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Abate   Listen
verb
Abate  v. i.  
1.
To decrease, or become less in strength or violence; as, pain abates, a storm abates. "The fury of Glengarry... rapidly abated."
2.
To be defeated, or come to naught; to fall through; to fail; as, a writ abates.
To abate into a freehold, To abate in lands (Law), to enter into a freehold after the death of the last possessor, and before the heir takes possession. See Abatement, 4.
Synonyms: To subside; decrease; intermit; decline; diminish; lessen. To Abate, Subside. These words, as here compared, imply a coming down from some previously raised or excited state. Abate expresses this in respect to degrees, and implies a diminution of force or of intensity; as, the storm abates, the cold abates, the force of the wind abates; or, the wind abates, a fever abates. Subside (to settle down) has reference to a previous state of agitation or commotion; as, the waves subside after a storm, the wind subsides into a calm. When the words are used figuratively, the same distinction should be observed. If we conceive of a thing as having different degrees of intensity or strength, the word to be used is abate. Thus we say, a man's anger abates, the ardor of one's love abates, "Winter's rage abates". But if the image be that of a sinking down into quiet from preceding excitement or commotion, the word to be used is subside; as, the tumult of the people subsides, the public mind subsided into a calm. The same is the case with those emotions which are tumultuous in their nature; as, his passion subsides, his joy quickly subsided, his grief subsided into a pleasing melancholy. Yet if, in such cases, we were thinking of the degree of violence of the emotion, we might use abate; as, his joy will abate in the progress of time; and so in other instances.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abate" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Abate your valour, and diminish your choler, at our request, most puissant Sir Geoffrey Hudson," said the King; "and forgive the Duke of Ormond for my sake; but at all events ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... which illuminated his path with undimmed lustre and brilliancy. In her presence he felt not the weight of suffering that at intervals seized his exhausted frame. As symptoms of the disease began to abate and recovery was expected, her ladyship, accompanied her husband to Italy, where they had intended to remove some time previous, but were prevented by a ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... that he forecasted to make that Work three times as large as it is, cou'd he have waited for the Printer's Money so long as was requisite to the finishing it according to his first Design. Thus much I thought fit to say, in order to abate the Edge of what he seems to speak hardly of the Francogallia; tho' in several other Places he makes my Author amends: And one may without scruple believe him, when he commends a Man, whose Opinion he condemns. For this is the Character he gives of this ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... Prudes, in all soberness—Is it likely, considering the stubborn conservatism of age, that these dames, well seasoned in the habit, will leave it off directly, or the impenitent old grandsire abate one jot or tittle of his friskiness in the near future? Is it a reasonable hope? Is the outlook from the watch towers of Philistia ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... exquisite. I can drink in the deep poetry of noble minds—I can idly revel in voluptuous music, and dream away my soul, but with that bewitching dream, there is still a yearning for its realization. I cannot abate the restlessness that presses upon me—I look around, and young faces are bright and smiling with cheerful gayety. I endeavour to catch the buoyant spirit, but I succeed rarely,—if I do, it floats on the surface, leaving the under-current unbroken ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... monotonous a misery that a gift of personal diagnosis might easily lend attraction to poisoned food as an alternative, if one may be permitted a melodramatic simile in a case which Alicia kept conventional enough. She did not even abate the usual number of Duff's invitations to dinner, when there was certainly nothing to repay her for regarding him across a gulf of flowers and silver and a tide of conversation about the season's paper-chasing except ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... nodding in an easy chair; and Solomon Weismann, a young medical student, by sleeping soundly on the wooden settee in the hall. So passed the night. After midnight, to Edith's great relief, his fever began to abate, and he sank into a sweet sleep. In the morning Solomon roused himself, and came in and relieved Edith's watch, and attended to the wants of the patient, while she went to her room to bathe her ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... up its glucose into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. There is a bubbling and seething in the liquid during this action, which gradually subsides. The increase of temperature in the fermented fluid begins to abate; the skins and husks subside to the bottom of the vat; the liquid itself becomes slightly less turbid—and the first stage of wine-making is ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... abate, and neither Jonathan Forster nor his companions dreamed of confronting it in that ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... Abate your terror; nor so madly grieve; I'll intercede myself for your reprieve. Fair cruel one, who may your ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... Upsall declared that he did look at it as a sad forerunner of some heavy judgment to follow upon the country; which they took so ill at his hands, that they fined him twenty pounds and three pounds more at another meeting of the court, for not coming to their meeting, and would not abate him one grote, but imprisoned him and then banished him on pain of death, which was done in a time of such extreme bitter weather for frost, snow and cold, that had not the heathen Indians in