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Wear and tear   /wɛr ənd tɛr/   Listen
Wear and tear

noun
1.
Decrease in value of an asset due to obsolescence or use.  Synonym: depreciation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wear and tear" Quotes from Famous Books



... who had a contract with Andrews to transfer successes to the old Victoria Theater, blew up in one of his bankruptcies. The Jinx was again monarch of all he surveyed—and Monte-Cristo-like held up four fingers! That old "prompt book" mentioned shows the wear and tear of much use and is filled with odd notes in Allison's characteristic handwriting. No less interesting were the "Librettist's Notes on Characters in the Opera and the Business," dated October 21, 1897, and taken from an old letter-press copy that ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... from side to side, moved by the scarcely perceptible and glassy undulations which rose under our keels. The sails went flap-flap against the masts in the most senseless manner, till McAllister ordered them to be furled to prevent the wear and tear they were undergoing. As to the heat, I had never before felt anything like it in the tropics. We could have baked a leg of mutton almost, much more fried a beefsteak, on the capstan-head, while below a dish of apples might easily ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... charge. There are innumerable designs of each one of these parts, and no two makes are precisely alike in detail, as every maker employs his own method of achieving the same end, namely, the production of an engine which comprises maximum efficiency with a minimum of wear and tear and attention. ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman

... slavery,—a very small sect; and the political advocates of Secession, who, partly with full conviction, partly as a mere matter of unchallenged use and wont, repudiated slavery,—a very large sect. The Southern partisanship of the former sect was perfectly logical; that of the latter unable to stand the wear and tear of discussion, as the progress of events made it more and more manifest that slavery or abolition was the real issue. With this latter sect the political or other liking for the South was a much stronger and more active feeling than the humanitarian or other dislike of slavery; the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... primitive passions with the rest of mankind," he assured her. "We know what it is to be excited, even to be rowdy. The wear and tear of life perhaps touches us more lightly than in your Western cities. You see we are a ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... the limits of even his great strength and usually a little beyond such limits. It is, indeed, quite possible that he might have lived longer had he been free to stop at hotels in the South instead of undergoing the constant wear and tear of being entertained in the private homes of the all-too-kind hosts of his own race. All public men and lecturers, in a large way of business, learn early in their careers that they must decline practically all proffers of private hospitality if they ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... L.O. doth agree to take the said house (and garden) of the said R.A. for the term and rent payable in manner aforesaid; and that he will, at the expiration of the term, leave the house in as good repair as he found it [reasonable wear and tear excepted]. The said R.A. to be at liberty to re-enter, if any rent shall be in arrear for 21 days, whether such rent has been demanded or not. Witness our hands. R.A. L.O. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... vast amount of research in various special branches of science. A very noteworthy fact is that both the physical work and the mental work of this human engine are always accompanied by both physical and chemical changes in the structure of its machinery—corresponding to the wear and tear of non-living engines. It also presents certain sexual and spiritual phenomena that have a striking likeness to certain phenomena, especially wireless phenomena, to electricity and to radium. This human engine-battery ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... own crib I spread all the old canvas and old clothes I could pick up. For a pillow, I wrapped an old jacket round a log. This helped a little the wear and tear of one's bones when ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... element of uncertainty was always there, to be sure; and an inexplicable fascination; but no longer had we any desire to dig up the whole place immediately. I suppose we moved nearly as much earth, but the fibres of our minds were relaxed, and we did it more easily and with less nervous wear and tear. ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... beat blazes," stated "Sniffer" Orne, "what a messed up state all politics is in since this prim'ry business has put the blinko onto caucuses and conventions. Caucuses was sensible, Mr. Britt. Needn't tell me! Voters liked to have the wear and tear off 'em. Now a voter gets into that booth and has to caucus by himself, and he's either so puffed up by importance that he thinks he's the whole ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... If his military spirit was high, he chose the close and more exacting form; if it were low, he was content with the open and less exacting form. True, we are told that men of the latter school based their objections to close blockade on the excessive wear and tear of a fleet that it involved, but it is too often suggested that this attitude was no more than a mask for a defective spirit. Seldom if ever are we invited to compare their decisions with the attendant strategical intention, with the ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... month since your very welcome letter reached me. I had every inclination and every intention to answer it at once, but the wear and tear of incessant occupation (for your letter arrived in the midst of my busiest time) has, I will not say deprived me of the leisure, but of that tone of mind which one wants for writing a long letter. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... their heads over a basin of hot water, dabbing their aching eyes; none of us had much skin on our faces, and what little remained was of a patchwork description; none of us had shaved for days—we couldn't have stood the torture; and our clothes, too, were showing signs of wear and tear. We all now slept in our clothes, partly for the sake of warmth, and also to be in readiness in case of emergency. There we were, sitting or lying on our bedding, which was spread on the floor round the room, the latter divided, like all Chitrali houses, into loose stalls by ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... legs, is found to be so peculiarly pernicious to the nap of cloth? What could have made them worse for wear? Would a thoughtless world confound the influence of the all-embracing atmosphere, with the wear and tear proper to cloth habiliments? And then his linen—would a careless public refuse to take notice that not a single button was missing from the shirt, which, in general, had but one solitary button remaining—just one at the neck, probably fastened by his own hand? Above all, was it not noticeable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... unaccustomed toil of walking, and by exposure to the rain and the miry roads, that he felt it necessary to remain until the next morning. The aspect he presented was shabby and dilapidated in the extreme; for he was in his working dress, which by the wear and tear of travel had become greatly soiled and tattered. He was not a little mortified to find that the inhabitants of the cabin, while they treated him kindly, evidently regarded him with suspicion as ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... of Adam and Eve is evidently impossible. Yet, if not, the analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality. Nay, when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject, the wear and tear essential to life, the new generations intended to succeed and supplant the old,—so soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology, the reply is inevitable that death is no accident introduced ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... self-support and adjustment overbalance a hundred times any little remnant defects in its machinery or gearing. Easily ninety-nine per cent of all our troubles through life are due to inevitable wear and tear, scarcity of food-fuel, of water, of rest, and external accidents—injuries and infectious diseases. Still, it occasionally happens that these little defects may furnish the point of least resistance at ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... incoming dogs—all this punctuated, in spite of my utmost efforts at self-control, with memories of the effect of the delay at the "Big Lead" on my prospects in the previous expedition. Altogether, I think that more of mental wear and tear was crowded into those days than into all the rest of the fifteen months we were ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... Albany "Evening Journal," and the confidential adviser of Seward, wrote in favor of concessions; he declared that "a victorious party can afford to be tolerant;" and he advocated a convention to revise the Constitution, on the ground that, "after more than seventy years of wear and tear, of collision and abrasion, it should be no cause of wonder that the machinery of government is found weakened, or out of repair, or even defective." Frequently he uttered the wish, vague and of fine sound, but enervating, that the Republicans might "meet secession ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... is free in all the University classes, though each student has to pay a matriculation fee of $10, and the incidental expenses amount to about $23 annually. He is charged for material used or apparatus broken, but not for the ordinary wear and tear of instruments. It should be mentioned that the endowment of the Illinois Industrial University is from scrip received from the Government for 480,000 acres of land, of which 454,460 have been sold for $319,178. The real estate of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... speculations, Mr. Finn," he said, "will hardly bear the wear and tear of real life." The words of the answer, combined with the manner in which they were spoken, were stern and almost uncivil. Phineas, at any rate, had done nothing to offend him. The Duke paused, trying to find ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... of strong conversational powers, a black moire with an old-fashioned fan-waist. Flowers, too badly imitated to deserve the name of artificial, give a gloomy aspect to a head of hair which the chambermaid has carelessly arranged. Caroline's gloves have already seen wear and tear. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... weeks or even months, "and yet a pint of beef tea contains scarcely 1/4 oz. of anything but water,"—the result is so striking that he asks what is its mode of action? "Not simply nutrient—1/4 oz. of the most nutritive material cannot nearly replace the daily wear and tear of the tissues in any circumstances. Possibly," he says, "it belongs to ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... perfection of form, the deep repose and circle-like completeness of the work of art, tend to prevent one from seeking a corresponding real experience, which would have none of these qualities, but perhaps only misery and wear and tear instead. Thus the work of art may propagate itself in a search for new aesthetic experiences rather ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... season—this, which would doubtless be a great enjoyment to some people, is a perfect terror to me. I should highly prize the advantages to be gained in an extended range of observation, but I tremble at the thought of the price I must necessarily pay in mental distress and physical wear and tear. But you shall have no more of my confessions—to you they ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... an individual is required, there is likely to be a requisition on the individual's services. Montezuma Moggs understood how to "skulk;" and we all comprehend the fact that to "skulk" judiciously is a fine political feature, saving much of wear and tear to the body corporate. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... ash is splendid for burning: "The ash when green is fuel for a Queen." Later, when I adopted a Kentish system of hop-growing on coco-nut yarn supported by steel wire on heavy larch poles, our visits to the woods were less frequent, and much wear and tear of horses and waggons was saved. Some of our journeys, in the earlier days, took us to the estate of the Duc d'Aumale, on the Worcester side of Evesham, where some excellent ash poles were grown. In one lot of some thousands I bought, every pole had a crook in it ("like ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... rights in full, however unjustly awarded to him. I must suffer for my ignorance of legal technicalities. Mortifying as this is it is better, perhaps, to suffer it with a good grace and even with cheerfulness, if possible, rather than endure the wear and tear of the spirits which a brooding over the gross fraud occasions. An opportunity of setting ourselves right in regard to him may be not far off in the future. Till then let us stifle at least all outward expressions of disgust or indignation ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... Prague, Vienna, and Pesth, you have probably heard from others. Although I have no reason to complain, I am very glad that they are over, and that I may stop at home again; for I must candidly confess that the wear and tear connected with similar occasions is very unpleasant to me, and becomes almost unbearable if it lasts more than ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... goes, I could run a seine through Ostable County any day in the week and load a schooner