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Amplify   Listen
verb
Amplify  v. t.  (past & past part. amplified; pres. part. amplifying)  
1.
To render larger, more extended, or more intense, and the like; used especially of telescopes, microscopes, etc.
2.
(Rhet.) To enlarge by addition or discussion; to treat copiously by adding particulars, illustrations, etc.; to expand; to make much of. "Troilus and Cressida was written by a Lombard author, but much amplified by our English translator."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Amplify" Quotes from Famous Books



... by the merest licentiousness: every fresh Copyist evidently considering himself at liberty to take just whatever liberties he pleased with the words before him. To amputate, or otherwise to mutilated; to abridge; to amplify; to transpose; to remodel;—this has been the rule with all. The types (so to speak) are reducible to two, or at most to three; but the varieties are almost as numerous as ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... Cavaliere was followed by a long line of Italian oratorio composers who contributed to amplify and enrich this form of composition. Among the earliest of these writers were Carissimi, Stradella, Scarlatti, Mazzocchi, Federici, Pistocchi, Caldara, and Colonna. Carissimi perfected the recitative and ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... checked by any fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in the celebration of Virtue, so solid and so extensive, that the malevolence of Envy could not diminish its weight, the fondness of Enthusiasm could not amplify its effects. But I must not forget that there are professional limits to my discourse. It is incumbent on me to confine myself to a single object, and to dwell only on those public services, that peculiarly endear the name of Howard to the liberal and enlightened ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... interprets the phenomena given to it by ordinary opinion, i.e., interprets and purifies a lower form of knowledge by converting it into a higher; so the task of reason when it is exercised upon morality and religion, is simply to evolve, and amplify the meaning of its own products. The movement from morality and religion to moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion, is thus a movement from reason to reason, from the implicit to the explicit, from the germ to the developed fulness ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... more than a year, is mentioned by the biographers in a few lines.[19] Happily we have a number of other papers regarding it; but their silence suffices to prove the sincerity of the primitive Franciscan authors; if they had wanted to amplify the deeds of their subject, where could they have found an easier opportunity or a more marvellous theme? Francis quitted Portiuncula in the middle of June and went to Ancona, whence the Crusaders were to set sail for Egypt on ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... in its bearing on the future history of England. Delolme, one of the earliest of foreign writers on the English constitution, remarks that the explanation of English liberty is to be found in the absolute power of her early kings, and the most careful modern student can do no more than amplify this statement. That this centralization was the result of any deliberate policy on the part of William can hardly be maintained. A conscious modification of the feudal system as he introduced it into England, with a view ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... in the foregoing pages, that fire-eaters, finding it difficult to invent new effects in their own sphere, have strayed into other fields of endeavor in order to amplify their programmes. Thus we find them resorting to the allied arts of poison-eating, sword-swallowing and the stunts of the so-called ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... time, the fields of force took a sere planet, of barren, blistered rock, and with a concept made it into the garden of man's dreams. On one island, they set up a crystalline structure, a thing, this much concession to the mind of man; a tool, to amplify and clarify their thought to reach the still rudimentary but nevertheless present centers of man's mind—some certain man who might be ready to ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... to the small table within the window there. I myself will sit here and jot down some ideas for my dedication which you can afterwards amplify." ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... new, so far as I know, and which I hope and believe to be true and important. Comprehensively, so as to include everything that must be included, and yet without undue vagueness, I would define education as the provision of an environment. We may amplify this proposition, and say that it is the provision of a fit environment for the young and foolish by the elderly and wise. It has really scarcely anything in the world to do with my trying to make you pay for the teaching to my children of dogmas which ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... and Mattie, albeit she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born to ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... an occasional question and Bryce became aware that in answering them he was guided to stress and amplify points that made clearer the danger and comedy. Later he became aware that he was half consciously following the clues of Pierce's expression for the right stress and mood of the telling, now off-hand and smiling in telling what he had