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Caustic   Listen
noun
Caustic  n.  
1.
Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
2.
(Optics) A caustic curve or caustic surface.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books



... violent) 173; wind up &c. (strengthen) 159. strike home, into home, hard home; make an impression. Adj. strong, energetic, forcible, active; intense, deep-dyed, severe, keen, vivid, sharp, acute, incisive, trenchant, brisk. rousing, irritation; poignant; virulent, caustic, corrosive, mordant, harsh, stringent; double-edged, double-shotted[obs3], double-distilled; drastic, escharotic|; racy &c. (pungent) 392. potent &c. (powerful) 157; radioactive. Adv. strongly &c. adj.; fortiter in re[Lat]; with telling effect. Phr. the steam is up; vires acquirit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... were spent for the most part in Italy. On the Scoglio di Venere, near Naples, he built the Villa de Angelis, and there henceforth passed all except the hottest months of the year. Shortly after the completion of the villa Jocelyn left him suddenly, and became a Carthusian monk. A caustic note in his diary hinted that even this foul parasite was shocked into the austerest form of religion by something he had seen going forward. At Naples Temple's dark life became still darker. He dallied, it is true, with Neo-Platonism, and boasts that he, like Plotinus, had twice passed ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... of men assigned to a house depends in a great measure on the discretion of the householder and the temper of the billeting officer. A gruff reply or a caustic remark from the former sometimes offends; often the officer is in a hurry, and at such a time disproportionate assortment is generally the result. A billeting officer has told me that fifty per cent. of the householders whom he ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... A spirit of caustic, impish brilliance was in her. She turned it upon the people they had rubbed shoulders with at the tables; upon the people walking past them on the terraces; even upon ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... enemy armoured train moved slowly forward from Shmakovka, followed by four others, which directed a flank fire at my position. The shells all plunked into the marsh about four hundred yards short, affording much amusement and causing many caustic Cockney comments. Next came a troop train which gave us great hopes of a real attack developing on our front, but our Naval 12-pounders on the Suffolk's armoured train began to do good practice, and a shot registered on the front enemy engine ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... acknowledged that the balm he sought in satire, was a dangerous caustic which, while closing one wound, might well cause others to open. At the same time, the money embarrassments inherited from his predecessor in the estate went on accumulating, and the period was approaching when the cassock, donned in boyish fun, was to be ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... production of the gas; while it is not clear that the yield per unit weight of carbide decomposed should be as high as that obtained in wet generation. The inventor has claimed that his by-product should be valuable and saleable, apparently partly on the ground that it should contain caustic soda. Evidence, however, that a reaction between the calcium oxide or hydroxide and the sodium carbonate takes place in the prevailing conditions is not yet forthcoming, and the probabilities are that such decomposition would not occur unless ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... a voice so different from his ordinary caustic tone that it almost startled me, "I can trust you. I put myself with implicit confidence into ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... of "the Prince," it is true, the young girl lost her gayety; but this was another cross. Her mother found her cold, awkward, and silent—brief, and slightly caustic in her replies. She feared M. de Camors would misjudge her from ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the first water, showy but superficial, and though personally brave, sure to be bewildered when he found himself for the first time working the wheels and springs of that puzzling machine, an army in the field. A caustic old Provencal marquis, with his breast glittering with the stars of a whole constellation of knighthood, yet who sat with the cross-belts and cartouche-box of the rank and file upon him, agreeing with all the premises, stoutly denied the conclusions. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... a good deal to say about the danger there was from the teeth of animals or of human beings when enraged, and he emphasised his remarks by the application of a pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... supplies are mild carbon steel for the barrels, bayonets, bolt, and locks; well-seasoned ash or maple, straight-grained, for the stocks; brass, iron, powder, antimony, benzol or phenol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and caustic soda, &c. Of these various materials the most difficult to secure are those used in the manufacture of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... has written this avowal, that "he had forgotten it; a proof that I at least did not think it sufficient foundation for so high a character as he acquired." How heartless was the polished cynicism which could dare to hazard this false criticism! Nothing can be more imposing than his volatile and caustic criticisms on the works of James I., yet he had probably never opened that folio he so poignantly ridicules. He doubts whether two pieces, "The Prince's Cabala," and "The Duty of a King in his Royal Office," were genuine ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... present except as foreshadowing the sensibility and quiet humor of the future author, and his chivalrous devotion to woman. What is worthy of note is that a boy of nineteen should turn aside from his caustic satire to protest against the cruel and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient maidens. It was enough for him that they are women, and possess the strongest claim upon our admiration, tenderness, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... fortunate," said Austen, resolved not to be the necessary second in a quarrel. He knew his father, and perceived that these preliminary and caustic openings of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the family circle, particularly of the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the standard was ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... silver which is to be reduced is put into a flask with about twice its volume of a solution of caustic potash (of one part of caustic potash to nine of water), in which a small portion of sugar has been dissolved. Let it boil gently. The operation is complete when the blackish powder which results from this process, having been washed in several ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... cruelty of a society leader! how many a young man has had his blood frozen by a contemptuous smile at his awkwardness! How much of the native good-will of an impulsive person has been frozen into a caustic and sardonic temper by the lack of a little optional civility? The servant who comes for a place, and seats herself while the lady who speaks to her is standing, is wanting in optional civility. She sins from ignorance, and should be kindly told ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... powerful