the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... no Christian basis can I understand the justice or acknowledge the propriety of asking our Lord to abate his wrath in detail, or to alter his settled purpose. If He be wise, would we change his wisdom? If He be merciful, would we limit his mercy? There comes upon us some strange disease, and we bid Him ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... defend himself from such a surprise as shall put him damnably out of countenance. And yet I have known some who have secured themselves for this misfortune by coming half-sated elsewhere, purposely to abate the ardour of their fury, and others who being grown old, find themselves less impotent by being less able; and particularly one who found an advantage by being assured by a friend of his that had a countercharm against certain enchantments ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... as the storm began to abate Rachel said, "I think, Frank, it is time you began to ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... the hospital of Strizzowan had been evacuated, again joined his regiment. The French army in forced marches pursued the enemy on the road to Moscow over Ostrowno, Witepsk and Smolensk. Dysentery did not abate. In the hospitals of Smolensk, Wiasma and Ghiat, von Scherer found, besides the wounded from the battles of Krasnoe, Smolensk and Borodino, a great number of dysentery patients; many died on the march. The whole ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... regions of felicity and sank deep into the bowels of the Earth. King Vasu, O tiger among monarchs, was always devoted to the true religion. Although sunk deep into the bowels of the Earth, his devotion to virtue did not abate. Ever devoted to Narayana, and ever reciting sacred mantras having Narayana for their deity, he once more ascended to heaven through Narayana's grace. Ascending from the bowels of the Earth, king Vasu in consequence of the very highest end that he attained, proceeded to a spot that is even higher ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... tare and tret[obs3]. sale, bargain; half price; price war. wholesale, wholesale price; dealer's price; trade price. coupon, discount coupon, cents-off coupon; store coupon, manufacturer's coupon; double coupon discount, triple coupon discount. V. discount, bate; abate, rebate; reduce, price down, mark down take off, allow, give, make allowance; tax. Adj. discounting &c. v. Adv. at a discount, below par; at wholesale; have a friend ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... Wherefore you shall observe that the more deep and sober sort of politic persons, in their greatness, are ever bemoaning themselves, what a life they lead; chanting a quanta patimur. Not that they feel it so, but only to abate the edge of envy. But this is to be understood of business that is laid upon men, and not such as they call unto themselves. For nothing increaseth envy more than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing of business. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... the bride and groom took the floor in the first set. Clara felt very proud of her husband as she leaned upon his arm, waiting for the music to begin, and glanced around upon her maiden companions with a look of triumph. But she soon had cause to abate her exultation, for when the music struck up, and the dancers commenced their intricate movements, she found that her husband blundered so as to throw all into confusion. The reason of this instantly flashed ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... fury of the Barbarians did not abate. They remembered that several of them who had set out for Carthage had not returned; no doubt they had been killed. So much injustice exasperated them, and they began to pull up the stakes of their tents, to ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... were canoes on the shore, and we made signs, and hallow'd that they should fetch us; but they either did not understand us, or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and night coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should abate; and, in the meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep, if we could; and so crowded into the scuttle, with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray beating over the head of our boat, leak'd thro' to us, so that we were soon almost as ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... paid for; an hour's long misery waning Ended, as I agoniz'd hung to the point of a cross, Hoping vain purgation; alas! no potion of any 5 Tears could abate that fair angriness, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... brothers, grim and gigantic in their sea power, subtle as the wind itself in their sea wit, win the battle. Over the thousands of miles of angry surges they urge that small ship towards calm and safety; until one day the sea begins to abate a little, and through the spray and tumult of waters the dim loom of land is seen. The sea falls back disappointed and finally conquered by Christopher Columbus, whose ship, battered, crippled, and strained, comes back out of the wilderness of waters and glides quietly into the smooth harbour ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... slave-ship, of about ten months old, took sulk and would not eat. The captain flogged it with a cat; swearing that he would make it eat, or kill it. From this and other ill-treatment the child's legs swelled. He then ordered some water to be made hot to abate the swelling. But even his tender mercies were cruel; for the cook, on putting his hand into the water, said it was too hot. Upon this the captain swore at him, and ordered the feet to be put in. This was ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have caused ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... it! My Father's got plenty o' timber, and He'll send thee a new seat," whereon the meeting went on, as lively as before. Abe wouldn't allow any such trifles to interfere with the happy flow of feeling in his meetings; indeed, such incidents served rather to stimulate than abate the exuberance of his spirits. He knew that all things