done, now heavily dramatic ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... and passionate repudiation, lightened in her eyes. How dared he—how could he, say that? how so falsely misrepresent her actions, and misinterpret her purposes? Her mind went staggering back over the past, seeking for means of self-justification and defense. She had only meant to benefit him—to amplify and soften his character—to inspire him with more ideal views and aims; and to do this she had—what? Sophie paused, and shuddered. Could it, after all, be true? Had she, forgetful of maidenly modesty and reserve, opened ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... have said I have said," he answered, "and I have said it in the hope that it might make some impression upon the lives of those to whom I spoke. You were one of them, Mr. Atterbury. And if I repeat and amplify my meaning now, it must be understood that I have no other object except that of putting you in the way of seeing that the religion of Christ is unique in that it is dependent upon no doctrine or dogma, upon no external or material sign or proof or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... case there, they were equally so in the forum State. The Court adopted the latter view, saying that it had not been the intention of the Constitution merely to reenact the common law—that is, the principles of private international law—as to the reception of foreign judgments, but to amplify and fortify these.[5] And in Hampton v. McConnell[6] some years later, Chief Justice Marshall went even further, using language which seems to show that he regarded the judgment of a State court as ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... Nothing shows more clearly Racine's supreme dominion over his countrymen than the fact that M. Lemaitre never questions it for a moment, and tacitly assumes on every page of his book that his only duty is to illustrate and amplify a greatness already recognised by all. Indeed, after reading M. Lemaitre's book, one begins to understand more clearly why it is that English critics find it difficult to appreciate to the full the literature of France. It is no paradox to say that that country is as insular ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... happy thought I am indebted to that picture—it is my principal source of inspiration; when my imagination flags, as of course it occasionally does, I stare upon those features, and forthwith strange ideas of fun and drollery begin to flow into my mind; these I round, amplify, or combine into goodly creations, and bring forth as I find an opportunity. It is true that I am occasionally tormented by the thought that, by doing this, I am committing plagiarism; though in that case, all thoughts must be plagiarisms, all that we think being the result of what we hear, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... which I was denied sight of her my love for Lilian Holt was fast ripening into a passion—which absence only seemed to amplify. No doubt the contrast of common faces—such as those I observed in Swampville—did something towards heightening my admiration. There was another contrast that had at this time an influence on my heart's inclinings. To an eye, fatigued with dwelling long and continuously ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... he has to tell is very complete and full of precious detail. He was, himself, an eyewitness of much that happened; he pursued a personal acquaintance with many of those who were connected with Sir Oliver's affairs that he might amplify his chronicles, and he considered no scrap of gossip that was to be gleaned along the countryside too trivial to be recorded. I suspect him also of having received no little assistance from Jasper Leigh in the matter of those events that happened out of England, which seem to me to constitute ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... growing child. As that developing life in the child moves it to seek for the things that produce development, so the life of God in the sanctified soul moves it to seek for the things that will unfold and amplify that life. "If ye be risen [have life] with Christ, seek those things which are above." Those things, coming into our soul daily, will unfold us more and more into an heavenly life. They are food to the sanctified soul. They keep the soul satisfied, because ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... imposed on me the obligation of treating the author honorably. I at length concluded upon that which to me appeared the most decent, judicious, and useful. This was to give separately my own ideas and those of the author, and, for this purpose, to enter into his views, to set them in a new light, to amplify, extend them, and spare nothing which might contribute to present them in ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... number of verses in the morning, and pass the day in retrenching exuberances and correcting inaccuracies. The method of Pope, as may be collected from his translation, was to write his first thoughts in his first words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them. With such faculties and such dispositions he excelled every other writer in poetical prudence; he wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few hazards. He used almost always the same fabric of verse, and, indeed, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... it," commented Kennedy, still tinkering with the record. "Yet it does not mean that because we have new ideas, they abolish the old. Often they only explain, amplify, supplement. For instance," he said, looking up at Edith Atherton, "take heredity. Our knowledge seems new, but is it? Marriages have always been dictated by a sort of eugenics. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... the work of creation to a very large and honored degree. But to put the skilful hand of science upon creatures of flesh and blood, to re-form their physical structures and shapes, to add new inches to their stature, straighten their backs, expand their reins, amplify their chests, reduce all the lines and curves of their forms to an unborn symmetry, and then to give silky softness and texture to their aboriginal clothing—this seems to be mounting one step higher in the attainment and dignity of creative ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... in chemistry and in geology, by having traced the causes of the combinations of bodies to remoter origins, as well as those in astronomy, which dignify the present age, contribute to enlarge and amplify our ideas of the power of the Great First Cause. And had those ancient philosophers, who contended that the world was formed from atoms, ascribed their combinations to certain immutable properties received from the hand of the Creator, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... lightest and most meagre nature. Examples, beginning with Monteverde, abound in all the early Italian opera composers.[129] Lully of the French school and Alessandro Scarlatti of the Italian were the first to amplify these beginnings and to establish a definite standard of structure. In both schools this standard represented an application of the Three-part form principle; the French arranging their contrasts, slow, fast, slow (the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... we can but amplify, and so enfeeble, what some old dead master of language, immortal though obscure, has said in words ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... did not amplify his last statement, so Phil's "Oh," in so far as it expressed curiosity as to the disposition of the Holton territory and Mr. Frederick Holton's relation to it, seemed destined to no ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... and by no means a confirmed unveracity, that prompted her to amplify her comments upon her own filial independence. "Oh, I guess I pretty near never do anything I don't want to," she said. "I kind of run the house to suit myself. I guess if the truth had to be told, I just about run the whole Atwater family, when ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... up early, putting his great, bare studio in fitting order, and trying to amplify and secure the screened-in corner which previous models had frequently damned as a purely tentative dressing-room. Promptly at ten ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... We will now amplify, as far as is necessary, the points already touched upon, and introduce the Variations recognised in ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel

... of a material civilisation.' Rome's role in the world was 'the absorption of outlying genius.' Themselves an unimaginative race with a language not too tractable to poetry, they made great poetry, and they made it of patient set purpose, of hard practice. I shall revert to this and maybe amplify reasons in another lecture. For the moment I content myself with stating the fact that no nation ever believed in poetry ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... output of a contributor; the union will. No matter how excellent the idea, no matter how inspired the contrib may be to amplify it, he will not be permitted to do more than a certain amount of work per day. However brilliant he may be, he will be held down to the level of the most pedestrian performer. In unionizing, moreover, he will be only exchanging one tyrant for another, and perhaps not so ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... Emmanuel and his successors—both from Capes Bogiador and Naon [171] to the Indies and any district whatsoever, wherever situated, even although at present unknown to us. And likewise we do extend and amplify the instruments above-mentioned and everything, all and singular contained therein, as aforesaid, and in virtue of holy obedience, under penalty of our [wrath,] we do, by the authority and tenor of the foregoing, forbid all faithful ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... investigations that have done so much to amplify the account of natural evolution, let us consider the contrasted explanation given by Lamarck and his followers. As we have stated earlier, Lamarckianism is the name given to the doctrine that modifications other than those due ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... to amplify this point because I hope some at least of the readers of this book will find themselves asking eagerly what can be done in view of the seriousness of sexual evil. If those who go wrong in sex matters are spoiling their lives at the core, which of us would not ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray

... read your answer, partly at least, in your eyes. You can amplify later. Come, get ready for the street. Put on what you please, so that you wear a smile. These are not times to worry over slight reverses as long as the vital ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... walk, blinded, perplexed, and yet rejoicing, in this sweet, beautiful world, in its fair incessant variety, its satisfaction, its opportunities, exultant in this glorious gift of life. Had I the power of music I would make a world-wide motif swell and amplify, gather to itself this theme and that, and rise at last to sheer ecstasy of triumph and rejoicing. It should be all sound, all pride, all the hope of outsetting in the morning brightness, all the glee ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... Nassau and Mr. R. E. Dennett have enabled me, by placing at my disposal the rich funds of their knowledge of native life and idea, to amplify any deductions from my own observation. Mr. Dennett's work I have not dealt with in this work because it refers to tribes I was not amongst on this journey, but to a tribe I made the acquaintance with in my '93 voyage—the Fjort. Dr. Nassau's observations I have ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... nature, the universe and God, entirely on a metaphysical basis, and who have evolved their systems by sheer force of transcendental thinking—who will take some established system of philosophy as its groundwork, and amplify on this to an extent which only an oriental metaphysician could ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant

... dignity of language. To a copious invention you unite the judgement that knows how to distinguish the specific qualities of different authors. The beauty of order is yours. When the occasion demands it, you can expand and amplify with strength and majesty; and you know when to be concise with energy. Your periods flow with ease, and your composition has every grace of style and sentiment. You command the passions with resistless sway, while in yourselves you beget a temperance so ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... behold these talents of their hair, With twisted metal amorously impleach'd, I have received from many a several fair, Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd, And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify Each stone's dear nature, worth and quality. The diamond,—why, 'twas beautiful and hard, Whereto his invised[8] properties did tend; The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; The ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz

... English painters studying there, who just about then, by some common impulse, seemed drawn towards this corner of their native land.... It was part of our creed to paint our pictures directly from nature, and not merely to rely upon sketches and studies which we could afterwards amplify in the comfort ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath

... or their descendants, journeyed towards Babylon; that there a tower was begun, but not, completed, the building being stopped by divine interposition and a miraculous confusion of tongues. As before, they are not content with the plain truth, but must amplify and embellish it. The size of the ark is exaggerated to an absurdity, and its proportions are misrepresented in such a way as to outrage all the principles of naval architecture. The translation of Xisuthrus, his wife, his daughter, and his pilot—a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... in the close of the Phaedo or the Republic than in the death of Hector or the meeting of Priam and Achilles. The Greek writers may have emotions that would seem to demand vehement and extended expression, topics to inspire a poet and tempt him to amplify them; but resisting the temptation they set the facts down quietly and pass on practically without comment. The close of the Phaedo exemplifies this restraint. Plato has just related with severe economy of detail the death of his master. His comment on the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... and if the experiment had turned out as it deserved, I would have raised all Fleet Street, and borrowed the giant's staff from St. Dunstan's church, [3] to immolate the betrayer of trust. I have written to him as he never was written to before by an author, I'll be sworn, and I hope you will amplify my wrath, till it has an effect upon him. You tell me always you have much to write about. Write it, but let us drop metaphysics;—on that point we shall never agree. I am dull and drowsy, as usual. I do nothing, and even that nothing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... of the question we may be here permitted to amplify a few hints given in Chap. II., Sec. 4, and elsewhere, and to draw a clearer distinction between the Jewish ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... All this is as true as it is pointedly expressed; but though true, it is nothing to the purpose—nay, bears as much against prayer as against poetry. What meant the Psalmist when he said, "My soul doth magnify the Lord?" Did he aspire to exalt Omnipotence or to amplify perfection? No; but only first to shew his own feeling of their magnitude; and, again, to raise himself a step toward an approximately adequate conception of the Most High. So in religious poetry. We cannot add to, or exalt God, but we can raise ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... there be hunger-bit, and beaten till his bones are broken, 15 what has he got? what is he advantaged by his rich adventure? Perhaps, you will say, he has got gold enough to obtain his ransom. Indeed this may be; and therefore no similitude can be found that can fully amplify the matter, 'for what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' 'Tis a loss that standeth by itself, there is not another like it, or unto which it may be compared. 'Tis only like itself—'tis singular, 'tis the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... view, so far as the necessities of construction will permit, that the scientifically designed modern turbine has attained to that prominence which it holds at present over all hydraulic motors. Much more might be written to extend and amplify the conclusions that can be drawn from the experiments described in the present paper, and from many others made by the writer, but the exigencies of time and your patience alike preclude further consideration of this interesting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various