stimulants nor biting draughts nor caustic applications could hinder the deadly parchment ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... Condensation of aniline Kalle Chloride 2. Chlorine with carbon bisul 3. Caustic phide to phenyldithio soda carbamic acid Mustard Gas 1. Carbon Preparation of Ethyl-Ludwigs dioxide lene from Alcohol ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... correct in his apprehension. The newspapers criticized his plan in caustic editorials and ridiculous cartoons as "Scott's Anaconda," and public opinion rejected it in an overwhelming demand for a prompt and energetic advance. Scott was correct in military theory, while the people and the administration were right in ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... into the canvas camp-chair that was pushed under him in his corner and gulped at the wind fanned into his heaving lungs by the towel flapped up and down by the twisted-nose second. A sharp pain as the cut over his eye was burned with caustic brightened ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... appearance Mr. Longworth was not prepossessing. He was dry and caustic in his remarks, and rarely spared the object of his satire. He was plain and careless in his dress, looking more like a beggar than a millionaire. He cared nothing for dress, except, perhaps, that he preferred common clothes ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... penetrate their bodies and so kill them. Or, they may be killed by suffocating them with a gas or by stopping up their breathing pores with some powdered substance, such as pyrethrum. Some insecticides, such as resin wash, act both as a caustic application and a ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume

... older man with more discretion and modesty, would have hesitated to face the audience; but Douglass possessed neither retiring modesty nor the sobriety which comes with years. He not only read the resolutions, but he defended them with such vigorous logic and with such caustic criticism of Whigs and half-hearted Democrats, that he carried the meeting with him in tumultuous approval of the course of Andrew Jackson, past ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... that Arethusa began to remember sundry lessons in economy also; she feared its cost would prove terrific. She had never seen anything nearly so Wonderful in the shape of a Gown before. Then too, those caustic remarks of so positive a nature concerning green with her red hair, which Miss Eliza had spoken so often in her hearing, began to worm ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... in one of his caustic moods, "there go two and forty sixpences, you know, to one guinea." This is one of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love for saying what is called a "good thing." No one knew better than himself the comparative superiority of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... conclusion. The truth was that these men were servants of the young muleteer's father. And it was not long ere they had discovered him, lying asleep, never thinking that he would himself be pursued. The servant who roused him made a few caustic remarks to the young Don Luis—for this was his name—about his bed and the luxury of his surroundings, as particularly befitting a youth of his rank ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... know that wart. You remember how the minister told him if other peoples business had a button-hole in it, Pa could button the wart in the button-hole, as he always had his nose there. Well, I told Pa I could cure that wart with caustic, and he said he would give five dollars if I could cure it, so I took a stick of caustic and burned the wart off, but I guess I burned down into the nose a little, for it swelled up as big as a lobster. Pa says he would rather have a whole nest of warts than such a nose, but it will be all right ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... same; His bristling beard just rising in its might, 'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night: His uncomb'd grizzly locks, wild staring, thatch'd A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd; Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting-rude, His heart ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... impulse, on what regarded himself, and there were no such confidences as those to Mary on the previous night; but in talking over home details, it was easier to speak without Tom's ironical ears and caustic tongue. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... times, so that a landing on that side would have been impossible. On the lee side, however, the boat found a sort of temporary harbour. Here they landed, but not altogether without mishap. Isaac Dorkin, who had made himself conspicuous, during the row out, for caustic remarks, and a tendency to contradict, slipped his foot on a piece of seaweed and fell into the water, to the great glee ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... the effect of rubbing several radicles at a distance of 4 mm. from the apex for a few seconds with lunar caustic (nitrate of silver); and although the radicles had been wiped dry and the stick of caustic was dry, yet the part rubbed was much injured and a slight permanent depression was left. In such cases the opposite side continues to grow, and the radicle necessarily becomes ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... the battle-words of Mirabeau, the fierce zeal of St. Just, the iron energy of Danton, the caustic wit of Camille Desmoulins, and the sweet eloquence of Vergniaud found echoes in all lands, and nowhere more readily than in Great Britain, the ancient foe and rival of France. The celebrated Dr. Price, of London, and the still more distinguished ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the situation and the person or the group. The educational process is complex. There must be first the incitement to thought. Most effective in this direction is criticism. If the roads are such a handicap to the comfort and safety of travel that there is caustic criticism at the next town meeting, public opinion begins to set definitely in the direction of improvement. If city government is corrupt and the tax rate mounts steadily without corresponding benefits to the taxpayers, the newspapers call the attention of citizens to the fact, and they begin ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... up from the city, slightly more fagged and sardonic than usual, and as he stretched himself out in the big porch-chair he was even more caustic than was his wont about the bareness and emotional sterility of the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic, and, perhaps, over-severe character of Mr. Hunt; but the tone of that gentleman's book having, as far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression, I have considered myself at liberty to restore ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... loyal friendship, his sincerity and the caustic but kindly criticism which has made ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... self-defense at last developed in Mr. Early that literary style which he had found it impossible to cultivate while he still had nothing to say. He grew a peculiar ability for self-glorification and for slugging the other man. Particularly caustic did his pen become in respect to those, whether painters, musicians, poets, novelists or reformers, who had endeared themselves to the great mass of the public. The Aspirant always called the public "the rabble," and you can't