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Describe   Listen
verb
Describe  v. t.  (past & past part. described; pres. part. describing)  
1.
To represent by drawing; to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out; as, to describe a circle by the compasses; a torch waved about the head in such a way as to describe a circle.
2.
To represent by words written or spoken; to give an account of; to make known to others by words or signs; as, the geographer describes countries and cities.
3.
To distribute into parts, groups, or classes; to mark off; to class. (Obs.) "Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book."
Synonyms: To set forth; represent; delineate; relate; recount; narrate; express; explain; depict; portray; chracterize.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Describe" Quotes from Famous Books



... building scores a week at a certain factory I visited just outside Paris, and this factory is but one of many. But the men (or rather, youths) who fly these aerial marvels—it is of these rather than the machines that I would tell, since of the machines I can describe little even if I would; but I have watched them hovering unconcernedly (and quite contemptuous of the barking attention of "Archie") above white shrapnel bursts—fleecy, innocent-seeming puffs of smoke that go by the name of "woolly bears." I have seen them turn and hover ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... could lay hold of. They amused themselves also by "ragging" the freshmen, jeering at their simplicity, and playing them a thousand tricks. Things haven't much changed since then. The fellow-students of Augustin were so like students of to-day that the most modern terms suggest themselves to describe their performances. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... time in female dalliance, except when covered with the veil of night and beyond the prying eye of man." Were a man to speak to a squaw of love in the daytime, he adds, she would run away from him or disdain him. He then proceeds, with astounding naivete, to describe the nocturnal love-making of "these innocent people." The Indians leave their doors open day and night, and the lovers take advantage of this when they go a-courting, or "a-calumeting," ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... merely the arithmetic of his authorities that Mr. Wilson undertakes to rectify. When they describe a pitched battle, he asserts that it was a mere skirmish. When they speak of a large town, he tells us it was a rude hamlet. When they portray the magnificence of the city of Mexico, he says that they are "painting wild figments"—whatever that may mean,—and that Montezuma's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... ornithology, for the American Museum of Natural History of New York. This was undertaken under the auspices of Messrs. Osborn and Chapman, acting on behalf of the Museum. In the body of this work I describe how the scope of the expedition was enlarged, and how it was given a geographic as well as a zoological character, in consequence of the kind proposal of the Brazilian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, General Lauro Muller. In its altered and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... dimpling figure. Her hair is bright brown, and her nose is an exquisitely cut little straight one. (Here I observed Dawn casting surreptitious glances in the mirror opposite.) Her eyes are bright blue with long dark lashes, and she has a mouth too pretty to describe, fitted up with a set of the loveliest natural teeth one could see in these days of the dentist; it is so perfect that it seems unnatural and a sad pity that it should sometimes be the outlet of censorious remarks about less beautiful sisters, but its owner is very young and not surrounded ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... Ezekiel or Daniel for visions. He came just when I was going to bed last Friday night to describe one that had been revealed to him in Nunnely Park that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... of the cabin, and sitting in the well I proceeded to decipher the three foolscap pages of hieroglyphics which Tommy is pleased to describe as his handwriting. As far as I could make out ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... men dwelling in Magh Sgiath, who frequently saw the fiery globe which it has been already told they first beheld at the time of Declan's birth. It happened by the Grace of God that they were the first persons to reveal and describe that lightning. These seven came to the place where Declan abode and took him for their director and master. They made known publicly in the presence of all that, later on, he should be a bishop and they spoke prophetically:—"The day, O beloved child and servant of God, will come when ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... rather, I should say for three. In the first place, because it is one of the simplest and the most familiar objects with which we are acquainted. In the second place, because the facts and phenomena which I have to describe are so simple that it is possible to put them before you without the help of any of those pictures or diagrams which are needed when matters are more complicated, and which, if I had to refer to them here, would involve the ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley

... to put this philosophy to the test was nearer than he suspected. He used to describe himself as 'thoroughly cured and seasoned,' and to predict that he would 'last a good while yet.' But, one day in December, a subject of remark in the Boul' Miche was Bibi's absence; and before nightfall the news went abroad that he had been found on ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks, which had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs. Virginia's couturiere had her photograph and her colouring (represented in actual paints) and a figure made up from ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... the reader's indulgence to describe one of our little practical jokes enacted at Dullstroom Church, which was characteristic of many other similar incidents in the Campaign. It will be seen how these would-be "hands-uppers" were caught in a little trap prepared by some ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... many years acquainted with the Count de