... undertook the pleasant task of writing out these reminiscences, I engaged, you will remember, to amplify the record of one week; judging that a rigidly faithful analysis of that sample would disclose the approximate percentage of happiness, virtue, &c., in Life. But whilst writing the annotations on Sept. 9th (which, by the way, gratuitously overlap on the following day), ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had stepped out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and amplify her drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis—the total default of self-assertion—with which, in a crisis, I could be struck. She hastened ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... pleasing performances have been produced by learning and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add nothing from ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... experiments should be kept by each student in a suitable note-book. It is suggested that those students desiring more time in writing out the experiments than the laboratory period affords, take notes as they make the various tests, and then amplify and rearrange them in the evening study time. The final writing up of the notes should, however, be done before the next laboratory period. Careful attention should be given to the spelling, language, and punctuation, and the note-book should ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... I recommended to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art; that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat and even amplify the praise to the party concerned. This is, of all flattery, the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual. There are other, and many other, inoffensive arts of this kind, which are necessary in the course of the world, and which he who practices the earliest, will please ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... imagination is of the feeblest."[12] Necessarily there is always a certain coloration from the mind which transmits the message, just as the tones of two violins though played by the same hand might be different. Moreover, as a resonant instrument would amplify the sound and an inferior one would hamper it, so a greater artist would interpret a message to more effect than one less capable. The gramophone will give us the actual notes of the singer, but it depends upon ourselves as to whether ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... application to some work of more lasting usefulness; and the perpetual motion occurs to you as the thing worthiest such powers. Let it be a perpetual literary motion, if the public please. Given a remarkable dream and a beautiful bad woman to fulfil it; you have but to amplify the vision sufficiently, and your beautiful bad woman goes on fulfilling it forever in tens of thousands of volumes. As the brother of De Quincey said, when proposing to stand on the ceiling, head downwards, and be spun there like a whip-top, thus overcoming the attraction of gravitation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... hers, and one which has been often vividly narrated; its details, also, are sufficiently recent to be still fresh within the recollection of many. For these reasons, and further because it seems to us a repellent, if not a mischievous, act to amplify such records before advancing age shall have invested them to the mind with deeper significance, we gladly pass over the picture suggested by this dark historical page, and, resuming the narrative where Madame de Campan drops it, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... Taylor invitingly. There was an allurement about this all-pervasive name; it held her by a growing fascination and she was anxious for the older woman to amplify. Miss Smith, however, remained provokingly silent, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... very opposite uses. To amplify a topic, to develop a proposition by repetition, by details, by proofs, or by example, long sentences are serviceable; by them the finer modifications of a thought can be expressed. So, too, a summary of a paragraph or a chapter frequently employs long sentences to express the whole thought ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... Billy would amplify upon the subject of his mistakes, but he waited in vain. "Nevertheless," he said, "I want ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... gratefully acknowledge the assistance of my friend Mrs. A.H. Beddoe) is neither "free" nor literal. It sometimes amplifies a thought, much as a musician might amplify the harmonies upon a master's figured bass. But even this is rarely done, and then only with a view to the youthful reader's pleasure and profit. With that view, further, the social and political introductions to the fables ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... reasonable reason, If good, is none the worse for repetition; If bad, the best way's certainly to tease on, And amplify: you lose much by concision, Whereas insisting in or out of season Convinces all men, even a politician; Or—what is just the same—it wearies out. So the end's gained, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... There is a species of