damn humanity more easily and cheaply than ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... process being effected with the other end of the thread on the other side of the finger, and the two ends which have been brought out near each other on the abdominal wall, being tied tightly over a cylinder of plaster. The ensheathed sac was then painted with caustic ammonia to excite inflammation, and a pad put on ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... sufferings. The suggestion acts upon her unstable mind, and forthwith she becomes paralysed, or a cripple, or dumb, presenting a mimicry or travesty of some bodily ailment with which she is more or less familiar. "Hysterical" girls will even apply caustic to the skin in order to produce some strange eruption which, while it sorely puzzles us doctors, will excite widespread interest and commiseration. Now little children will seldom carry their desire to attract ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... de la Fere speak, except that its aspect had much changed since the period when Athos had himself been part of it; therefore everything which the Count de Guiche related was new to his traveling companion. The young count, witty and caustic, passed all the world in review; the queen herself was not spared, and Cardinal Mazarin came in for ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... kind of figure that is irresistible to the caustic or humorous biographer. There was something impotently fiery in him, as if the genius of Charlotte and Emily had flicked him in irony as it passed him by. He wound himself in yards and yards and yards of white ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... mineral acids; with the additional action of steam, the effect is much more rapid, as also if the fibre is allowed to dry with the acid upon or in it. Animal fibres are not nearly so sensitive under these conditions. But whereas caustic alkalis have not much effect on vegetable fibres, if kept out of contact with the air, the animal fibres are very quickly attacked. Superheated steam alone has but little effect on cotton or vegetable fibres, but it would ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith

... to his oar for at least ten weeks, which is perhaps its greatest disadvantage; and it involves intense application and a pretty good temper under remarks from the "coach" that are sometimes almost more than caustic. But against these drawbacks are to be set the pleasure of gratified ambition, the healthy life, and, best of all, the sensation of the flight of the boat driven by eight men, of whom none are really bad oarsmen, and some are uncommonly good. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... nearly carried me off, and all that. On Monday, they put leeches to my temples, no difficult matter, but the blood could not be stopped till eleven at night (they had gone too near the temporal artery for my temporal safety), and neither styptic nor caustic would cauterise the orifice till after ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... severe admirer of truth. An illustration may be given. When afflicted by deafness, he consulted a celebrated aurist, who, after trying all remedies in vain, determined, as a last resource, to inject into the ear a strong solution of caustic. It caused the most intense pain, but the patient bore it with his usual equanimity. The family physician accidentally calling one day, found the duke with flushed cheeks and blood-shot eyes, and when he rose he staggered about like a drunken man. The doctor ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... occasions was enhanced by a temperate circulation of the wine bottle. There must have been very good talk at these social meetings. Evarts and Schurz were citizens of the world. Evarts was a man of keen intelligence and wide information, and possessed a genial as well as a caustic wit. Schurz could discuss present politics and past history. He was well versed in European history of the eighteenth century and the Napoleonic wars, and could talk about the power of Voltaire in literature and the influence of Lessing on Goethe. From appreciative discourse on the Wagner opera ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... may be touched with a stick of lunar caustic. You had better get a doctor to do it if they be very bad. The 8th July, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... contained Mrs Roby's limited wardrobe. He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and humorous ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... play in which she presently captivates London and Paris as the reincarnate Notre Dame de Bruges. So much of the tale I indicate; the rest is your affair. It is told in a pleasant haphazard fashion, enriched with flashes of caustic wit and disfigured with a good deal of ungrammatical and slovenly writing. I think I never met a novelist who did more execution among the infinitives. Also I suspect that Mrs. SAUNDERS' zeal for theatrical setting outran her ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various

... it, he went to the decanter and poured out some whisky, which he swallowed neat; yet, even then, he opened Kelly's letter first. There proved to be nothing special in it—congratulations on his book, some caustic comments on Fleet Street and its ways, and the always-repeated invitation to come to town, and stay with Kelly ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... gentleman was an unblushing adherent to the cause (undismayed by being apparently the only one in that vicinity), ready to cheer the chairman at every juncture, and equally ready to administer caustic ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... have heard first in Dominic's voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!" in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres finos!" Very much like Nostromo. But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain pride of ancestry from which my Nostromo is free; for Nostromo's lineage had to be more ancient ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... (including aviation, communications, computer-aided design and manufactures, medical electronics, fiber optics), wood and paper products, potash and phosphates, food, beverages, and tobacco, caustic soda, cement, construction, metals products, chemical products, plastics, diamond cutting, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... has nothing of the grace of Plato; he illuminates his works with no myths or allegories; his manner is dry, sententious, familiar, without the slightest attempt at ornament. There are occasional touches of caustic humour, but nothing of emotion, still less of rhapsody. His strength lies in the vast architectonic genius by which he correlates every domain of the knowable in a single scheme, and in the extraordinary faculty for ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... with the silken reins of her camel. Behind her veil a sarcastic smile played about the corners of her mouth. Aquila watched her resentfully, waiting with an immense reserve of caustic words for her refusal to accept ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... teaching. "If you cannot use them six days in the week, if it has to be seven or none, then do as the miners on the Yukon side do, consider the country uninhabited, and make your arrangements as though there were no Kobuks." That was my advice, and this may be read in connection with Mr. Stefanson's caustic comments on ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... Scotchman, Colden, afterwards