Montalembert, yet never really appreciated him until today. Had I been asked to describe him yesterday, I should have spoken of him as a spirituel, lively, and amusing man, with remarkably good manners, a great knowledge of the world, and possessing in an eminent degree the tact and talent de societe. Had any one mentioned that he was a man of ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... use his own words, as nearly as I can give them, he said: "I dreamed that I had died, but found myself consciously awake in the land of departed spirits. My own father met me. I knew him. The joy with which he received and welcomed me I cannot describe. My next experience was along a stream of very clear water. It did not appear to be a very large stream, but its remarkable character impressed me as singular. It flowed gently. It was not swift, but glided smoothly along, uphill and downhill the same. Its speed ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... self-absorption in the frankest manner. He began at once to explain how badly he had slept; indeed he asserted that he had not slept at all; and he complained with extreme acerbity of the renewal of his catarrh. 'Constant secretion. Constant secretion,' was the phrase he used to describe the chief symptom. Then by a forced transition he turned to the profession of architecture, and restated his celebrated theory that it was the Cinderella of professions. The firm had quite recently obtained a very important job in a manufacturing quarter of London, without having ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... sashes waved to and fro, and ornamented branches nodded their heads about. In addition to this, the members of the family were clad in such fineries that they put the peach tree to shame, made the almond yield the palm, the swallow envious and the hawk to blush. We could not therefore exhaustively describe them within our limited space ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... child in a Mississippi steamboat explosion years before. The man was lame in one leg, and appeared to be flitting from place to place. It seemed that Major Lackland got so close track of him that he was able to describe his personal appearance and learn his name. But the letter containing these particulars was lost. Once he heard of him at a hotel in Washington; but the man departed, leaving an empty trunk, the day before the major went there. There was something very mysterious ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... is a savage, an ignorant savage. I did as you told me, dear aunty. Not one tiny little frog even have I carried in my pockets, not even a beetle; and this is the result. I will not tell you all the things I had found; I couldn't bear to describe them. Two such beauties of beetles—bright red wings, the body lilac blue, and glittering as any precious stone! Such a rare species! And an oleander-sphinx! And my magnificent caterpillar of the humming-bird moth!—you know, aunty, that one with yellow stripes ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... 22. Describe the burnt-offerings of ancient Hebrew religion. What was the difference between ordinary sacrifices and ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... is distinguished from all other things pertaining to the intellect. For when we describe it as "evidence," we distinguish it from opinion, suspicion, and doubt, which do not make the intellect adhere to anything firmly; when we go on to say, "of things that appear not," we distinguish it from science and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... crested) helmets, and cuirasses of leather, bronze, or chain-mail. The national weapons of offence were darts, pikes (sometimes with prongs—the origin of Britannia's trident), and broadswords; bows and arrows being more rarely used. Both Diodorus Siculus [v. 30] and Strabo [iv. 197] describe this equipment, and specimens of all the articles have, at one place or another, been found in British interments.[42] The arms are often richly worked and ornamented, sometimes inlaid with enamel, sometimes decorated with studs of red coral from the Mediterranean.[43] ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... proofs of time, place, circumstance; the clothing I had worn when stolen, and which was still preserved, joined to the striking likeness I bore to both my parents, especially to my father, silenced all doubt and incredulity: I was welcomed home with a joy which it is in vain to describe. My return seemed to recall my mother from the grave; she lingered on for many months longer than her physicians thought it possible, and when she died her last words commended me ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "You describe me perfectly. I am very poor—for I know nothing, understand nothing. It is not a calamitous condition until it is realized. Then..." He threw out his arms, and let them fall again. His face she observed ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... Vava left Stella to describe their new house-mates, and also to talk things over with Mrs. Morrison, who had a great deal to tell her and ask her, and ran off to see Doreen, who was rewarded for her ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... her head under her wing, a prey to terror. The husband, on his return, hastened to the parrot to ask what had happened during his absence; and the bird answered that she found it impossible to describe the deluge and tempest of the last night; and that years would be required to explain the uproar of the hurricane and storm. When the shopkeeper heard the parrot talk of last night's deluge, he said: "Surely O ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... made use of the test for lizards and hedge-hogs—to wit, the application of madder dye to the Adam's apple, turning it lemon yellow if any sort of reptile is within, and violet if there is a mammal—but it failed to operate as the books describe. Being thus led to suspect a misplaced and wild-growing bone, perhaps from the vertebral column, the doctor decided to have recourse to surgery, and so, after the proper propitiation of the gods, he administered to his eminent patient a draught of opium water, and having excluded the wailing ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... live under the cloister; the cats live on the green garth, and sometimes die there, I did