "No!" he exclaimed; "did ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... unusual expression, and others similar, as west-northerly, east-southerly, and east-northerly, which frequently occur in this voyage, are most probably the same with the usual expressions of west by south, west by north, east by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... impose on themselves as matter of duty. Of all methods of religious instruction, however, this, of reading for themselves, would be the most inefficient—their comprehension is defective, and the employment is to them an unusual and laborious one. There are but very few who do not enjoy other means more effectual for religious instruction. There is no place of worship opened for the white population, from which they are excluded. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... flock of sheep should lose their wool at shearing time. He came back intent, as was natural also, on being a Consul, and of carrying on the game of promotion and of plunder. But there came a spoke in his wheel—the not unusual spoke of an accusation from the province. While under accusation for provincial robbery he could not come forward as a candidate, and thus he was stopped ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... would naturally recollect anything of an unusual nature which might have taken place during the last few days, would ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... come to the surface a short way off, and look to the canoe, as if to see if she had done much mischief. It was a female, whose young one had been speared the day before. No damage was done except wetting person and goods. This is so unusual an occurrence, when the precaution is taken to coast along the shore, that my men exclaimed, "Is the beast mad?" There were eight of us in the canoe at the time, and the shake it received shows the immense power of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... with a brief discussion of Novalis. If I mention this poet in this connexion it is not because I desire to depreciate his genius, but because, possessing as he did, in a rare degree, depth of feeling and power of expression, he is an important witness of an unusual type. True, here and there his poems are reminiscent of Jacopone, but he is not sufficiently ingenuous, and is altogether too morbid to be classed with that ardent fanatic. He shares with Jacopone and other poets the yearning to grasp transcendental ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... sung. Yet the listening time was not quite over, for these were still the days of talk and story-telling. Life went at leisure pace. There was no hurry, there was no machinery. All sewing was done by hand, so when the ladies of a great household gathered to their handiwork, it was no unusual thing for one among them to lighten the long hours with tales read or told. Houses were badly lighted, and there was little to do indoors in the long winter evenings, so the men gathered together and listened ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... black and white spaniel, who was generally considered a fairly clever dog, but not suspected of possessing any unusual amount of knowingness. He never failed, when his master told him to get anything, to find it and lay it at his feet. If one glove was missing, and the other shown to him, he was sure to hunt about till ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... favour. He said at the same time, that he hoped I would make a friend of him in case of any difficulty which might occur in money matters, as I was, he thought, very young to manage for myself on a small salary. Knowing that I was necessarily at some unusual expense on my first arrival, he has frequently asked whether I wanted any assistance. I have always said, no; for I have been really well off. Mr Barker sent me up with ten pounds in my pocket, after my travelling expenses were paid, and this, with my quarter's salary, has been more than ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau

... squealing with terror, for the huge beast was making evident and desperate attempts to climb on board and join her fleeing owner. It was a rather complicated crisis even for a seaman, accustomed to splitting seconds in his battling with emergencies. An elephant, unusual element in marine considerations, lent ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... There was an unusual sensation of numbness in Steve's arms as he climbed back on to the wooden spells, and he knew that he had been motionless quite long enough; and he could not help feeling that if he had remained there another hour clinging to the icy shrouds he would not have been able to live. But the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... happened to Eunice Arton? Did that explain the reported disappearances of the several other girls? Did this ghostly activity have some rational purpose—the stealing of young white women, all of them of unusual beauty? The conclusion was forced upon us, and with it the whole affair took on a complexion shudderingly sinister. It was not a mere panic of the people with which Bermuda now had to cope—not merely an unexplainable supernatural visitation, harmless enough, ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... into youth, Alfred Wallace's extreme sensitiveness developed to an almost painful degree. He grew rapidly, and his unusual height made him still more shy when forced to occupy any prominent position amongst boys of his own age. During the latter part of his time at Hertford Grammar School his father was unable to pay the usual ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... three women. The first woman was always a high soprano; the second or third a contralto; the first man, always the hero of the piece, an artificial soprano. The second man might be an artificial soprano or a contralto. The third man might be a bass or tenor. But it was not at all unusual to confide all the male parts to artificial sopranos. Each principal character claimed the right to sing an aria in each of the three acts of the drama. Each scene ended with an aria of some one of the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... Joe eagerly and interestedly, even Helen. He did not seem to make any unusual preparations. He merely took a drink of what seemed to be water. Then he ignited something in the flame of the candle and placed the burning stuff in his mouth, seeming to chew ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... to be sure. He would have one ear that would catch an unusual voice, one eye that would open, however sleepy the other one was. She took him in her arms and kissed him, and she sang a sleepy song until the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... for perhaps five minutes after the chocolate was brought, toying with the spoon and the cup, a little consciously red in face, and saying never a word—an amount of reticence quite as unusual for her, as ice in summer. Bell Crawford made two or three remarks, and she answered them with "Ah!" and "Humph!" till the other pouted a little ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... by an intense sensation of playing for stakes, unusual, exciting, and of some personal importance. She did not pause to regard her attitude from any other point of view; she succumbed at once, not without enjoyment, to the necessity for diplomacy. Under its rush of suggestions her conscience was only vaguely restive. To-morrow it would ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... was as unconcerned as though he was on his return from some insect-hunting trip. His appearance was a bit unusual, though, ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... the School. Curious. Unusual, I should have thought, for a boy to be mixed up in an affair like this. Though I have ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... error to confuse the archaeologist with the mere collector of ignoble trifles, equally pleased with an unusual postage stamp or a scarce example of an Italian primitive. Nor should the impertinent curiosity of local antiquaries, which sees in every disused chalk-pit traces of Roman civilisation, be compared with the rare predilection requisite for a nobler pursuit. The archaeologist ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... sound from the sea, as if a large steamer were letting off steam by the shore, so that I caught my breath and felt my blood run cold for an instant, and I turned about, expecting to see one of the Atlantic steamers thus far out of her course; but there was nothing unusual to be seen. There was a low bank at the entrance of the Hollow, between me and the ocean, and suspecting that I might have risen into another stratum of air in ascending the hill, which had wafted to me only the ordinary roar of the sea, I immediately descended again, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... been offered all along in the midst of more sensational rumours. The Princess's health was rather delicate, and the Duchess of Kent had, on that account, got the King's sanction to her daughter's not being exposed to unusual excitement and fatigue. The statement on authority was unanswerable, but while it stilled one cause of apprehension it awakened another. After the untimely death of Princess Charlotte, the nation was particularly sensitive with regard to the health of the heir to the crown. Whispers began ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... the Board of Admiralty, for example, because the finances were in disorder, or the Board of Treasury because the foreign relations of the kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means unusual to see in high office, at the same time, men who avowedly differed from one another as widely as ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... able to observe all that passed around me, than during the few hours of bodily debility that succeeded my immersion in the Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat, but my mental faculties, instead of participating in this weakness, seemed sharpened to an unusual degree ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... with its heavy locks and shadowy eyebrows, for the god of the dead. The image of Persephone, then, as it is here composed, with the tall, tower-like head-dress, from which the veil depends—the corn-basket, [150] originally carried thus by the Greek women, balanced on the head—giving the figure unusual length, has the air of a body bound about with grave- clothes; while the archaic hands and feet, and a certain stiffness in the folds of the drapery, give it something of a hieratic character, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... was not an unusual one, and my safe was one of Marvin's best. I counted the money, which footed up into the thousands, placed it in the official envelope, affixed the seals, and deposited it in the safe. As I turned away from the lock, a voice at the ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... the ocean than the enemy, which is very far from the case. To build a navy that would overmatch that of Great Britain alone would not only cost untold millions, but it would require many years for its accomplishment; and even if this were done, there would be nothing unusual in an alliance of two or more powerful nations, which would leave us again in the minority. Fleets, then, cannot be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... is, its direct rays seem to be much less dangerous than in India or the eastern United States. Sunstroke is unusual, and one sees few people wearing, even in the tropical north, those hats of thick double felt or those sun-helmets which are deemed indispensable in India. In fact, Europeans go about with the same head-gear which they use in an English summer. ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... alarm about Mr. Tulliver's health; the symptoms did not recall his former dangerous attack, and it seemed only a necessary consequence that his violent passion and effort of strength, after many hours of unusual excitement, should have made him feel ill. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... The unusual circumstances attending the birth of John, notably the months of dumbness passed by the father and his sudden recovery of speech on the bestowal of the fore-appointed name, caused many to marvel and some to fear, as they asked: "What manner of child shall this be?" ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the Congress a surcharge of 6 percent on both corporate and individual income taxes—to last for 2 years or for so long as the unusual expenditures associated with our efforts in Vietnam continue. I will promptly recommend an earlier termination date if a reduction in these expenditures permits it. This surcharge will raise revenues ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson

... it?" Otto had sniffed something unusual in the atmosphere and was on the defensive. When there was only one to deal with he sometimes had his way; never when ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... more than budding into womanhood—fell happily into the ways of her new life. She did nothing that was elementally unusual, nothing more than any pure woman reared in the love of God and of a home would have done. In her spare hours she began to teach the half-dozen wild little children about the post, and every Sunday she told them wonderful stories out ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... the drawing-rooms first; and she admired the unusual loftiness of the rooms, the blaze of white and gold, and of ce'ladon and gold, and the great Russian lusters, and the mighty mirrors. But when they got to the dining-room she was enchanted. That lofty and magnificent salon, with its daring mixture ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... it was in the winter season, the heat became unusual. In the sky there was not a cloudlet, but the horizon's border ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... exceptional mystery, nor is man's helplessness an arbitrary and unprecedented phenomenon. It is the law of all Nature. The spiritual man is not taxed beyond the natural. He is not purposely handicapped by singular limitations or unusual incapacities. God has not designedly made the religious life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the spiritual life are the same as for the natural life. When, in their hours of unbelief, men challenge their Creator for ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... natural strength. By this sensuous, form-loving spirit of the age, working so widely and deeply, Dante, too, was largely swayed. With the eye of his imagination he seized objects so distinctly that he could reproduce them in sharp outline. Thence we see before us the most abstruse and unusual, drawn, as it were, after nature." In recognition of the same characteristic, Coleridge says, "In picturesqueness Dante is beyond all other poets, ancient or modern, and more in the stern style of Pindar than of any other. Michael Angelo is said to have made a design for every ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... her way to the small oblong of lesser darkness which indicated the open bulk-head doors, and felt better when she was in the free open darkness of outdoors. Wiggle, seeming to know that something unusual was happening, kept close ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... to his senses, he found himself lying still upon his face; and so bitter was his loneliness and grief, that he lay still and did not move. He was astonished, however, by the (as it seemed to him) unusual silence. The noise of the carriages had been deafening, and now there was not a sound. Was he deaf? or had the crowd gone? He opened his eyes. Was he blind? or had the night come? He sat right up, and shook himself, and looked again. The crowd was gone; so, for matter of that, was the coach; ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... several rafts, once so much talked of, constructed for the real, or ostensible purpose of conveying the invading legions of France, to the shores of Great Britain. I expected to have seen an immense floating platform, but the vessels which we saw, were made like brigs of an unusual breadth, with two low masts. The sincerity of this project has been much disputed, but that the french government expended considerable sums upon the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... ideas about rowing did not correspond at all with Collingwood's ideas?" said Tad Horner, with unusual gravity. "When Merriwell was captain of the freshman crew, he introduced the Oxford oar and the Oxford stroke. He actually drilled a lot of dummies into the use of the oar and into something like the genuine English stroke. Everybody