improved it into Garangula, under which high-sounding appellation Big Mouth has descended to posterity. He was an astute old savage, well trained in the arts of Iroquois rhetoric, and gifted with the power of strong and caustic sarcasm, which has marked more than one of the chief orators of the confederacy. He shared with most of his countrymen the conviction that the earth had nothing so great as the league of the Iroquois; but, if he could be proud and patriotic, so too he could be selfish and mean. He valued ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... suggested, and he opened it in front of me. And so help me, that stuff there was all that was in it. The money was gone. I tell you I never felt so much like a fool——" Nickleby broke off with an oath, still smarting under the jibes which the caustic Mr. Ferguson had levelled at him, and beneath which the President of the Interprovincial had writhed in humiliation. "Somebody took that money out on the way ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... speech, he became, at the critical time of Peel's change of front, the representative of Shrewsbury, and gradually organized about himself the dissatisfaction and indignation of the landed proprietors with Sir Robert Peel's concessions to the free-trade movement. His strictures on Peel were severe, caustic, and bitter. "What," said this eloquent speaker, "shall we think of the eminent statesman, who, having served under four sovereigns, who, having been called to steer the ship on so many occasions and under such perilous circumstances, has only during ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... three. Immediately the prosecution fell into the trap. Two agitated Assistant District Attorneys jumped to their feet and barked out an objection to the presence of the accused's wife and family on the inside of the fence, and the court promptly sustained them. He also said some very sharp and caustic things to Smilk's lawyer. Mrs. Smilk and her bewildered seven patiently resumed their seats in the front row of spectators, but not until after a four year old girl, surreptitiously pinched, had caused a mild sensation by ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order to renew constantly the air within the flask, the experimenter sucked with his mouth several times a day the open end of the apparatus, filled with the solution of potash, by which process the air entered his mouth from the flask through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the sulphuric acid. The air was of course not at all altered in its composition by passing through the sulphuric acid in the flask; but all the portions of living matter, or of matter capable of becoming ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... prohibit these ladies from traveling." "We have a law," another indignantly replied, "paramount to all others—the law which commands us to take care of the public safety." The debate was finally terminated by the caustic remark of a member who was ashamed of the protracted discussion. "Europe," said he, "will be greatly astonished, no doubt, on hearing that the National Assembly spent four hours in deliberating upon the departure of two ladies who preferred hearing mass at Rome rather than at Paris." The debate ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... north continent of Venus is divided into four parts. No Caesar has set foot here either, nor shall one—for the dank, stinging, caustic air swallows up the lives of men and only Venus ...
— Foundling on Venus • John de Courcy

... at once for his resignation. At a question cunningly framed by Dartrey, Tallente rose in the House to defend his position, and acting on the soundest axiom of military tactics, that the best defence is attack, he turned upon Miller, and with caustic deliberation exposed the plot framed for his undoing. He threw caution to the winds, and though repeatedly and gravely called to order, he poured out his scorn upon his enemy till the latter, white as a sheet, rose to demand the protection ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... friends together. The quails in aspic and the sparkling hock had evidently opened their hearts to one another. As far as Malines they laughed and talked without ceasing. Lady Georgina was now in her finest vein of spleen: her acid wit grew sharper and more caustic each moment. Not a reputation in Europe had a rag left to cover it as we steamed in beneath the huge iron roof ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... her origin. Her passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable. Little bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled them on her bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef. Lady Flora could not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to the Baroness, who pursed her lips in fury, and ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... I would suggest the question whether the caustic may not be employed with benefit even in some of the severer diseases to which the human frame is liable. Indeed I consider the investigation as only just begun, and many other uses of the lunar caustic, besides those detailed in the following ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom

... Samuel Pentecost, whose light had hitherto been hidden under a bushel, prove at last that he could do something by proving that he could eat. Now did Pedgift Junior shine brighter than ever he had shone yet in gems of caustic humor and exquisite fertilities of resource. Now did the squire, and the squire's charming guest, prove the triple connection between Champagne that sparkles, Love that grows bolder, and Eyes whose vocabulary is without the word No. Now did cheerful old ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... was very caustic upon the women who block the pavement outside drapers' shops, but surely she was unjust. They always seem unconscious, to be enjoying themselves intensely and most innocently, more so probably than an audience at a Wagner concert. Many persons with refined minds are apt to depreciate happiness, ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... soon—after fifty years or so—but there will come a writer of genius, and precisely a Russian one, who will absorb within himself all the burdens and all the abominations of this life and will cast them forth to us in the form of simple, fine, and deathlessly—caustic images. And we shall all say: 'Why, now, we ourselves have seen and known all this, but we could not even suppose that this is so horrible! In this coming artist I ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... "It is a caustic article against the successful men of the day," said Reddy; "they have no merit, sir—none. 