with honest folks; and there wouldn't nary one of 'em have cash enough to pay for the wear and tear on the net. Honesty's good policy, maybe, but it takes hard ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... portion of the country, named Aughamuran, which lay in a southern direction from it. One of them was a farmer, of middling, or rather of struggling, circumstances, as was evident from the traces of wear and tear that were visible upon a dress that had once been comfortable and decent, although now it bore the marks of careful, though rather extensive repair. He was a thin placid looking man, with something, however, of a careworn expression in his features, unless when he smiled, and then his face ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... a windy hill, lie a little grey church and a quiet churchyard. At all seasons high winds from the North Sea blow over the graves and fret and eat away the soft grey sandstone of which the plain headstones are made. So great is the wear and tear of these winds that comparatively recent monuments look like those which have stood for centuries. On one of these stones lies a recumbent figure, with what looks not unlike a lance clasped in the hand and laid across the breast. Involuntarily ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... life he had been as active as a hunter of the chamois, and the hardy exercise of his frame counteracted the effects of a restless and ardent mind. The change from an athletic to a sedentary habit of life—the wear and tear of the brain—the absorbing passion for knowledge which day and night kept all his faculties in a stretch; made strange havoc in a constitution naturally strong. The poor author! how few persons understand; and forbear with, and pity ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... an occasion such as this that Borrow yearned for a son to knock the rascal down. He was an infirm man, his body feeling the wear and tear of the strenuous open-air life he had led. In 1879, according to Mrs MacOubrey, he was "unable to walk as far as the white gate," the boundary of his estate. He was obviously breaking- up very rapidly. The surroundings appear to have reflected ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... more consequence, the pleasing satisfaction of not being disconcerted by novelty on his awakening. It is possible that the waiter who brought him the water to shave, for Rip's beard, we are told, had grown uncommonly long—might exhibit a little of that wear and tear to which humanity is liable from time; but had he questioned him as to the ruling topics—the proper amusements of the day —he would have heard, as he might have done twenty years before, that there was a meeting to convert ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever

... another has written, "none of our lives are dated by years; the wear and tear of heart and brain, to say nothing of the ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... lead to. In and near the towns every other man, if not by profession still by practice, is a beggar. From the seedy-looking rascal in the street, of whom you incautiously ask the way, and who piteously whines 'para zapatos' - for the wear and tear of shoe leather, to the highest official, one and all hold out their hands for the copper CUARTO or the eleemosynary sinecure. As it was then, so is it now; the Government wants support, and it is always to be had, at a price; deputies always ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... three dollars at the end of each week, and to board and clothe myself, and buy my own calking tools. A failure in any of these particulars would put an end to my privilege. This was a hard bargain. The wear and tear of clothing, the losing and breaking of tools, and the expense of board, made it necessary for me to earn at least six dollars per week, to keep even with the world. All who are acquainted with calking, know how uncertain and irregular ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... has such a reputation for beauty that it is almost unfair to expect her to live up to it. I once ventured to say that the Alps must be greasy with being climbed, and it says much for such stock pieces in nature's repertoire, that, in spite of all the wear and tear of sentimental travellers, the mock-admiration of generations, the batteries of amateur cameras, the Riviera, the English lakes, the Welsh mountains, the Highlands of Scotland, and other tourist-trodden ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... more of that jarring and straining of our moral faculties, of which much is unavoidable in the existing complex condition of affairs, but of which the less the better. At present the tug of professed principles in one direction, and of necessary practice in the other, causes the same sort of wear and tear in our moral gear as is caused to a steam-engine by continually reversing it when it is going it at full speed. ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... The fierce wear and tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... insisting upon going to sea in a yacht without preparations for landing anywhere in particular. Pope seems to have been specially attracted by such men, with intellects as restless as his own, but with infinitely more vitality to stand the consequent wear and tear. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... impression that the Jew is being absorbed by other races. We hear much of relaxing Judaisms; of rituals and beliefs assimilating to those around them; of peculiarities being laid aside, that have withstood the wear and tear of centuries. The inference is sought to be drawn that the Jew is beginning to feel his isolation, and to sink his own national life amid that among which he dwells. We accept all the facts; but can only see in them that, under the influence of the profound thought and research ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown

... construction, it may be simply a matter of calculation with him who needs them, to calculate the first cost of any material he has at hand, or may obtain, and to that add the interest upon it, the annual wear and tear, the insurance, and the period it may last, to determine this matter to his entire satisfaction—always provided he have the means at hand to do either. But other considerations generally control the American farmer. His pocket is apt more often to be pinched, than his choice ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... occasional token of the wear and tear to which it was subjected. Then Hiram would intermit his labor; would ride farther and sharper of a morning; would subject himself to an extra amount of friction. Presently the brain would work bravely on again, as of yore, just the same—exactly ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... not find, do we not find, my friends, in practice, that our Lord's words are true? Who are the people who get through most work in their lives, with the least wear and tear, not merely to their bodily health, but