belonged to the Lord, and that He would make good all that was lost in His service, and therefore "he took joyfully the spoiling of his goods," and other folk's too. It ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... dreadfully knocked about. Our bulwarks were stove in, and two of our boats carried away. We lost our topmasts, and received other damage; but the stout old ship still battled bravely with the seas. As the morning broke the wind began to abate. By noon the sun was shining brightly, and the sea had gone ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... contrasted with so much of the pomps and vanities of the world, gave me a pleasant feeling toward these people, who live in the midst of them without forgetting better things. I mean to make studying German and drawing (and endeavoring to abate my self-esteem) my principal occupations this winter. I have met at Heaton Lord Francis Leveson Gower, the translator of "Faust." I like him very much; he is a young man of a great deal of talent, with ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... of long clothes he attempted to abate in a similar way. The officers of the customs, who were stationed at the gates of the towns, were ordered to stop every man who wore a long dress, and compel him either to pay a fine of about fifty cents, or else kneel down and have all that part of their coat or gown ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... this time, to ask yourselves whether, as citizens, the vices, the godlessness, the miseries—the removable miseries—of our great town populations, lie upon your hearts. Have you ever lifted a finger to abate drunkenness? Have you ever done anything to help to make it possible that the masses of our town communities should live in places better than the pigsties in which many of them have to wallow? Have you any care for the dignity, the purity, the Christianity of our civic rulers; and do you, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... northern waters of Europe did not abate. The British admiralty on March 25, 1915, had announced that the German submarine U-29, one of the most improved craft of the type in use, had been sunk. This loss was admitted by the German admiralty on April 7, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... while to see whether the storm seemed to abate in its fury, but a brief space of time sufficed to assure him that, instead of diminishing, the violence of the rain and thunder momentarily increased; resigning himself, therefore, to what seemed inevitable, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... wholesome ale into beer, which doubtless much altered our constitutions. That one ingredient, by some not unworthily suspected, preserving drink indeed, and so by custom made agreeable, yet repaying the pleasure with tormenting diseases, and a shorter life, may deservedly abate our fondness for it, especially if with this be considered likewise the casualties in planting it, as seldom succeeding more than once in three years.'[342] The City of London petitioned against hops as ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... state, might not be indulged, but rebuked. And though this rendered their conversation disagreeable, yet they that will remember what Christ said to the Jews, "How can you believe which receive honour one of another?" will abate of their resentment, if his doctrine has ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn

... ship was a merchant vessel and carried very few passengers, so that the life-savers were confident of saving all those on board. Also the wind was beginning to abate and the sea was becoming less angry—all of which helped them ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... should be sent him: accordingly, the following week, the brewer sends him down two carts loaded with about twelve hogsheads or casks of molasses, which frighted the brickmaker almost out of his senses. The case was this:-The brewers formerly mixed molasses with their ale to sweeten it, and abate the quantity of malt, molasses, being, at that time, much cheaper in proportion, and this they called spanish, not being willing that people should know it. Again, the brickmakers all about London, do mix sea-coal ashes, or laystal-stuff, as we call it, with the clay of which they make ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... after the ship had been tumbled about for nearly ten days, the gale began to abate, the soldiers recovered their legs, though looking somewhat pale and woebegone, and the cabin passengers once more appeared on deck. The weather, however, had by this time become very cold; there was no sitting down, as before, with work or book ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... current among the tribes of that region, Walk in the Water, a Roanoke chief of great celebrity, commenced his tale. Undoubtedly most of the Indians present were as well acquainted with the story as the narrator, but that circumstance seemed to abate nothing of the interest with which it was listened to; it certainly did not diminish the attention of the audience. In this respect, these wild foresters deserve to become a pattern for careful imitation. They never interrupt a speaker. However ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... violence of the torrent of prejudice was beginning to abate, yet the grand jury in January, found a true bill against fifty persons, but of those brought to trial, only three were condemned, and they were not executed. All those who were not tried in January, were discharged by order of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... every just or larger end, Whence should come the trust and cheer? Youth must its ignorant impulse lend— Age finds place in the rear. All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate— Stimulants to the power mature, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... knew when the fearful tempest began to abate. All sense of time and almost of place had left her. She was dizzy, quivering, on fire, wholly incapable of coherent thought, when at last it came to her that ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... deeds and his name. His