'T is nothing but luck has placed them where they are, and they ought to be exposed." He then threw down his pen as he spoke, and, after a silence of some minutes, suddenly put ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... agreeably nodded back under the mistaken impression that they were glad to see him, he systematically checked up all the groups. Ruth was not among the punch-table devotees, who were being humorous and amorous over cigarettes; not among the Caustic Wits exclusively assembled in a corner; not among the shy sisters aligned on the davenport and wondering why they had come; not in the general maelstrom in ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... parliamentary elections in May 1908 were followed by the provincial elections in the ensuing month, and thus a favourable opportunity was presented of contrasting the working of the two systems. The grossly unfair results of the provincial elections drew forth from many journals most caustic criticism. Le Peuple expressed the hope that these provincial elections would be the last instance of the use of the majority system in Belgium. "Is it not," it proceeded, "absurd, stupid, detestable that the provincial ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... in solution failed to give the desired results and the use of soda-lime has supplemented all other forms of carbon dioxide absorption. More recently we have been using potash-lime, substituting caustic potash for caustic soda in the formula, and the results thus obtained are, if anything, more satisfactory than ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... shams, its flippancy, its instability, its charm. Soon he had become as great a favorite as Mr. Jefferson himself, though winning his enviable position by qualities the very opposite of that gentleman's. Mr. Morris rivalled the Parisians themselves in caustic wit, perfect manners, and the thousand and one social graces of the time, while Mr. Jefferson captivated all by his democratic manners and entire indifference to social conventionality, much as the incomparable Dr. Franklin (whose ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... for Dr Livingstone, who gladly went to him. He and Dr Kirk at once told him that the disease was most difficult to cure, and that he might rest assured he had not been bewitched. They applied lunar caustic externally and hydrate of potash internally, with satisfactory results; so that in the course of a short time the poor chief's ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... the "forgery," as it was called in a caustic editorial, "The Little Dodger Cornered and Caught." Within a week even the remote school-districts of Illinois were discussing Douglas's action, and many of the most important papers of the nation had made it a subject of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... just kindled. . . . The character of girls must depend upon their reading as much as upon the company they keep. Besides the intrinsic pleasure to be derived from solid knowledge, a woman ought to consider it as her best resource against poverty.' This is a somewhat caustic aphorism: 'A romantic woman is a troublesome friend, as she expects you to be as imprudent as herself, and is mortified at what she calls coldness and insensibility.' And this is admirable: 'The art of life is not to estrange oneself from society, and yet not to pay too dear for ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... his brother at a disadvantage, and he grew fluent and caustic as he went on, almost changing places with Howard, who took the rake out of the boy's hands and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... obtegere conabatur." Prosperi Santacrucii de Civilibus Galliae dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a caustic contemporary pamphlet—Le livre des marchands (1565)—should describe him as "ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent egalles entre deux fers." (Ed. Pantheon, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... MATTER AND PRINT FROM IT AGAIN.—Take your picture or print and soak it for a short time in a weak solution of Caustic Potash, then remove it carefully, and let it dry on a sheet of clean paper. Then take a piece of copper, zinc, or steel, which has previously been well cleaned, and dip it into hot white wax. Let ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... of Caustic Potash.—The solution of blood obtained in water is boiled, when a coagulum is formed soluble in hot caustic potash, the solution formed being greenish by transmitted and ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... easily, and perhaps you will not. In the last stanza is the "joke" proper, the thing for which the rhymes were written. It is an old joke, surely enough, and you have seen others like it; but it is funny still and perhaps a little caustic. Not all men whom the world calls good are good beneath the surface. Perhaps you know of cases in which "the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... anapest, a single foot of any kind, or even a single long syllable, may be, and sometimes is, in certain rather uncommon instances, set as a line, is not to be denied. "Dr. Caustic," or T. G. Fessenden, in his satirical "Directions for Doing Poetry," uses in this manner the monosyllables, "Whew," "Say," and "Dress" and also the iambs, "The gay" and, "All such," rhyming them ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... fate with constantly waning patronage for another year, when he succumbed to the inevitable and sought a new field, a wiser if a sadder man. His mantle has fallen upon E. S. Bower, whose capacity and style were graphically portrayed in caustic rhyme by Mrs. Ellsworth, making him the target for the wit of the women ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... the furnace, turned slowly around, showed his pale and hollow-eyed face, and smiled a withering and commiserating smile. "Ye won't go north this week," he remarked—not without sympathy, for somehow he had taken a liking to me, which even prompted him off and on to favor me with caustic expressions of what he thought of the school board and the leading citizens of the town. I, of course, never encouraged him in his communicativeness which seemed to be just what he would expect, and no rebuff ever ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... Buzzer simply and solely as a troglodyte, of sedentary habits and caustic temperament, is not merely hopelessly wrong: it is grossly unjust. Sometimes he goes for a walk—under some such ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... made up to its former strength and passed again through fresh tailings. When the tailings contain a quantity of decomposed pyrites, partly oxidised, the acidity caused by the freed sulphuric acid requires to be neutralised by an alkali, caustic soda being ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... necessary, when she was to have a place at the table, to heighten the seat of her chair by another very thick cushion made of violet satin. Madame de la Rochefoucauld knew well how to efface, by means of her bright and sparkling, though somewhat caustic wit, her striking elegance, and her exquisite court manners, any unpleasant impression which might be made by her ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... course looks this morning!" she said, with a charitable wish to change the subject, for Lord Barminster was apt at times to wax caustic over ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... he was playing the frank, good fellow, and aiming at popularity. He had become one of the club. He played at whist, and only smiled, after his sort, when his partner revoked, and he lost like a gentleman. His talk was brisk, and hard, and caustic—that of a Philistine who had seen the world and knew it. He had the Peerage by rote, and knew something out-of-the-way, amusing or damnable about every person of note you could name; and his shrewd gossip had a bouquet ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... for the presence of the divine hand in the Revolution, in the intense mediocrity of the revolutionary leaders. How could such men, he asked, have achieved such results, if they had not been instruments of the directing will of heaven? Danton at any rate is above this caustic criticism. Danton was of the Herculean type of a Luther, though without Luther's deep vision of spiritual things; or a