hymenoptera, observed by Fabre, the burrowing wasp, which in order to provide a supply of fresh meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... went to Edinburgh, Mr. Macnee became connected with Mr. Lizars, the eminent engraver, by whom he was employed in executing anatomical drawings, colouring engravings, and other cognate works, which greatly tended to amplify his experience, and through Mr. Lizars he obtained numerous commissions from lithographers in Edinburgh, which brought him in emoluments of considerable value. Having completed his studies under Sir ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... upon him. In August, however, the long vacillation came to an end, and 'The Bride of Messina' began to take shape on paper. He found it more instructive than any of his previous works. It was also, he remarked in a letter, a more grateful task to amplify a small matter than to condense a large one. Once begun, the composition proceeded very steadily,—but little disturbed by the arrival, one day in November, of a patent of nobility from the chancellery of the Holy Roman Empire,—until the end was ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... extend, make up, affix, append, cast up, increase, subjoin, amplify, attach, enlarge, join on, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... however, we have two solutions—the Elihu speeches and the Jehovah speeches. But there is practically nothing new in the Elihu speeches: in emphasizing the greatness of God, they but anticipate the Jehovah speeches, and in emphasizing the disciplinary value of chastisement, they but amplify the point already made by Eliphaz in v. 17ff., and most summarily expressed in xxxvi. 15. Almost the only other assertion made is that, as against Job's contention, God does speak to men—through dreams, sickness, angels, etc. The lengthy description in which Elihu is introduced, ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... know what "sable" meant. He asked Dominie Jansen, whom he met on the way home. And the dominie told him "sable" was another name for "black." Jansen went on to amplify the theme, dictionary-fashion, by quoting a piece of sacred poetry about "the ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune

... call Otto," said Ramsey, though how she knew is to be wondered; and somebody, to amplify, added: ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... opposition has successfully established the points it set out to prove. In such a case, he cannot do better than to acknowledge the correctness of his opponent's proof, and then remembering that an audience awards a decision by a comparison of the relative weight of the proof of each side, amplify the importance of his own arguments, point by point, and diminish the importance of the arguments ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... if he cared little for magic and ancestral ghosts, take such trouble to foster and amplify the worship of this maypole-spirit, Dionysos? Why did he add to the Anthesteria, the festival of the family ghosts and the peasant festival "in the fields," a new and splendid festival, a little later in the spring, the Great Dionysia, or Dionysia ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... gaily away before his mother could amplify a suggestion which spoiled a little of his pleasure in the praises—he thought they were unqualified and enthusiastic praises—she had been heaping upon Alice. He wished to go to bed with them all sweet and unalloyed in his thought, to sleep, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... heavens are angry, and I may say envious of the extension and large privilege we ascribe to human wisdom, to the prejudice of theirs, and abridge them so much more unto us by so much more we endeavour to amplify them." If there were no closer parallel than that in Montaigne, we should be bound to take it as an expansion of a phrase in Seneca's AGAMEMNON,[14] which was likely to have become proverbial. I may add ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... have the effects of the flood, which was punctually according to the judgment threatened. But observe, I pray you, how the Holy Ghost, by repeating, doth amplify the matter. "All flesh," "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life"; "All that was in the dry land," "every living substance," "every man"; and they were destroyed from off the earth: By which manner of language doubtless there is insinuated a threatening to them ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... old enough to talk, and the child stared with intense interest at an empty chair. His mother asked what attracted his attention, and the child said, "Don't you see, mamma, the old gentleman who is sitting in that chair?" I am careful not to add details, as my own imagination might unconsciously amplify them, but my impression is that the child was asked to describe the vision more minutely, and that his description exactly accorded with his ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... and during this time, (beside the reading of MS. poems) they took me to Limouth, and Linton, and the Valley of Stones. This beautiful and august scenery, might suggest many remarks, as well as on our incidents upon the way, but I check the disposition to amplify, from recollecting the extent to which an unconstrained indulgence in narrative had formerly led me, in the affair ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... priestcraft. We have done something more than mark time. We report progress. Yet despite the miracles of modern invention how far in the arts of government