to their tempers and their characters? Are they the anxious people? Those who imagine to themselves possible misfortunes, and ask continually—What if this happened—or that? What would become of me then? How should I be able to pull through such ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... by the natives are called reindeer sleds because made especially for use when driving deer. They are close to the ground, and very strongly built, as they could not otherwise stand the wear and tear of such "rapid transit." Side rails are put on, but no high handle-bar at the back, and when a load is placed upon the sled it is lashed securely on with ropes or thongs made of seal or walrus hide; otherwise there would be no load before the ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... by the difference of pressure moved the piston in a working cylinder. In this arrangement the furnace was inefficient. As only a small portion of heat reached the compressed air, the loss by radiation was very great, and the wear and tear exceedingly heavy. This system, with some modifications, was revived by Rankine, Ericsson, Laubereau, Ryder, Buckett, and Bailey. Siemens employed a similar system, only substituting steam for air. Another system, originally proposed by Sir George ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... was delightful to speculate as to what doughty warriors might have been sheltered beneath it; and to imagine that sundry small rents and patches must be the result of the enemy's fire, and not due to the wear and tear ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... men, more all-absorbing, all-identifying, and selfish men. It is a universe in which a human being is duly born, given place with such a self as he happens to have, and he is expected to grow up to it. Barring a certain amount of wear and tear and a few minor rearrangements on the outside, it is the same universe that it was in the beginning, and is now and always will be quite the same universe, whether a man grows up to it or not. The larger universe is not one that comes with the telescope. It comes ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... "does not apply to me, for I always go well dressed and never patched; ragged I may be, but ragged more from the wear and tear ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... that though shewy and apt to catch the eye, they are of a flimsy and perishable fabric, not of that less gaudy but more substantial and durable texture, which, imparting permanent warmth and comfort, will long preserve its more sober honours, and stand the wear and tear of life, and the vicissitudes of seasons. It has been shewn, that these qualities often fail us when most we want their aid; that their possessors can solace themselves with their imaginary exertions in behalf of ideal ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... trying!' said Mrs. Alicumpaine. 'John has lately been speculating in the peg-top ring; and I often say to him at night, "John, IS the result worth the wear and tear?"' ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens

... (650,000 out of 39,000,000). The history of the rise and decline of the Huguenot movement is a melancholy record of persecution and of heroism. How great the number of martyrs was can never be known accurately. Apart from St. Bartholomew there were several lesser massacres, the wear and tear of a generation of war, and {230} the unremitting pressure of the law that claimed hundreds of victims ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... hours; hardly recognizing the reality of her own situation, or that the sloop, Winthrop's walk behind her, the moonlight, her lonely seat on the deck, and her truly lonely place in the world, were not all parts of a curious phantasm. Or if realizing them, with senses so tried and blunted with recent wear and tear, that they refused to act and left her to realize it quietly and almost it seemed stupidly. She called it so to herself, but she could not help it; and she was in a manner thankful for that. She would wake up again. She would have liked to sit there all ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... world, and as every animal must contribute in kind to the picnic of the universe, one does not see what better arrangement could be made than the providing each race with a hereditary fallacy, which shall in the end get it into a scrape, but which shall generally stand the wear and tear of life for some time. "Do ut des" is the writing on all flesh to him that eats it; and no creature is dearer to itself than it is to some other that would ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... wearing of arms, except on occasion, unnecessary; you are careful of your weapons, avoid wear and tear for them, and put them away for use when the time comes; but the bodies of your youth you keep at work even when no danger presses; you knock them about and dissolve them in sweat; instead of husbanding their ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... it if you increased offer to ten million dollars, and would promise to return it within two years, in good repair, fair wear and tear alone excepted. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various

... nervous disturbance and the intense depression which followed the winning of a liberty too dearly bought. The incessant rising and quelling of her impulse and her courage—like the ebb and flow of tides—represented a vast amount of force not merely wasted, but expended in producing a dangerous wear and tear upon the system. The process told upon her health, and was the beginning of the weakening and unbalancing of the splendid constitution which Hadria, in common with every member of the family, enjoyed as a birthright. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... boiling water several times before retiring. If you keep this up long enough it will be breakfast time, and you may then go about your daily labor with the happy consciousness that you have saved the bed clothes a great deal of wear and tear. ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... any penalty harsher than a well-mannered figure of speech. To serve as a deterrent, the penalty must strike the point where vests the discretion; but servile use and wont is still too well intact in these premises to let any penalty touch the guilty core of a profligate dynasty. Under the wear and tear of continued war and its incident continued vulgarisation of the directorate and responsible staff among the pacific allies, the conventional respect of persons is likely to suffer appreciable dilapidation; but there need be no apprehension of ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... for the "Cavalry Corps" which Hooker had organized; but, owing to the wear and tear of Stoneman's raid, General Hooker thought our cavalry weak to cope with the enemy, if their numbers as reported were correct. He decided, however, to send General Pleasanton with all the cavalry to attack Stuart, "stiffened," as he expressed ...