not see much of the Canons; but the cats seemed to me very sad-depressed, nostalgic even, I might describe them, if there had not been something more languid, something faded and spiritless about their habit. It was not that they quarrelled. I heard none of those long- drawn wails, gloomy yet mellow soliloquies, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... an occasional cloud above us, the sea calm and pleasant—and all that sort of thing, you know—just what you want on such occasions,—and we set sail from Braman's, resolved to have "a jolly good time." I can't describe our passage down. It was altogether too full of fun to be written on one sheet. Suffice it to say, we laughed, and sang, and joked, and ate, and drank ('t was when we were young), and so on, all the way, and in fact I felt rather disappointed at arriving ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... unable to sleep more than one or two hours out of the twenty-four. In common parlance I was "worrying myself to death," when, mercifully, a total collapse of mind and body came. My physicians used the polite euphemism of "cerebral congestion" to describe my state which, in reality, was one of temporary insanity, and it seemed almost hopeless that I should ever recover my health and poise. For several months I hovered between life and death, and my brain between reason ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... delighted when one falls. So far indeed, the only enthusiasm a native has shown, has been while hunting after a successful shot. The paddlers at once re-enact the scene, put imaginary guns to their shoulders give a loud bang and then describe circles with their hands to give a dumb show of the bird falling, laughing and shouting all the time. They are really just like young children and are easily pleased by trifles. After walking some distance the sergeant becomes wildly excited and clutches me violently by the ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... the moral and intellectual qualities which constitute the Bore, and a vein of personal raillery as refined as it is pungent. Sydney Smith spoke of Sir James Mackintosh as "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the most successful ridicule." The words not inaptly describe Arnold's method of handling ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... the district being respectable and rather wealthy, but no longer fashionable. He came home with his notes, and found Rosa beaming in a crisp peignoir, and her lovely head its natural size and shape, high-bred and elegant. He sat down, and with her hand in his proceeded to describe the houses to her, when a waiter threw open the ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... vitality. The difference can be felt instinctively in the merest fragment of a broken figure. It is not difficult to tell Greek from Roman fragments, they pulsate with a life that it is impossible to describe but that one instinctively feels. And this vitality depends, I think it will be found, on the greater amount of life-giving variety in the surfaces of the modelling. In their architectural mouldings, the difference of which we are speaking can be more easily traced. The vivacity and brilliancy ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... different distances. Dr. Clay Wallace of New York, who published a very ingenious little book on the eye about twenty years ago, with vignettes reminding one of Bewick, was among the first, if not the first, to describe the ciliary muscle, to which the power of adjustment is generally ascribed. It is ascertained, by exact experiment with the phacueidoscope, that accommodation depends on change of form of the crystalline lens. Where the crystalline is wanting, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... his 'kaleidoscope,' a device for rendering the vibrations of a sounding body apparent to the eye. It consists of a metal rod, carrying at its end a silvered bead, which reflects a 'spot' of light. As the rod vibrates the spot is seen to describe complicated figures in the air, like a spark whirled about in the darkness. His photometer was probably suggested by this appliance. It enables two lights to be compared by the relative brightness of their reflections in a silvered bead, which describes a narrow ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... the principal seaport towns of the island, I found the pacificos lodged in huts at the back of the town and also in abandoned warehouses along the water front. The condition of these latter was so pitiable that it is difficult to describe it correctly and hope to ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... which made her dance in her little room. Mary had written in her father's stead—there was not a word of Mr. Ward—indeed, Mr. Ponsonby was evidently so ill that his daughter could think of nothing else. Might not Clara come in time to clear up any misunderstanding—convince Mr. Ponsonby—describe Louis's single-hearted constancy during all these five years, and bring Mary home to him in triumph? She could have laughed aloud with delight at the possibility; and when the other alternative occurred to her, she knit ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... writer of his century the genius of France, exquisite in the proportion of his feeling and the expression of feeling to its source and cause. If we do not name him, with some of his admirers, "the French Homer," we may at least describe him, with Nisard, as a second Montaigne, "mais plus doux, plus aimable, plus naif que le premier," and with all ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... on a different principle, viz., on the expansion of a thin plate of platinum, which is heated by a mass of metal previously raised to the temperature of the medium. The exact arrangements are difficult to describe without the aid of drawings, but the result is to measure the difference of temperature between the medium to be tested and the atmosphere at the position of the instrument. The whole apparatus is simple, compact, and easy to manage, and its indications appear to be correct at least ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... not be amiss to describe the school-house; for it stood as a sample of thousands of west country school-houses of the present day. It was of logs, after the usual fashion of the time and place. In