has the world traveled from darkness to light since the old tribal days, and what has it learned except to enlarge the area, to amplify and augment the agencies, to multiply and complicate the forms and processes of corruption? By corruption I mean the dishonest advantage of the few ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... to reduce these five to three, and range all considerations under Economy, Climax, and Variety; or we might amplify the divisions; but there are reasons of convenience as well as symmetry which give a preference to the five. I had arranged them thus for convenience some years ago, and I now find they express the equivalence ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... literally as possible from the original Marathi. But, owing to the difference between Marathi and English canons of taste, I have had in a very few places slightly to change the sense. In some places, owing to the obscurity of the original text, I have had to amplify the translation. In other places I have had to cut short the descriptions of Hindu rites and ceremonies so as to avoid ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid

... occupies the spare berth; and all this for your express benefit, young gentlemen. This skeleton I procured in person from the Hunterian department of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we have no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify at a juncture like this"—casting an almost benignant glance toward the patient, now beginning to open his eyes; "but let me point out to you upon this thigh-bone"—disengaging it from the skeleton, with a gentle twist—"the precise place where I propose to perform the operation. Here, young ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... striking facts, so natural and of such simplicity, that though a biased judgment may, perhaps, exaggerate their character, and amplify their importance, they will furnish to an impartial and reflective mind a wealth of evidence far superior to the vain speculations of the imagination or the prejudiced judgments of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... yet ore marvelous tale of what had happened to him. They gathered around the simple-minded little old man, their tongues in their cheeks, and drew from him one silly, impossible, boastful story after another. They made him amplify circumstantially by clumsily artful questions, and poked one another in the ribs with delight over his deluded joy in their ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... Use of Metaphor. (a) Analyze the metaphor in "Murder Association." (b) Point out the words in the first three paragraphs that serve to sustain and amplify the comparison. (c) Explain the metaphors that lurk in "rush of hits to the outfield," "bakered," "unbelt," "in a ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... yet a few moments, and though Mead did not add geniality to the conversation, he certainly contributed interest to it. For his views on honeymoon etiquette being strong within him, and an audience made to his hand, he went on to amplify some of the theories with which he had been trying to ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... for his very simplicity, is sometimes of more account than the wisdom of the sage. But we were discoursing of the Tapparians. Babbalanja: sententiously you have acquitted yourself to admiration; now amplify, and tell us more of the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... general principles of effective selling that may be universally applied. "Certain Success" and "The Selling Process" are handbooks of fundamental ideas which each reader, by his individual thinking, should amplify and fit to his ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... as generally described, is a feeling of perfect poise and harmony of the whole body; this is accompanied by a sense of freedom about the throat and jaw, and firm grasp and control of the expiratory muscles. Attempts are frequently made to amplify this description, but the results are always very vague. A feeling of "absence of local effort" at the throat is much spoken of, or "perfect relaxation of ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... and at the beginning seemingly artlessly presented. By the very nature of Riley's answers he was further assured of the safety of the ground on which he trod, whereupon Red Hoss cautiously broached the project, going on to amplify it in glowing colors the while Riley ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... again Dalgard indicated the mermen. "For them this is the natural means of communication. They will pick up your reaching thought, amplify it with their power, beam it north. Since your friend deals with matters of communication, let us hope that he will ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... register may also establish, by regulation, formal procedures for the filing of an application for supplementary registration, to correct an error in a copyright registration or to amplify the information given in a registration. Such application shall be accompanied by the fee provided by section 708, and shall clearly identify the registration to be corrected or amplified. The information contained in a supplementary ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office