death had gratified the blood-lust of his foes, his young Democratic successor would amend that "infamous election law" and was plainly striving for a just administration, and so bitterness began swiftly to abate, tolerance grew rapidly, and the State went earnestly on trying to cure its political ills. And yet even while John Burnham and his like were congratulating themselves that cool heads and strong hands had averted civil war, checked further violence, and left all questions to ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... offer'd from the hand of Kings. And what in me seems wanting, but that I 450 May also in this poverty as soon Accomplish what they did, perhaps and more? Extol not Riches then, the toyl of Fools The wise mans cumbrance if not snare, more apt To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge, Then prompt her to do aught may merit praise. What if with like aversion I reject Riches and Realms; yet not for that a Crown, Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns, Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights 460 To him who wears the Regal Diadem, When on his shoulders ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... for me, one of your sons to invoke loyalty to our national constitution? If so I commit that crime. Let us accept the Negro as a partner in our government, and acts such as these will not occur. Nor in so saying do I abate one inch of my stand for white supremacy. As long as there are distinct races there will be racial aspirations for first place. But I crave not the first place born of the prestige of sitting upon a throne ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... patience, gentleness, and firmness did not abate one jot or tittle of Mercy's conviction that he was doing a dishonest thing. Oh the contrary, his quiet appeared to her more and more like a callous satisfaction; and his occasional cheerfulness, like an exultation over his ill-gotten ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... heard the fatal tragedy that had been acted at Schonwaldt, and he proceeded to question Durward more minutely concerning the particulars of that disastrous affair, which the Scot, nowise desirous to abate the spirit of revenge which the Count entertained against William de la Marck, gave ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... splendours obscured so long, would go down hid in those same 'base clouds,' that for them the consummation was to 'peep about to find themselves dishonourable graves' was the conviction under which their later tasks were achieved. It did not abate their ardour. They did not strain one nerve the less ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... Skippon's account of a 'Journey through the Low Countries,' he makes mention of the lectures of Ferrarius and his narrative of the cure of the ague of a Spanish lieutenant, by writing the words FEBRA FUGE, and cutting off a letter from the paper every day, and he observed the distemper to abate accordingly; when he cut the letter F last of all the ague left him. In the same year, he says, fifty more were reported to be cured ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... commonly pledged and easily convertible—the alarm of the solvent merchants and bankers will be stayed. But if securities, really good and usually convertible, are refused by the Bank, the alarm will not abate, the other loans made will fail in obtaining their end, and the panic will ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... following the Shishi-ga-tani conspiracy, Kiyomori's daughter, Toku, bore to Takakura a prince—the future Emperor Antoku (eighty-first sovereign). The Taira chief thus found himself grandfather of an heir to the throne, a fact which did not tend to abate his arrogance. The second was the death of Shigemori, which ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... to howl, and the breakers to dash and rear, until after the dawn of morning. Benjamin was never more rejoiced to see daylight than he was after that dismal and perilous night. It was the more pleasant to him, because the wind began to abate, and there was a fairer prospect of reaching their destination. As soon as the tumult of the winds and waves had subsided, they weighed anchor, and steered for Amboy, where they arrived just before night, "having ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... the same direction with undiminished velocity unless acted upon by some new force, was a proposition which mankind found for a long time the greatest difficulty in crediting. It stood opposed to apparent experience of the most familiar kind, which taught that it was the nature of motion to abate gradually, and at last terminate of itself. Yet when once the contrary doctrine was firmly established, mathematicians, as Dr. Whewell observes, speedily began to believe that laws, thus contradictory to first appearances, and which, even after full proof had been obtained, it had required generations ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... for about an hour, when the storm seemed to abate, the lightning coming at longer intervals, and the thunder gradually becoming more and more distant, till at last it subsided into a low angry muttering; though the lightning still kept quivering ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together, and this was still worse to me, for if I could burst into tears or vent myself in words, it would go off, and the grief having exhausted itself would abate. ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... his arm entirely carried away by a grenade, and yet keeps on his horse, firm as a rock, and still directs his battery until hemorrhage—and hemorrhage alone—strikes him down at last, dead! Such was the case with a Neapolitan—Major Abate, of the artillery—and his name is worth the glory of a whole army, of a whole war; and may only find a fit companion in that of an officer of the eighteenth battalion of bersaglieri, who, dashing at an Austrian flag-bearer, wrenches the standard out of his hands with his left ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... help he could get; and he saw that the Twins would be useful friends in the matter. But did they chance on him walking with their mother, or at tea with her, they held politely but gloomily aloof. He must abate their hostility. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... with pompous face, self-centred, Willoughby the critic entered — He of whom it has been said He lives a century ahead — And sees with his prophetic eye The forms which Time will justify, A fact which surely must abate All longing to reincarnate. ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle

... does not abate, nor Madame Geoffrin's. I have seen but little of Madame d'Egmont, who seems very good, and is universally in esteem. She is now in great affliction, having lost suddenly Monsieur Pignatelli, the minister at Parma, whom she bred up, and whom she and her family had generously ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... appearance, of a robust constitution, and that he had but one hand. They reached the Mississippi on the eleventh of July, and the Arkansas villages on the thirty-first. Here Tonty was detained by an attack of fever. He resumed his journey when it began to abate, and reached his fort of the Illinois in September. [Footnote: Two causes have contributed to detract, most unjustly, from Tonty's reputation: the publication, under his name, but without his authority, of a perverted account of the enterprises in which ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... The furore did not abate. But they must all go,—Stephen and Dolly, Margaret and her husband, Joe and the little girl, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... stout spears of the past had not put on their harness and broken a lance for their ancient honour. One thing he determined, that he would cross the sea without delay, so that he might joust with the dansellon, and abate his pride. In wrath and anger he purposed to fight, to beat his adversary from the saddle, and bring him at last to shame. After this was ended he would seek his son, of whom he had heard nothing, since he had gone from his aunt's castle. ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... no place in the world where clouds do not gather, and storms do not rage; but when the storms abate, and the skies clear, then do we appreciate more fully the glories and beauties of God, the Universe and its natural ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush

... to partake of his qualities by affinition and heredity. They tried to make something of Marcia, but they failed through their want of art. Mrs. Witherby, finding the wife of her husband's assistant in Miss Kingsbury's house, conceived an awe of her, which Marcia would not have known how to abate if she had imagined it; and in a little while the Witherby family segregated themselves among the photograph albums and the bricabrac, from which Clara seemed to herself to be fruitlessly detaching them the whole evening. The plainest daughter and the maiden aunt of the patrician families talked ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... and increasing vexation Ardea amused himself by relating to her anecdotes, more or less true, of the goings-on in the Vatican. He thus attempted to abate a Catholic enthusiasm at which he was already offended. His sense of the ridiculous and that of his social interest made him perceive how absurd it would be to go into clerical society after having taken for a wife a millionaire converted the day before. To be just, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... oxcart. The Duke waved his hand toward it. 'That,' said he, 'Madam, is a tribute to your extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... the sequel proved, they refused to enter, and rushed past in a scared way, just snatching up one mouthful of forage which had been thrown down to entice them to stay, and making off as hard as they could. The wind did not abate till the day after, when tales kept pouring in of terrible losses of sheep and cattle killed by the cold wind; sheep in open plains had suffered most, and cattle which had been kraaled were nearly all dead, whilst the herds of cattle and horses which had been left grazing ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... good do they promise? Suppose that we allow that to be without pain is the chief good? Yet that is not called pleasure. But it is not necessary at present to go through the whole: the question is, to what point are we to advance in order to abate our grief? Grant that to be in pain is the greatest evil: whosoever, then, has proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he, therefore, in immediate possession of the greatest good? Why, Epicurus, do we use any evasions, and not allow in ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... difficulty now was, that the offer had come, at a time when it was impossible to complete the paper. I was compelled to defer it till the pressure of business, which now began to thicken on my hands, should abate. It was in this manner, and in the hope that the next season would afford me leisure, that the matter was put off, from time to time, till it was in a measure cast behind and out of sight, and not from a due appreciation of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... Constantinople, and of these last there were many. And certain people-who they were I know not-out of malice, set fire to the city; and the fire waxed so great and horrible that no man could put it out or abate it. And when the barons of the host, who were quartered on the other side of the port, saw this, they were sore grieved and filled with pity-seeing the great churches and the rich palaces melting and falling in, and the great ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin

... right, and smooth gray gloom ahead. I tried to draw the marvelous scene in my note-book, but the rain blurred the page in spite of all my pains to shelter it, and the sketch was almost worthless. When the wind began to abate, I traced the east side of the glacier. All the trees standing on the edge of the woods were barked and bruised, showing high-ice mark in a very telling way, while tens of thousands of those that had stood for centuries on the bank of the glacier farther ...