dimension, it was spacious and convenient. The ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... Prose and Poetry was the best Author of his Age, for if Chaucer's Coin were of greater Weight for deeper Learning, Lydgate's was of a more refined Stantard for purer Language; so that one might mistake him for a modern Writer. But because none can so well describe him as himself, take an Essay of his Verses, out of his Life and Death of Hector, pag. 316 ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... of feasts were celebrated in the several cities of Greece, and especially at Athens, of which I shall describe only three of the most famous, the Panathenea, the feasts of Bacchus, and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... nothing you can describe exactly! You know, usually, I don't interfere in your affairs. But now ... I'd like real well to know ... what's come over ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... gaily to describe some of his humorous adventures, and continued in this vein till they arrived once more at the chateau. Sometimes the countess laughed, but he could see that her sprightliness was gone. When they came under the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... painful pause. Jimmy's mind was phrasing words to describe the scene. The eleven old men, waiting to hear from the other three. The dead stillness of the group, hardly breathing; the mask-like features of Lorenzo Tonti, the suffused features and protuberant eyes of Fletcher, the high cheek bones of Stanislav ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... barcas are continually gliding hither and thither; but in the Keizersgracht and the Heerengracht the water is little used. One day, however, I watched a costermonger steering a boat-load of flowers under a bridge, and no words of mine can describe the loveliness of their reflection. I remember the incident particularly because flowers are not much carried in Holland, and it is very pleasant to have this impression of them—this note of happy gaiety in so ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... all night to listen to them. It makes me feel so strange that I hardly know how to describe it,—as if I were away off from everything, and high up, where it is wide and open, and where the stars are. It makes me want to write. All sorts of beautiful thoughts come to me, that I can almost put into words. But they are ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Peninsula campaign. By this, of course, is not understood the battles of the campaign, nor the army movements, but the reception, washing, feeding, and ministering to the sick and the wounded—scenes which are too full of horror for tongue to tell, or pen to describe, but which must always remain indelibly impressed upon the minds and hearts of those who were ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... blue-black, like the plumage of a crow; the eyes burning—two fires veiled, as yet, by melancholy. But the appearance of the man was not single, straight, or obvious, as it is when I describe it, any more than his passions throughout the play were. I only remember one moment when his intensity concentrated itself in a straightforward unmistakable emotion, without side-current or back water. ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... remember, in the end of the Victorian era had attempted to become realistic—had attempted, that is, the absurdly impossible; and photography exposed the absurdity, For no man can be truly a realist, since it is literally impossible to paint or to describe all that the eye sees. When photography became general, this began to be understood; since it was soon seen that the only photographer who could lay any claim to artistic work was the man who selected and altered and posed—arranged his subject, that is to say, in more or less ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... quite free and able to come by rail or by water or by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would describe how the many places I have seen stand quite differently in the mind according to the way in ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... get out of the way!" For I was approaching at a speed of nearly a mile a minute. Now, there is but one way of halting a toboggan. It is to run the nose of your machine into a snow-bank, where it will stick. On the contrary, you do not stop. You describe the curve known as a parabola, and skin your own nose on the icy crust of the snow. Then you "halt," in one piece or several, as the case ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... forced, as it were, to express with unreasoning violence; and now, when the child was so boisterous as to disturb the peace of the others, his mother took him by the hand to lead him away into another chamber; but the dying man signed to him with a look which none may describe, and that moment the little fellow set his teeth hard and stood in silence by the door. Whereupon the old man nodded to him as though the child ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... he saw the hidden spiritual meaning of things as Professor Cayley or Professor Sylvester see the meaning of their mysterious formulae. Without using the Rosetta-stone of Swedenborg, Emerson finds in every phenomenon of nature a hieroglyphic. Others measure and describe the monuments,—he reads the sacred inscriptions. How alive he makes Monadnoc! Dinocrates undertook to "hew Mount Athos to the shape of man" in the likeness of Alexander the Great. Without the help of tools or workmen, Emerson makes "Cheshire's ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... happened," or, rather, how Helen described it to her sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own. But the poetry of that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there was in life for hours after it—who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity. It is so easy to talk of "passing emotion," and how to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... to find a use in so many centuries. When we consider the backwardness of knowledge in the age of Plato, the boldness with which he looks forward into the distance, the many questions of modern philosophy which are anticipated in his writings, may we not truly describe him in his own words as a 'spectator of all time and of ...