... doing perhaps its best work in education. Its leaders are both raising and widening their standards,—they are reaching out toward modern and progressive ways, while they are trying to amplify their systems so as to include the whole youthful population. Their intelligence and enthusiasm are seen alike in the ancient universities like that of Virginia, in the younger colleges such as Roanoke and Berea, and in the leaders of the public schools. Intelligence, enthusiasm, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... was intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary connoisseur, will sound heretical. I now scarcely ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... his hand, checking Paul's speech. "My dear Paul, you cannot possibly amplify your own description of Sir Jacques, with which you entertained us one evening in a certain top set at Oxford. Do you remember those ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... accepted, the primary business of an investigator of nature is to trace likenesses and analogies between what seem on the surface to be dissimilar and unconnected events. As this idea, and this practice, were the foundations whereon the superstructure of alchemy was raised, I think it is important to amplify them more fully than I ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... the proposition that education increases human happiness. I admit this seeming impropriety; for that the proposition is true may be legitimately inferred from what has gone before. But I wish to amplify and extend this thought, and to show that education has, if possible, still higher claims upon our attention than have yet been presented; that it not only has the power of removing physical and moral ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... will pardon the seeming rudeness which necessity compels me to manifest toward you in the present emergency. I hope soon to find you a pleasant resting-place, where I shall have leisure and opportunity to make explanations and amplify ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... me, I should like to amplify a little on one point: I think if Congress would take up this question of the modification of the legal tender note and make certain rules of evidence (which would be clearly constitutional), which good lawyers undoubtedly ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... republic, takes the character of territory, the government of which is under the charge of a commandant-general, who exercises the charge of a superior political chief, whose attributes depend entirely upon the president of the republic and the general congress. But, to amplify the legislation of its centre, it has a deputation made up of seven vocals, the half of these individuals being removed every two years. The superior political chief presides at their sessions. The inhabitants of the territory are divided amongst ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... composition, from the mere fact of its not having received his final revision. In any case, I feel sure that the retention of the passages within brackets (e. g. p. 253), which show how my father intended to amplify some of the descriptions and develop more fully one or two of the character studies, will not be regretted by appreciative readers. My earnest thanks are due to Mr. Robert Browning for his kind assistance and advice in interpreting ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... place is being taken by books where the subject matter is interesting and suitable to the child's age; but as in other subjects the book chosen should be considered in reference to the child's surroundings, either to amplify ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... feels inclined to amplify this brief outline of Vertebrate Anatomy, we may mention the following books: Wiedersheim's and Parker's Vertebrates, Huxley's Anatomy of the Vertebrata, Flower's Osteology of the Mammalia, Wallace's Distribution, Nicholson ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... among us; no, this is the land of pure Greeks, with no mixture of foreign elements,"[2] etc. Such an accumulation of words in the plural number necessarily gives greater pomp and sound to a subject. But we must only have recourse to this device when the nature of our theme makes it allowable to amplify, to multiply, or to speak in the tones of exaggeration or passion. To overlay every sentence ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... 'purchased;'—not that it is not Scriptural, but because a metaphor well and wisely used in the enforcement and varied elucidation of a truth, is not therefore properly employed in its exact enunciation. I will illustrate, amplify and divide the word with Paul; but I will propound it collectively with John. If in this admirable passage aught else dare be wished otherwise, it is the division and yet confusion of time and eternity, by giving ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... counsellors and governors which may be held sufficient (negotiis pares), able to manage affairs, and to keep them from precipices and manifest inconveniences; which nevertheless are far from the ability to raise and amplify an estate in power, means, and fortune. But be the workmen what they may be, let us speak of the work; that is, the true greatness of kingdoms and estates, and the means thereof. An argument fit for great and mighty princes to have ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon



Words linked to "Amplify" :   tout, overemphasise, pad, inflate, blow, misinform, dramatize, dramatise, blow up, hyperbolise, embroider, boast, bluster, swash, vaunt, expand, gas, intensify, heighten, increase, shoot a line, compound, brag, aggrandize, hyperbolize, embellish, overstate, mislead, puff up, overdraw, gasconade



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