Chatham, though without Chatham's august majesty of life; or a Cromwell, though without Cromwell's ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... Mornington-crescent or Burton-crescent, or any other crescent in particular, has not been mentioned by either ancient or modern astronomers. The only articles we get from the moon, are moonlight and madness. Lunar caustic is not derived from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... Fielding's vigorous figure vanishes from active political service. No more caustic Greek epics, translated from the original "by Homer," no more boisterous interludes with three-bottle Prime Ministers appearing in the part of principal boy, come from his pen. But scarcely is the ink dry on the page of his last known political ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... cures. The unguent, however, to the horror of the doctors, burned the skull till the bone was as black as the colour of ink; and Olivarez declares he believes it to have been a preparation of pure caustic. On the morning of the 9th of May, the Moor and his unguents were sent away, "and went to Madrid, to send to heaven Hernando de Vega, while the prince went back to our ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... disaster, and grieving over the useless loss and suffering of his gallant men, it was but natural that he should vent his feelings in sharp and caustic denunciation of all who were in any degree responsible for the blunder. He was especially outspoken with Grant and Rawlins, whose confidence he had won in the Chattanooga campaign, and with whom he had since been on terms of the closest intimacy and friendship. It is but just to note that they ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... after page, looking for names as he called them off, but most of them had disguised their ventures through dummies. We had no trouble in putting our fingers on their allotments, however; Mr. Rogers commenting in his sage and caustic way on men and politics. It was growing late, and at a natural stopping-place in our talk I sent for paper and string, with my own hands tied up the book, and—with all the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... travel, and the ease with which they are hurt—sluggish circulation, poor food and insufficient stimulants being the causes—is one of its deplaisirs. The people wash and anoint these wounds with palm oil: a hot bath, with pepper-water, if there be no rum, gives more relief, and caustic must sometimes ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... born at Bagnols, in the department of Var; famed for his caustic wit; was a Royalist emigrant at the time of the Revolution, and aided the cause by his pamphlets; he was styled by Burke "The Tacitus of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... step to be taken in the 'laicisation' of the schools has been already revealed in the famous 'Article 7' of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is the true, though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose will ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... performing a series of parts, or was it the ordinary changes of a man's true temperament that you beheld in him? Commonly smooth, quiet, attentive, flattering in social intercourse, he was known in the senate and courts of law for a cold asperity, and a caustic venom,—scarcely rivalled even in those arenas of contention. It seemed as if the bitterer feelings he checked in private life, he delighted to indulge in public. Yet even there he gave not way to momentary petulance or gushing passion; all seemed with him systematic sarcasm or habitual sternness. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was opened on the 3rd of February. Earl Grey in the lords, and Mr. Disraeli in the commons, opened the party campaign by assailing the foreign policy of the government; and Disraeli was alike caustic and unjust upon Lord Palmerston, scarcely avoiding personality, while inveighing against the public conduct ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... printer was a little wrong-headed Scotchman,—had insisted at the last moment in heading his Tyrtean "Proem," a fine aerial trumpet-blast somewhat Shelleyan in style, with the word that was evidently intended, namely, "Poem." However, he was somewhat consoled by reading his caustic column of notes headed "The World outside Coalchester," the very heading of which was a revelation. Then, too, he very much enjoyed his article on "Bad Lighting in Coalchester," with its evident allegoric insinuation that Coalchester ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... molasses, farina, and grape, or starch sugar. The latter substance is occasionally, for adulterating purposes, added in Europe to cane sugar; it may be detected by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid and of a solution of caustic potassa; the former blackens cane sugar, but does not affect the starch sugar, while potassa darkens the color of starch sugar, but does not alter that of cane sugar. But the copper test is far more delicate. Add to the solution ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... death in the sinner by that which is good,—that sin by the commandment might become, might be seen to be, exceeding sinful. The law is like a chemical test. It eats into sin enough to show what sin is, and there stops. The lunar caustic bites into the dead flesh of the mortified limb; but there is no healing virtue in the lunar caustic. The moral law makes no inward alterations in a sinner. In its own distinctive and proper action upon the heart and will of an apostate being, it is fitted only to ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... crowfoot zinc and hang it about 1 in. above the half can. Prepare a 10 per cent solution of caustic soda and fill the jar within 1 in. of the top. Place on top the solution a thin layer of kerosene or paraffin. The cell will only cost about 50 cents to make and 25 cents for each renewal. When renewing, always remove the oil ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... nearly two hundred; and at the end of the long list of items, the biggest of which was that bathroom without water that had sent Annalise out on strike, was the information that a remittance would oblige. A remittance! Poor Fritzing. He crushed the paper in his hand and made caustic mental comments on the indecency of these people, clamouring for their money almost before the last workman was out of the place, certainly before the smell of paint was out of it, and clamouring, too, in the face of the Shuttleworth countenance and support. He had not been a week ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... say nothing of Rivarol, a caustic wit of the revolutionary time, nor of Joubert, a writer of sayings of this century, of whom Mr. Matthew Arnold has said all that needs saying. He is delicate, refined, acute, but his thoughts were fostered in the hothouse of a coterie, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... gay, delivering itself of observations upon the folly of Humans, comparing us very unfavorably with the godlike dignity of trees, the immutability of mountains, and the profound philosophy of brooks. Indeed it waged most eloquent upon this theme, caustic, if you will, but with a ripple, between whiles, like the deep-throated chuckle of the wise old ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... of a strong, enduring frame, and a keen, vehement, caustic spirit. He had the gift of tongues, and was as familiar with the Abenaki and several other Indian languages as he was with Latin.