— Stickeen • John Muir

... Great's death stopped its course for several weeks. King from August 17, 1786, onwards, Frederick William seemed to forget everything but affairs of State. But Mirabeau affirms, after September 8, "the fervour of the novice began to abate." Mademoiselle de Voss, he added, was on the point of yielding. The King, to make her comfortable, had set up an establishment for his daughter Frederica; Mademoiselle de Voss did the honours. The year passed, however, without the vestal's surrendering. She loved the King, but the honour of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... attack. They had planned a trip to Houston to do some shopping and to attend the theater. The doctor-husband was delayed on a case and found his young bride in the throes of another nervous storm when he reached home, nor did the symptoms entirely abate until he had promised her that he would always come at once, no matter what other duties he might have, when she needed him. By this promise he handicapped his future success as a physician and did all that devoted ignorance could do to make certain ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... owed a small debt of about $43, refused to pay it all, but offered to do so if ten dollars was taken off. His creditor, feeling that it was just, declined to abate the amount. ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... arouse a certain degree of admiration. He would fain have spared him if he could, but, as he had sacrificed everything he possessed for the King, and counted the sacrifice as nothing, his sympathies did not abate his determination to punish ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... from him, how much terror his sombre figure must have inspired, when presented, as it was, to Madame Bonaventure, with the aspect of a merciless creditor, armed with full power to enforce his claims, and resolved not to abate a jot of them, will be revealed to the reader in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... should be benefited by it; that, in short, there shall not be a comprehensive application of the national power through its organ, the government, by authoritative, and, we must say, in some degree coercive measures, to abate as speedily as possible the national nuisance and calamity of such a state of the juvenile faculties and habits as we see glaring around us; and all this because homage is demanded to anticipated prejudices, selfishness of privilege, venerable institutions, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... God, call the people, convene the clergy; I mourn the dead, dispel the pestilence, and grace festivals; I mourn at the burial, abate the lightnings, announce the Sabbath; I arouse the indolent, dissipate the winds, and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... the true relations which have united us, and the assurance that our enterprise has sprung from a desire to obey the divine law. We feel assured that no outward disappointment or calamity can chill our zeal for the realization of a divine order of society, or abate our efforts in the sphere which may be pointed out by our best judgment as most favorable to the cause ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... men, mellowed with whiskey, wept in the bar-room of the little hotel at Stornaway. The courtesy of Major Dugas, and the civil bearing of the men, told upon the people, but nevertheless they did not abate one jot of what they called ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... Eustace, "that were but poor policy. As things now stand with us, the heretics catch hold of each flying report which tends to the scandal of our clergy. We must abate the evil, not only by strengthening discipline, but also by suppressing and stifling the voice of scandal. If my conjectures are true, the miller's daughter will be silent for her own sake; and your reverence's ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... which abate during the process of maturation, are apt to return during desiccation; and when the skin begins to desquamate, they then constitute what is called secondary fever. The skin which had suffered so much, occasionally exhibits ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... been a royal mistress, but not having the good fortune to be made a mother, was not honoured with any title; her being forsaken by the king, who indeed had few amours of any long continuance, did not in the least abate the good opinion she had of her beauty; and to fee herself followed by a train of lovers being the supreme pleasure of her life, she spared nothing to attract and engage: whenever she failed in this expectation it was a severe mortification; ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... for the night. So long as he could ride in their lead, the necessity of holding the cattle was the lodestar that sustained Joel Wells during those lonely hours. There was always the hope that the storm would abate, when the tired cattle would gladly halt and bed down, which promise lightened the passing time. The work was easy to boy and horse; to retard the march of the leaders, that the rear might easily follow, was the task of the ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... of citizens of the Northern States, many of those citizens were, little by little, brought to the conclusion that slavery was a sin for which they were answerable, and that it was the duty of the Federal Government to abate it. Though, at the date above referred to, numerically so weak, when compared with either of the political parties at the North, as to excite no apprehension of their power for evil, the public demonstrations of the Abolitionists ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... tempted onwards to atrocities, which armed against him the common feelings of human nature, and all mankind, as it were, rose in a body with one voice, and apparently with one heart, united by mere force of indignant sympathy, to put him down, and "abate" him as a monster. But, until he brought matters to this extremity, Caesar had no cause to fear. Nor was it at all certain, in any one instance, where this exemplary chastisement overtook him, that the apparent unanimity of the actors ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... went through street after street, and Beatrice never ceased to call. The excitement which was created by the runaway horses did not abate, and at length when the driver stopped ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... part of the wonder of that morning that he should adopt this incredible note of frankness, and that it should abate nothing from ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... has to be chosen when a writer has the correct feeling in his heart and has before his eyes a perfect conception of all he is writing. He would necessarily urge his pupils, time and again, to express the same thought ever more happily; nor would he have to abate in rigour until the less gifted in his class had contracted an unholy fear of their language, and the others had ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives; By objects which might force the soul to abate ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... gentlemen, which maketh gentlemen; which maketh the poor rich, the strong weak, the simple wise, the base- born noble. This rank neither the whirling wheel of Fortune can destroy, nor the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate; neither sickness abate, nor time abolish.' No; for it is written, that though prophecies shall fail, tongues cease, knowledge vanish away, and all that we now know is but in part, yet charity shall never fail those who are full of the Spirit of Love, but abide with them for ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... being oblig'd to go for Flanders, to see her Sister take the holy Habit, I feign'd a Sickness to be left behind, hoping that Absence might abate her Flame; yet she return'd more amorous, and fearing the Thefts of Love might wound her Honour, she thought a Husband would secure that Shame; and luckily my Aunt arriv'd from Wales, and brought Sir Morgan with her, who lodging where we did, at Mrs. Manage's, my Aunt (that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... where I had many wounded and sick men, made me the more diligent to promote it, nor was my care for the Savoy less. It now pleased God, by abating the wind, and by the industry of the people, infusing a new spirit into them, and the fury of it began sensibly to abate about noon, so as it came no further than the Temple westward, nor than the entrance of Smithfield north; but continued all this day and night so impetuous toward Cripplegate and the Tower, as made us all despair. It ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... rise from his chair and fell back into it, with a groan, as he remembered his helplessness. That helplessness did not, however, abate his anger, and his voice rose as it was accustomed to rise when, pounding the pulpit pillow, he wished to drive home some impassioned utterance, beyond the chance ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... a career of twelve years in the land office. If in retrospective moments amid the many beneficent things you might have done, but left undone, you catch here and there glimpses of unselfish ambition or benefit you have conferred, it does much to abate regret, for the recollection to me is a source of pleasure that during those terms by personal convass and unofficial publication I contributed in inducing thousands of immigrants and others to homestead the virgin soil of Arkansas, who have now good homes, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... the meanness of the doctors, who had bought for dissection the body of a child of a poor tailor for six shillings, the price asked being six shillings and sixpence, from which they made the needy man abate the sixpence. Turning from the niggardly surgeons, he enrolled his name as a student of divinity, and was frequently in Edinburgh attending the lectures at Divinity Hall. Wonderfully cheap was the living in those days, when, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... thirsty plants Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou, Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry! Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat; Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came: but hark the bell For dinner, let us go!' And in we streamed Among the columns, ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... vain your bounties flow On me, confirm'd and obstinate in woe. When my loved Crete received my final view, And from my weeping eyes her cliffs withdrew; These tatter'd weeds (my decent robes resign'd) I chose, the livery of a woful mind! Nor will my heart-corroding care abate With splendid palls, and canopies of state: Low-couch'd on earth, the gift of sleep I scorn, And catch the glances of the waking morn. The delicacy of your courtly train To wash a wretched wanderer would disdain; But if, in tract of long experience tried, And ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... beyond the rampart, and then to return again to storm their own camp, they raised the shout, and uniting their efforts, stood their ground; then made advances, pushed closely on the enemy, and having forced them to give way, drove them back, without suffering their first terror to abate. They soon beat them out beyond the gate and the rampart, but not daring to pursue them, because the darkness of the weather made them apprehend an ambush, and content with having cleared the camp, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... bigger than himself, holding spotted dogs in leash—were younger and nearer to him than the dwellers on the farm: Jacopone the farmer, the shrill Filomena, who was Odo's foster-mother, the hulking bully their son and the abate who once a week came out from Pianura to give Odo religious instruction and who dismissed his questions with the invariable exhortation not to pry into matters that were beyond his years. Odo had loved the pictures in the chapel all the better since ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... did not in the least abate during the night but in the morning of the 9th it changed to north-east and became moderate. We took advantage of this circumstance and, rising with great difficulty, set out, though had it not been for the hope of reaching the house I am certain, from the excessive faintness ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... is, you will have to pay it, sir. It is just, and I shall not abate one dollar," responded Dr. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... in Wisconsin, Ioway, Missouri, and Upper Canada, are dry and healthy, enabling the inhabitants to take any quantity of exercise, and I found that the people looked forward to their winters with pleasure, longing for the heat of the summer to abate. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... speeches on his way East were a disappointment, in that they failed in the least to abate the rising Southern storm; the calmly firm tone of his inaugural address impressed the North, but his appeals to the South ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... viewing the bed, Where sin has the meed it has merited; What frightful taunts from forked tongue, On gentle and simple there are flung. The ghastliness of the damned things to state. Or the pains to relate Which will ne'er abate But increase for ever, No power have I, nor others I wot: Words cannot be got; The shapes and the ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... easier the labour of travel, but nothing could materially abate either the absolute physical exhaustion, or the nervous strain. "We arrived here," he wrote from Aberdeen (16th of May), "safe and sound between 3 and 4 this morning. There was a compartment for the men, and a charming ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... summary corporeal vengeance; and John the Baptist, that he cannot now leave the celestial abodes, as he once left the wilderness, and hasten to rebuke the