— History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. • Daniel Oakey

... persistently; yet, on the other hand, she was convinced that Adela had been so deeply shocked by the revelations of Hubert's wickedness that her moral nature would be in arms against her lingering inclination. After much mental wear and tear, she decided to adopt the strong course of asking Alfred's assistance. Alfred was sure to view the proposed match with hearty approval, and, though he might not have much influence directly, he could in all probability secure a potent ally in the person ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... declared that her daughter should not stay in town to meet the young couple, and Honora's resistance was not so much dignity, as a feverish spirit of opposition, which succumbed to her sense of duty, but not without such wear and tear of strained cheerfulness and suppressed misery, that when at length her mother had brought her away, the fatigue of the journey completed the work, and she was prostrated for weeks by low fever. The ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... has presented me with one pair of excellent marching-boots. But a hospital ward is no place in which to go clumping about in footgear designed to stand hard wear and tear on the high-roads; and my army boots, after two years, have not yet needed re-soling. I wore them, it is true, during my period of service with the Chain Gang, as a squad of outdoor orderlies, engaged in road-making, was locally called. ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... leaned over toward him, "wouldn't it have saved wear and tear if you'd told me at the first that you knew Skeels couldn't ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... to his mind. And then consider more closely the quatrefoils, small in themselves, which are yet far larger than the details which surround them. The best known is one that has suffered terribly in the wear and tear of nearly six centuries. It is the famous bas-relief of the hooded pig playing on a violin, a motive which recurs at Winchester and in York Minster. Its fingers are placed so accurately upon the bow that the method of ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... Sisters, and if 'tain't no use, why there's no more to be said. Josey Letherbarrow was for walkin' up to the Manor an' seein' Miss Vancourt herself, as soon as iver she gets within her own door,—but Lord love ye, he'd take 'arf a day to jog up there on such feet as he's got left after long wear and tear, an' there ain't no liftin' 'im into a cart nohow. Sez he to me: 'I'll see the little gel wot I used to know, and I'll tell 'er as 'ow the Five Sisters be chalked, an' she'll listen to me—you see if she don't!' I was rather took with the idee myself, but I sez, sez I: ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... who move systematically and inhabit the moving-man's great trundling house no less than four to six times a year. I am not sure, however, that we ever really earned the title. The true "van-dweller" makes money by moving and getting free rent, while I fear the wear and tear on our chattels more than offset any advantage we ever acquired in this ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine

... hurricanes, which we have braved for twenty-one months without losing mast or yard."[237] It must be admitted, however, that the strain was tremendous both on men and ships, and that many English officers found in the wear and tear an argument against keeping their fleets at sea off the enemy's coast. "Every one of the blasts we endure," wrote Collingwood, "lessens the security of the country. The last cruise disabled five large ships and two more lately; several of them must ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... would have happened if it had! I and my neighbours are by a special concession permitted to have water from the Folkestone source. By incessant vigilance we do, I believe, usually succeed in deducting the Folkestone water rate from the Sandgate general rate which covers water, but the wear and tear is enormous. However, these are details, dear to my heart, but the merest marginal comments to my argument. The essential fact is the impracticable silliness of these little divisions, the waste of men, the waste of nervous energy, the waste of administrative energy ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... himself to please finds, sooner or later, and probably sooner than later, that he has got a very hard master; and the excessive weakness which shrinks from responsibility has its own punishment too, for where great interests are excluded little matters become great, and the same wear and tear of mind that might have been at least usefully and healthfully expended on the real business of life is often wasted in petty and imaginary vexations, such as breed and multiply ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... sometimes last two hundred years. We read that one of them outlived seven bishops. They have a quiet life and no wear and tear upon their nervous system. Yet they, after a while, notwithstanding all their glow travel, reach the end of their journey. For the last time they draw their head inside their shell and shut out the world for ever. But notwithstanding the useful thoughts ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... delicately that subtle message of peace, prosperity, and leisure which is part of the mission of a good cigar. The pleasantness of the wide, cool piazza, with its flowers and vines and gay awnings; the charm of the summer morning, not yet dulled by wear and tear of the day; the steady, deliberate dash of the waves on the beach below; the play and shimmer of the big, quiet water, stretching out to the edge of the world; all this filled their minds, rested their souls. There was no need for words. The Bishop sighed comfortably as he pushed ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... my contention that Dr. Hort took wrongly Conflation for the reverse process? That in the earliest ages, when the Church did not include in her ranks so much learning as it has possessed ever since, the wear and tear of time, aided by unfaith and carelessness, made itself felt in many an instance of destructiveness which involved a temporary chipping of the Sacred Text all through the Holy Gospels? And, in fact, that Conflation at least as an extensive process, if not altogether, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... nearly dead from the bother of it. In Germany they raise their hats and rise to their feet every time you pass, even if you pass every seven minutes, and when the time comes for you to go, you have to pay for the wear and tear of these hats. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... brush the former and furl the latter prior to going out. The hat was not of that uniform and glossy smoothness which one could see into to shave, and the umbrella was weather-beaten of aspect. The morning coat, though well cut, was shiny at the seams. Yet, in spite of the wear and tear of his outer gear, with so unmistakably thoroughbred a look was their wearer stamped that it seemed he might have worn anything. Many a man would have looked and felt shabby in this long service get-up; this one never ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... rocks (many of them are stratified, water-laid deposits) in the depths of the ocean? How many more to twist and bend them and raise them to their present height? And what inconceivably long persistence of the wear and tear of frost and snow and torrent has it required to excavate in their hard bosoms these deep, broad valleys thousands of feet below us, and to leave these strangely moulded mountain peaks still high above us? And that beauty of the sun-lit ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... "Yes, but wear and tear comes from desire, Mr. Jason," I said. "And the germ knocks that out. So what is left, ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... Which were carried on the shoulders of slaves. This prohibition had for its object either to save the wear and tear in the narrow streets, or to pay respect to the liberties of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... be deducted from his gross returns to cover the working expenses of his love-affairs? And even when we do not go about it in such cold blood, our art—is it not woven of our pain and our passion, our "emotions recollected in tranquility"? Do these emotions cost us nothing? Do they not "wear and tear" our system, justifying us in writing off 5 per cent. for depreciation in our machinery? Countless are the problems that arise out of this new view of authorship as an exact trade. Scientifically ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... soup-plate in her hand, but your mother-in-law! I werily believe there was change for a couple o' suv'rins in it, then, Sammy, all in ha'pence; and as the people come out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you'd ha' thought that no mortal plate as ever was baked, could ha' stood the wear and tear. What d'ye think ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... to you!" persisted the Senior Surgeon. "From the very first day you belonged to me I've been a—beast to you,—venting brutally on your youth, on your sweetness, on your patience,—all the work, the worry, the wear and tear, the abnormal strain and stress of my disordered days—and years,—and I've let my little girl vent also on you all the pang and pain of her disordered days! And because in this great, gloomy, rackety house it seemed ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... tie and white waistcoat. He was, as usual, perfectly groomed and immaculate. He had what she could only describe to herself as an everyday air about him. He seemed entirely free from any mental pressure or the wear and tear of great events. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... superstitious at Rome. In a chapel near the Church of St. John Lateran are, as is well known, the marble steps which once belonged to Pilate's house, and which the Saviour is said to have ascended when he went to trial before Pilate. The steps are protected against the wear and tear of devotion by a stout casing of wood, and they are constantly covered with penitents, who ascend and descend them upon their knees. Most of the pious people whom I saw in this act were children, and the boys enjoyed it with a good deal of ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... goods and passenger traffic, they are by no means inefficient. The movement of the troops, their extra pay, the supplies at the end of a long line of communications, the ammunition, the loss by wear and tear of uniforms and accoutrements, the correspondence, the rewards, all cost together less than a million sterling; and for that million Egypt ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... the book is as good as could be expected, after six hundred years of wear and tear. Each leaf, here and there defective, is carefully mounted on sheets of stiff paper, and all together very few characters are really illegible, though sometimes the paper has slipped upon the printing-block, and has thus given, in several cases, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... give himself a proper chance, but lives too fast.' Yet those men would all be reposing of themselves compared with me. It stands to reason. It could not be otherwise. And for why? Because a murderer lives other men's years in one of his minutes—and the wear and tear on him is more than the Derby Race-Course, the Houses of Parliament, and the Stock Exchange all rolled into one crowd would ever feel if they went on exciting themselves from now to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... it is, you're making a devil of a row about nothing. I worked like a horse all last year, and you know it. Now I'm resting, or loafing, if you prefer to call it that, and"—he bit off the words and fairly threw them at his friend—"it will save you and Epstein and Haxon a lot of mental wear and tear if you will mind your own business and ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... at one or other of the Killingworth collieries. In a short time, he entered into a small contract with his employers for "brakeing" the engines; and in the course of this contract, he invented certain improvements in the matter of saving wear and tear of ropes, which were both profitable to himself and also in some small degree pointed the way toward his future plans for the construction of railways. It is true, the two subjects have not, apparently, much in common; but they are ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... freight and sat back on their haunches and took their profit. For every ton he hauled he slipped 'em ten round American dollars, stamped with the Goddess of Liberty. Oh, it was soft! When they had him fairly tied up they dry-docked their steamboats, to save wear and tear. He paid 'em a thousand dollars a day for three years. If that ain't blackmail, it's a first ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... '80. MY DEAR HOWELLS,—Am waiting for Patrick to come with the carriage. Mrs. Clemens and I are starting (without the children) to stay indefinitely in Elmira. The wear and tear of settling the house broke her down, and she has been growing weaker and weaker for a fortnight. All that time—in fact ever since I saw you—I have been fighting a life-and-death battle with this infernal book and hoping to get done ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and the number of plum puddings and the amount of Welsh rarebit he devours annually would send the best of us to his grave in half that time. We have not enough constitutional inertia and stolidity; our climate gives us no rest, but goads us day and night; and the consequent wear and tear of life is no doubt greater in this country than in any other on the globe. We are playing the game more rapidly, and I fear less thoroughly and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... Devilshoof said to Thaddeus: "It is time for us to be off, while our soldier friends are enjoying the hunt. Only you lie around here while we explore a little; this gipsy life means a deal of wear and tear, if a fellow would live. There is likely to be something worth picking up about the castle, and after we have done the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... bred (I became more and more persuaded of his resemblance to my confessor)—he was a true son of Rome; when he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... in course of time can doubtless be made good. But lack of lubricating oils and the prodigious wear and tear of the war, not compensated by normal repairs, had already reduced the German railway system to a low state of efficiency. The further heavy losses under the Treaty will confirm this state of affairs for some time to come, and are a substantial aggravation ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... long queue of cars waiting to get through as we drew up. Once "across the Rubicon" we sped through the town and in time came to Furnes with its quaint old market place. Already the place was showing signs of wear and tear. Shell holes in some of the roofs and a good many broken panes, together with the general air of desertion, all combined to make us feel we were near the actual fighting line. We learnt that bombs had been dropped there only that morning. (This was early in ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... to you! Marks, grim and ghastly marks of those years of wear and tear, which the sunlight, that remorseless trier of woman's looks, makes quite apparent. What evidence of irritability, of discontent, and general disappointment and disgust with everything and all things, is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... by far the most popular of all the contributions to Patty's album, and as numerous girls from other classes asked to look at the crocodile picture, the book was in danger of too much wear and tear, and at Miss Harper's suggestion it was placed temporarily in the school museum, so that everybody might have a chance of seeing it, yet it should be safe from careless hands. Enid was, of course, asked after this to compose so many poems for so many ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... village inn desired to be driven on to the famous manufacturing establishment in the neighbourhood. He was an elderly man, but vigorous yet, of the sort of frame both of mind and body which holds out a tough resistance to life's wear and tear. That such he had seen, his somewhat set face, overhanging brows, and keen, unrestful eyes, bore witness. The brows were particularly drawn together to-day, and the eyes critical, almost suspicious, in ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... and do so many other bits of trade to advantage. The thing works like the handle of a pump; and then it makes a right good place for raising young niggers, and gettin' old uns trimmed up. With me, the worst thing is that old screwdriver, M'Fadden, what don't care no more for the wear and tear of a nigger than nothin', and drives 'em like as many steam-engines he thinks he can keep going by feeding on saw-dust. He han't no conception o' nigger constitution, and is just the worst sort of a chap that ever cum south to get a fortune. Why, look right ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... land postal-service (veredarii) by excursions up and down the channel of the Padus. There is no fear of your limping; you walk with your hands. No fear of your carriages wearing out; they travel over liquid roads, and suffer no wear and tear because they are borne along upon the wave which itself ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... made in our civil war was in the mode of recruitment and promotion. When a regiment became reduced by the necessary wear and tear of service, instead of being filled up at the bottom, and the vacancies among the officers filled from the best noncommissioned officers and men, the habit was to raise new regiments, with new colonels, captains, and men, leaving the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... work, it will probably never be superseded. Recognizing its importance, the publishers have given it faultless form. The typography leaves nothing to be desired, the paper is calculated to stand wear and tear, and the work is at once handsomely and attractively bound."—New ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... mining districts; and the natural consequence will be the diminished use of silver as a circulating medium, and the increased employment of gold, the more so as the supply of the latter metal has of late years been greatly augmented—a great deal now coming from Asiatic Russia—while its wear and tear are very small. This change would not arise from a scarcity of quicksilver, the quantity and quality of which, at Almaden at least, improve as the miners get deeper into the vein; and, moreover, the portion extracted is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... before the chalk was deposited. Nor have we any reason to think that the first term in the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-beds preserved to us are sands, and mud, and pebbles, the wear and tear of rocks which were formed ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... 12, and, without strain or danger, is brought to the wind on the opposite tack. Many deep-thinking seamen, and Lords St. Vincent, Exmouth, and Sir E. Owen, issued orders to wear instead of tacking, when not inconvenient, deeming the accidents and wear and tear of tacking, detrimental to ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... state. In a few cases it may be so; in most it is certainly otherwise. Either the building was not there, or what we now behold is part of a reconstruction or an enlargement. Fire, flood, earthquake and the wear and tear of time called for many a rebuilding or restoration. In the very year upon which we have fixed, there swept over all this part of the city perhaps the most disastrous fire that it ever experienced. Another ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... early Celtic period of the Church have long since disappeared. Their clay and wattles could not withstand the wear and tear of time; only in a distant glen or lonely island can we discover scattered traces of the beehive cell or simple shrine of the anchorite or missionary. Few relics of the more substantial structures of ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... father. "The specifications are forwarded to the works, and the engineers make their estimates of the actual cost of labor and material. These estimates are sent to us here, and we add whatever we think best for interest, and for expenses, for wear and tear, and for profit." ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... contained 14.1 grammes of nitrogen 89.3 proteid, which was gradually diminished. On the 7th day 11.6 g. N. 73.5 g. proteid was reached; during this time less N. was eliminated, indicating that the proteid food was in excess of that required for the wear and tear of the body. As the quantity of nitrogenous food was diminished almost daily, the N. eliminated was found to diminish also. This latter was in slight excess of that absorbed; but when a day or ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan

... encourages hope. The present time is the precious time. Live for the passing day: the passing day is all that we can be sure of. You suggested, just now, that I should ask my son if he was engaged to be married. How do we know what wear and tear of your nervous texture I succeeded in saving when I said. 'Wait till Philip mentions it without asking?' There is the personal application of my system. I have explained it in my time to every woman ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... should have given much care to the correction of copies, if made by others. The copies exclusively in the hands of Heminge and Condell were, it is manifest, in some cases, very imperfect, whether we account for the fact by the burning of the Globe Theatre or by the necessary wear and tear of years, and (what is worthy of notice) they are plainly more defective in some parts than in others. "Measure for Measure" is an example of this, and we are not satisfied with being told that its ruggedness of verse is intentional, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... his way smooth on purpose to effect our union. His arguments were perhaps not very logical, but they almost convinced me of what I wished to believe. I was willing to bear the anger of my family, but could not think of again undergoing the wear and tear of separation. I promised to let him know my decision early the next morning; I think I should have gone with him, but that evening we were telegraphed to return to Washington—my father had been stricken down by apoplexy; and my brother and I went home in the night train. Edward knew the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... temples, but in steel rails, had gone on at once to his concession, or contract, or whatever else it was, on the north-east frontier, leaving his wife to follow and rejoin him in the Himalayas as soon as she had exhausted the sights of India. So, after a few dusty weeks of wear and tear on the Indian railways, we met him once more in the recesses of Nepaul, where he was busy constructing a light local line for ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... the cost of constructing docks to accommodate the Atlantic liner, and when once completed the cost of maintenance is small when weighed against the amount annually expended in dredging and making good the wear and tear of ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... do his narrowness of knowledge, asperity of temper, and susceptibility to superstition. He must be judged by the mind of his times, not by modern standards. We give some of his strong opinions that have not borne the wear and tear of later ages; but they are more than balanced by teaching what is beautiful, as well as true. Luther died ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... comes usually the desire to live in more expensive houses, and to furnish the same with more costly furniture. Every article added is a care added, and the nicer the article the nicer the care required. More, also, is demanded of these in the way of appearance, style, and social civilities; and the wear and tear of superintending "a girl" should by no means be forgotten. At any rate, the complaint, "no time to read," is frequent among women, and is not confined to ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... silently noted that which had escaped them hitherto, a curious change in his colour as he lay with closed eyes, a thinness of the flesh over the cheek bones, dark shadows beneath the eyes. Whether he slept she could not be sure. But when he sat up again these signs of wear and tear seemed to vanish at the magic of his smile, which had never been brighter. Nevertheless she watched him with a new sense of anxiety, wondering if there might really be danger of his splendid physique giving way before ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... compelled to take what they could get. Experience later showed that large amounts of paper money manufactured in one State were easily put in circulation in far distant communities, and considerable sums, through the operations of wear and tear and the vicissitudes incident to its fragile nature, never returned to ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... a mistake, even for an opulent woman. They get out of fashion, and excepting for a girl going out to many balls they are entirely unnecessary. A girl who is dancing needs to be perpetually renewed, for she should be always fresh, and the "wear and tear" of the cotillion is enormous. There is nothing so poor as a dirty, faded, and patched-up ball-dress; the dancer had better stay at ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... shouldn't. And I always take the same streets to come here—I've been doing it for ten years now. I know at which crossings to look out—I know what I'm going to see in the shop-windows. It saves a lot of wear and tear to know what's coming. For a good many years I never did know, from one minute to another, and now I like to think that everything's cut-and-dried, and nothing unexpected can jump out at me like a tramp from ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... foods rich in phosphorus must be supplied to make good the wear and tear, and the digestion must equally be efficient if these food-stuffs are to ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... been entertained regarding the actual nature of the relics of antiquity exhumed from the rocks or exposed upon the surface by the wear and tear of natural agencies. In earliest times such things were variously considered as curious freaks of geological formation, as sports of nature, or as the remains of the slain left upon the battle-ground of mythical Titans. Some of the Greeks supposed that fossils ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... than it is in the peasant's monotonous life; and being in love, by reason of separation from the object of his love, is a different thing to the sailor, a something more entirely of the heart and the imagination, which does not lose its ideal hue in the wear and tear of everyday use. A married sailor is always an object of quiet respect to his comrades who have not had means to take the same step themselves; and without exaggeration it may be said that woman is present in her truest sense in the midst of the often outwardly rough life on board ship—warm, ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... for life holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for rude handling in my youth—that youth which lies very far away from me to-night and is wrapped in ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... with Mr. Bradbury's specimen in our reproduction. But we see no reason why specimens of the wood-printing of du Maurier's work should not be on view in the British Museum. The "impressions" in old volumes of Punch, after the wear and tear, the opening and the shutting, and the effect of time are not an adequate record of du Maurier's skill in accommodating his art to the methods of reproduction ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually renewed and repaired; and though it is true that individual components of the body are constantly dying, yet their places are ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... remember the first train being run in this country. Many of those who read these lines can recollect when a philosopher placed himself on record that a speed of twenty miles was impossible, because, even if machinery could be constructed to stand the wear and tear, the motion would be so rapid that the train men and passengers would succumb to apoplexy or some other ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... from the time when she was only "Raish Dunnell's little Lou," to the years when she was Lucinda Bascom, wife and mother, she had wandered down by the river side, and gazed, a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had been marked with an "L" on the morning she was born. It had stood the wear and tear of the elements bravely, but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show its age. Its back was bent, like hers; its face was seamed and wrinkled, like her own; and the village lovers who looked at it from the opposite bank wondered ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin



Words linked to "Wear and tear" :   depreciation, straight-line method, write-down, write-off, non-cash expense, financial loss, straight-line method of depreciation



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