[235] Of the genuineness of his zeal there is no doubt, nor of his earnest and lively interest ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... his chamber thoroughly aroused and excited. The restraint which he had put on himself during the talk with Father Frontford brought now its reaction. He rehearsed in his mind the telling and caustic things which he might have said, then laughed at himself for his unnecessary fervor. He packed his belongings, and, leaving them to be called for, set out for the house of his cousin. To go out from the Clergy House seemed to him like ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... sin, corruption or evil hosts, then use burning ridicule and caustic sarcasm to sizzle and destroy the things ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... England; and Middleton could not help being struck with the accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which so few Englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of the American character,—shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree of justice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of what was likely to happen,—prophecies which, in one instance, were singularly verified, in regard to a complexity ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... from Hattie's caustic comments in Bertie's immediate devotion. He had won her heart on the night of her arrival, when he had gone to sleep in her lap with a last injunction, that she "must stay with them always, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of admirable qualities. What a horrible jest it is!—and the world is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain women, at their air of superiority to ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... candidate for University honors, that his scientific attainments are far from inconsiderable. He is well known to be the author of an essay in the Philosophical Transactions on the accurate rectification of a circular arc, and of an investigation of the equation of a lunar caustic—a problem likely to become of great ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be enough—it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at the Funambules. ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... did not meet with as much success. Colonel Craven, of Ripley, who was taken prisoner, talked in so caustic a tone that Morgan ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... accidentally. The antidote is vinegar, or oil of any kind. The vinegar neutralizes the alkali by uniting with it, forming the acetate of potash. The oil unites with the alkali, and forms soap, which is less caustic than the ley. Give, at the same time, large draughts of mucilaginous drinks, as ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... thy sentiment and scoff at thy style (which Heaven forfend!), console thyself that thou livest in peaceable and enlightened times, and needest fear that no greater evil can befall thee on account of thy folly in writing than the lash of his satire and the bitterness of his caustic pen. After the manner of thy race thou wilt tempt Fortune again. May'st thou proceed ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... that praise is not good for young people; and the child did not often give him the chance of trying. Of blame he was free enough. Not a good scolding to clear the air, such as Thomasina would give to Annie the lass, but his slow, caustic tongue was always growling, like muttered thunder, over John Broom's ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... been thought worthy of discussion in the Noctes Ambrosianae, require no further introduction to the reader. The almost exceptional position which they occupy as satirizing the foibles rather than the more serious faults of human nature, and the caustic character of that satire, mingled with such bright wit and genial humour, give Miss Ferrier a place to herself in English fiction; and it is felt that a time has come to recognize this by producing her works in a form which fits them for the library, and in a type which ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... passes for having been the last of the "Rois des Ribauds" (see the Bibliophile Jacob's historical novel of that title), was, like his descendant the great diplomatist, a man of subtle and caustic humour. Brantome, in his article on Anne of Brittany in Les Dames Illustres, repeatedly refers to him, and relates that on an occasion when the Queen wished to say a few words in Spanish to the Emperor's ambassador—there was a project of marrying her daughter Claude to Charles ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... lady continually harking back to "conjugal" subjects, which seemed to interest her; the mamma slightly flabbergastered at the rather revolutionary nature of the communications; and our host every now and then throwing in a rude or caustic remark. I dreaded to think what might have been the result of a domiciliary visit paid by a Commissioner in Lunacy to ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... chief of the hunting staff, would meet the King in some sylvan glade. Why it was a comfort to Edward to be with him, it would be hard to say; probably from the habit of old fellowship, for Henry's humour had not grown more courtly or less caustic. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that 100 grammes of the oil require 0.34 gramme of caustic potash to neutralize the free acid. Mr. W. H. Deering (Journ. Soc. of Chem. Industry, Nov., 1884) states that in seven samples of olive oil examined by him, the minimum number for acidity was 0.86 per cent., and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... Mauthner [Footnote: Jour. f. prakt. Chem., 1911, 84, 140.] from the chloride of trimethylgallic acid and the methyl ester of the acid from the glucoside of syringin; on saponification with caustic potash the former compound yielded ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser

... Stephen's precincts; list not to the roar Of the mad Midland cheers, when FEILDING's plan Of levelling (moneyed) Woman up to Man Wins "Constitutional" support and votes From a "majority" of Tory throats! Mrs. LYNN LINTON, how this vote must vex, That caustic censor of her own sweet sex! Wild Women—with the Suffrage! Fancy that, O fluent Lady, at tart nick-names pat! Girls of the Period? They were bad enough, But what a deal of skimble-skamble stuff Will Mrs. FAWCETT's Middle-aged Ones talk When these eight hundred ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various