transgression, and if the sacrifice were called for, to lay down his head sooner than abate the severity of his reproof. Nay, let us rather say that, like blessed Abel, John "being dead yet speaketh," and now lifts up his voice with a yet louder cry than in the case of Herodias, saying, "It is not lawful for thee to have her." For, although the body of John, yielding to the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... understand my countryman, a man who worked for his living, as I had worked, as nearly all my countrymen work. He would not give in. On his holiday he would walk, to fulfil his purpose, walk on; no matter how cruel the effort were, he would not rest, he would not relinquish his purpose nor abate his will, not by one jot or tittle. His body must pay whatever his will demanded, though ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... as the pain began to abate, she gathered courage, and broke forth joyfully. "Why, it's beautiful, a'n't it? I declare it wo'ks like a cha'm. Well, I shall always keep mo'phine around after this, and when, I feel one ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... mother of the poor, the consoler of the afflicted. All strove to carry away some little memorial of one who had gone about among them doing good; and during the three days which preceded the interment, the concourse did not abate. On the day of the funeral, Francesca knelt on one side of the coffin, and, in sight of all the crowd, she was rapt in ecstasy. They saw her body lifted from the ground, and a seraphic expression in her uplifted face. They heard her murmur several times with an indescribable ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... Bride of Christ within those walls, to be, perhaps, her successor as Mother Superior. She longed that her darling should be spared the sufferings she had known through the ruthlessness of faithless men; so she would not abate a jot of the tenor of her advice, or cease to impress on Paula, firmly though lovingly, the necessity of following it. At last Paula took leave of her, bound by a promise not to pledge herself irrevocably to Orion till his return from Doomiat, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... suppose it is perfectly right to charge something, but the Dragon is not content with what is right. He knows he has finally lost a customer, and so he makes all he can out of him. The furniture so paid for, is not re-placed, and the walls are not papered again, but the Dragon doesn't abate a penny of his bill on that account. Now, I have inquired of the furnishing man, on the street back of the hotel, and he has written on his card just the cost of mattress, sheets, pillows, and all that sort of thing, ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... kindness, however, does not abate towards me. She gives me new dresses for each season; and she has placed two waiting women with me, who are both dressed like fine ladies. She has made me take the title of countess, but has obliged me to renounce the name of La Tour, which is ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... gunwale, trying to keep the head of the little canoe before the immense waves that were still running. I was very cold and stiff, and found it difficult to climb aboard. As the morning advanced, the sea began to abate somewhat, and presently Yamba joined me in the canoe. We were, however, unable to shape our course for any set quarter, since by this time we were out of sight of land altogether, and had not even the slightest ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... hardened. "You must not do that," she said, coldly, unkindly, harshly. She scowled. She would not abate one crease in her forehead to the appeal of his surprised glance. Yet she did not want to repulse him. The instinct which repulsed him was not within her control. Just as a shy man will obstinately refuse an invitation which he is hungering to accept, so, though not from ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... persecution, death and sometimes outrages worse than death, kept up the courage and patriotic ardor of their husbands, brothers and lovers, and whose lofty self-sacrificing courage no rebel cruelties or indignities could weaken or abate. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... was the only one of the party who knew the road, and having discovered this fact, he determined to make use of his knowledge by refusing to show the way unless the proprietor of the horses who drove the vehicle containing our luggage would abate a little from the price he had demanded for the hire of the horse in the peddler's sleigh. "A bargain is a bargain!" cried our driver, wishing to curry favour with his master, now a few yards behind him. "A bargain is a bargain. Oh, thou son of an animal, drive on!" "It is very cold," ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... from him by a successor, made some proposal of an accommodation to the vanquished enemy; but the conditions appeared so hard, that they could not listen to them. As he did not doubt his being soon master of Carthage, he would not abate any thing in his demands; but, by an infatuation which is almost inseparable from great and unexpected success, he treated them with haughtiness; and pretended, that every thing he suffered them to possess, ought to be esteemed a ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... poured in torrents from a miserable angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to be trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought, so kept him home to watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming, like a regular storm-cloud in miniature. As the day wore on, and the storm did not abate, his mother had to keep a strong watch upon him, or he ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... keeping free from all offense ourselves, actuated only by upright and patriotic considerations, moved neither by passion nor selfishness, the Government will continue its watchful care over the rights and property of American citizens and will abate none of its efforts to bring about by peaceful agencies a peace which shall be honorable and enduring. If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilization, and humanity ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley

... say, 'I, in doing this, do strengthen God among men.' When at any time hath he cried unto thee, saying, 'My son, lend me thy shoulder, for I fall?' Deemest thou that the men who enter God's temple in malice, to the provoking of blood, and neither for his love nor for his wrath will abate their purpose,—shall afterwards stand with thee in the porch, midway between Him and themselves, to give ear unto thy thin voice, which merely the fall of their visors can drown, and to see thy hands, stretched feebly, tremble among ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various



Words linked to "Abate" :   die away, abator, slack, slake, lessen, decrease, abatement, diminish, minify, fall, abatable, slack off, let up



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