acknowledged it was something marvelous, and one newspaper ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... situated on the rising ground on each side of the river. To Sir James Caldwell's. Crossing the bridge, stopped for a view of the river, which is a very fine one, and was delighted to see the salmon jump, to me an unusual sight; the water was perfectly alive with them. Rising the hill, look back on the town; the situation beautiful, the river presents a noble view. Come to Belleek, a little village with one of the finest water-falls I remember anywhere to have seen; ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... inveterate pains in the temples and other parts of the head, a tingling noise in the ear, a throbbing of the brain, especially of the temporal arteries—Symptoms of asthma, tickling coughs, visible inflations, and unusual scents affecting the olfactory nerves—Sometimes costive and sometimes relaxed—Sudden flushings of heat, and suffusions of countenance—In the night, alternate sweats and shiverings, especially down the back, which ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith

... the soil would bear the weight of the wagons after it was corduroyed with branches of trees. At one time bad roads caused a halt of two or three weeks. Fuel was not always abundant, and after a cold night it was no unusual thing to find wet garments and bedding frozen stiff in the morning. Here is an extract from Orson Pratt's diary:— "April 9. The rain poured down in torrents. With great exertion a part of the camp were enabled to get about six miles, while others were stuck fast in the deep mud. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... labour of boys under eighteen. They also objected to the evidence already reported as one-sided, and succeeded in procuring the appointment of a royal commission. This commission prosecuted its inquiries with unusual despatch, but its report was not in the hands of members on July 5, when the bill came on for its second reading. Though Althorp, unwilling to offend the manufacturing interest, pleaded for deliberation and urged that a select committee should ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... makes a rush at East and collars him; and that young gentleman, with unusual discretion, instead of kicking his shins, looks appealingly at ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... John's arrived a bit late, and surely his costume was the most unusual of any of the guests. Captain Atherton had seen the little suit in an antique shop in England. He had purchased it, believing that some such occasion as the present might occur, when the droll coat and trousers, ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks

... ordinary standard of what is understood by publication, it is probable that, in many cases, my own papers must have failed in reaching even this. For they were printed as contributions to journals. Now, that mode of publication is unavoidably disadvantageous to a writer, except under unusual conditions. By its harsh peremptory punctuality, it drives a man into hurried writing, possibly into saying the thing that is not. They won't wait an hour for you in a magazine or a review; they won't wait for truth; you may as well reason ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... carpenter, just as he was going to pronounce a fresh panegyric upon his favourite trigonometry, was interrupted by the sudden entrance of his little daughter Rosetta, all in tears: a very unusual spectacle, for, taking the year round, she shed fewer tears than any child of ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... solidly woven, of rather broad blades of grass, and long strips of fine fibrous bark, exteriorly more or less coated with cobwebs and gossamer-threads. Interiorly, fine grass-stems and roots are neatly and closely interwoven. I once found some horse-hair along with the grass-roots, but this is unusual. ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... up, propp'd—was much wasted—had lain a long time quiet in one position (not for days only but weeks,) a bloodless, brown-skinn'd face, with eyes full of determination—belong'd to a New York regiment. There was an unusual cluster of surgeons, medical cadets, nurses, &c., around his bed—I thought the whole thing was done with tenderness, and done well. In one case, the wife sat by the side of her husband, his sickness typhoid fever, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... to Stephen. That young gentleman had felt his belief in Pembury's authority somewhat shaken by this unusual mode of punishment, but the Fifth Form boy soon reassumed his ascendency. He produced from his pocket a paper, and thus addressed Stephen: "Dr Senior regrets that he should be absent at such an important time in the history of Saint Dominic's as the day of your arrival, Master Greenfield, but he ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... Crow, Esq., whose daughter had been her companion at Lenox. This gentleman proved himself a constant and encouraging friend, ordering her first statue from Rome, and helping in a thousand ways a girl who had chosen for herself an unusual work in life. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton



Words linked to "Unusual" :   eerie, grotesque, unique, fantastical, freaky, familiar, oddish, singular, fantastic, exotic, curious, peculiar, extraordinary, gothic, quaint, other, crazy, uncommon, eery, weird, queer, funny, different, rum, usualness, usual, rummy, unusualness, antic, odd, out-of-the-way, unaccustomed



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com