... cherished possession, required him to do the work in repayment, and that Lincoln not only did it grudgingly, but afterwards lampooned the man so severely in satiric verse that he was ashamed to show himself at neighborhood gatherings. All the people about Gentryville feared Lincoln's caustic wit, and disliked him for it, although they were greatly impressed with his ability exhibited thereby. Lincoln recognized his moral obliquity, and curbed his propensity for satire, which was a case of that "exercise of natural faculty" which affects all gifted persons. And when ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... physician and surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time I had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day. The physician and surgeon both belonged to the Pious Separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... in June 1878, in his eighty-first year.] is himself a sight—a man of eighty, in high boots, very deaf, very caustic, and clever; possessing under lock and key most wonderful literary treasures and curiosities. He gave 3,000 L for a manuscript bible, but that we did ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... was something more than a caustic critic. For the terrible ills of his age and country he had one plain and homely remedy, and that for all true Christians to leave the Church of Rome and return to the simple teaching of Christ ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... enthusiastic conversation, unaffected by his running fire of comment. For in these days he was drifting rapidly toward a sort of altruistic socialism, and so listened to her recital with sardonic smiles, snorts of scorn, and caustic annotations. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... ballad, though equally an illustration of the days of chivalry, was written in a spirit of caustic contempt for the fair sex, which suggests the bitterness ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... December. The play created a furore, and its political purport as a picture of the baffled intrigues of Shaftesbury in favour of Lucy Walter's overweening son is obvious, nor is it rendered less so by Dryden's clever and caustic Vindication of the Duke of Guise (1683). It is interesting to note that Lady Slingsby, who played the Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medici, in this play, has some very sardonic speeches put in her mouth; indeed, as Henri III aptly remarks,'she ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... characteristic of his wit was its unexpectedness; sometimes acrid, sometimes humorous, his sayings came forth, like Topham Beauclerk's in Dr. Johnson's day, like Talleyrand's in our own, poignant without effort. His calm, gentle voice, contrasted with his startling caustic utterance, reminded people of Prosper Merimee: terse epigram, felicitous apropos, whimsical presentment of the topic under discussion, emitted in a low tone, and without ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... except only that at Westminster. Let us stand aside here for a moment and picture some of those who have ascended these stairs in days gone by. A fanfare of trumpets sounds, and Henry VIII goes up with ponderous step. Here too comes Queen Elizabeth, jesting in caustic fashion with her courtiers, as she sweeps along to witness a dramatic entertainment in the Hall. Of lesser folk there pass by Dr. Fell ("I do not like thee, Dr. Fell"), who finished the building of Tom Quad in 1665; and then a quiet studious-looking man, a fellow or senior student ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... recalled my scathing comments at the time of the divorce proceedings. They were too caustic to be repeated here. It is only necessary to state that the proceedings came near to putting two friendly nations into very bad temper. Statesmen and diplomats were drawn into the mess, and jingo congressmen on our ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... brought in, and Mr. Heathcote ate more quickly than ever before in his life, although he found time for caustic criticism of the hotel accommodations in Red Cloud. Just as he put down his half-emptied coffee-cup the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... matter the product is known as "seed lac." It is then melted and strained and spread out in thin layers in a form called "shell lac." This is what is known as orange shellac in the market. It may be bleached by boiling in caustic potash, and passing chlorine thru it until the resin is precipitated. It is further whitened by being pulled. This is what is known in the market as "white shellac." It comes in lumps. Orange shellac is the stronger and ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... degrees of hardness, and probably differ from each other in the proportions at least of their component parts; when a patient, who labours under this afflicting disease, voids any small bits of gravel; these should be kept in warm solutions of caustic alcali, or of mild alcali well aerated; and if they dissolve in these solutions, it would afford greater hopes, that that which remains in the bladder, might be affected by these medicines taken by the stomach, or injected into ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... determined to attempt the realization of her dreams, she was brought to a decision by a caustic remark of the historian, Hume. Miss Conway was one day walking with him when they met an Italian boy with plaster vases and figures to sell. Hume examined the wares and talked with the boy. Not long after, in the presence of several other people, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... her husband, with his usual caustic turn of speech. "I swan! I can sleep better under the elder's preaching than I ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... deposits supplied the basis for the manufacture of soda-ash, and at the village of Solvay, adjoining Syracuse on the west, is one of the largest factories for this purpose in the world. Besides soda-ash it produces bicarbonate of soda, caustic soda and crystals, the total output being about 1,000 tons daily. Syracuse ranks among the leading cities of the state in the number and variety of its manufactures. There are 760 establishments employing 25,000 workers, ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... between evidence which leads to a high degree of probability and a demonstration which produces absolute certainty. The subject was a dry one, and quite unsuited to Dr. Spenser, whose heart was set on maintaining a reputation for caustic wit. He cast about for an illustration which would at once make clear the distinction and enliven his lecture. His eye lit upon Hyacinth, upon whose cheek there still burned a long red scar. Dr. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... to her husband's shocked comment on the un- princely appearance of the young man and the wofully ordinary suit of clothes worn by the Count, was sufficiently caustic, and he was silenced—and convinced. Neither of the distinguished foreigners looked the part ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... imagination, equal to the comprehension of the greatest objects, and capable of a cool and steady comprehension of them. He had wit at will. He had humor that when he pleased was delicate and delightful. He had a satire that was good-natured or caustic, Horace or Juvenal, Swift or Rabelais, at his pleasure. He had talents for irony, allegory, and fable, that he could adapt with great skill to the promotion of moral and political truth. He was master of that infantine simplicity ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... A caustic was applied to this as soon as the tiny wound had been freely lanced and set bleeding, and then with the proper instrument a strong application of ammonia was forced into one of the mule's larger veins, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... "Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of you, and all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel it, I see it—for there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room, where I can view my shape from head to foot. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte



Words linked to "Caustic" :   erosive, chemical compound, virulent, lunar caustic, destructive, blistering, caustic soda, mordant, caustic lime, sulphurous, unpleasant, corrosive, silver nitrate, acrid, vitriolic, caustic potash, sulfurous, bitter, acerbic, lye, acid, caustic remark



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