— Philebus • Plato

... not stop to describe the Falls of Trolhaetta. Better word-painters have so often pictured the beauties of this region that there is nothing left for ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... all people to her feet. When he came to his cigar and his whiskey, she would take young Spencer to the gallery, where they discussed the new French pictures, very knowingly, Spencer thought. She would describe for him the intricacies of a color-scheme of some tender Diaz, and that would lead them into the leafy woods about Barbizon and other ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... and stars appear in the sky; Her glance drops to earth, and flowers clothe the knoll whereon she stands. Beria looks up, and basilisks die of terror; Be not amazed; 'tis a sight that would Satan affright. Tamar's divine form human language cannot describe; The gods themselves believe her heaven's offspring. Beria's presence is desirable only in the time of vintage, When the Evil One can be banished by naught but grimaces. Tamar! Had Moses seen thee he ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... the Niagara rivers, that he spoke with the voice of experience and authority. This letter was the first step towards the construction of the work, which, however, came about in a manner different from his expectations, and was finally completed on a plan more extensive than he had ventured to describe. It has been charged that the original estimates of cost have been far exceeded by the actual outlay. If this were true, the words of praise which I have uttered for the engineers, who designed and executed this work, ought ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... laws of society as arranged on that point, of course require it. But let no man, and, above all, no woman, assume that the excursion will be in any way pleasurable. I have promised that I will not describe such a visit, but I must enter a loud, a screeching protest against the Arab brutes—the schieks being the very worst of the brutes—who have these monuments in their hands. Their numbers, the filthiness of their dress—or one ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... I cannot describe the impatience I felt when the postman Brainstein, the son of the bell-ringer, came into the street. I could hear him half a mile away, and then I could not go on with my work, but must lean out of the window and watch him as ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... loose,' said Don Quixote, 'and think no more of him, for after we have vanquished our enemies we shall have such choice of horses that I may light upon one even better than Rozinante! But let us stand on yonder little hill, for I would fain describe to you the names and arms of the noble knights ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... May Vaughan led four hundred men to the hills near the town, and saluted it with three cheers,—somewhat to the discomposure of the French, though they describe the unwelcome visitors as a disorderly crowd. Vaughan's next proceeding pleased them still less. He marched behind the hills, in rear of the Grand Battery, to the northeast arm of the harbor, where there were extensive magazines ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... sage describe a sage's happiness; but is it true that the happiness of Marcus Aurelius, as of Renan himself, arose only from the return of joy that followed the renouncement of joy, and from the enchantment of the disenchanted? For then were it better that wisdom be less, that we be the less ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... into a very dark and incommodious prison, where we found the priest, Victor, and some others: but we were not dismayed at the filth and darkness of the place, our faith and joy in the Holy Ghost reconciled us to our sufferings in that place, though these were such as it is not easy for words to describe; but the greater our trials, the greater is he who overcomes them in us. Our brother Rhenus, in the mean time, had a vision, in which he saw several of the prisoners going out of prison with a lighted lamp preceding each of them, while others, that had no such lamp, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... so pityingly as you describe, and bless me as I was praying, unwitting of his presence?" repeated she, with a look that searched the dame ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... It teaches the location of countries, the use of figures, and the history of nations; but there are some things books cannot do, and the greatest of these is, they cannot describe physical and mental suffering. These are things that ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... Around the walls were rows of boxes and trunks, piles of old carpeting, pieces of damaged furniture, bundles of discarded clothing and other odds and ends of more or less value. Every well-regulated house has an attic of this sort, so I need not describe it. ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum

... the foremost of Spanish theologians and Jurists at that period was Gines de Sepulveda, whose distinction as a master of Latin style had caused Erasmus to describe him as the Spanish Livy. Born in Cordoba of noble parents in 1490, he had passed many years in Italy and had but recently returned to Spain, where he was named royal historiographer by Charles V. During his sojourn ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... Abyssinians. The cuneiform texts tell us nothing about the cause of the dispute, but tradition generally ascribes it to the creation of man by the supreme God; and it is probable that all the apocryphal stories which describe the expulsion from heaven of the angels who contended against God under the leadership of Satan, or Satnael, or Ibls, are derived from a Babylonian original which has not yet been found. The "Fifty Names," or laudatory epithets mentioned above, find ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum

... Cadamosto sailed from Porto Santo to Madeira, forty miles distant, and easily seen from the first island when the weather was cloudy, and here the narrative stops some time to describe and admire sufficiently. Madeira had been colonised under the lead and action of the Prince four and twenty years before, and was now thickly peopled by the Portuguese settlers. Beyond Portugal its existence was hardly known. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... to describe the insane hatred that had kindled his heart into a volume of hellish flame. It appeared, indeed, that his jealousy had grounds, so far as that Walter Brome had actually sought the love of Alice, who also had betrayed an undefinable, but powerful interest in the unknown youth. ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... fame I will not now explore; Nor need I here describe, in learned lay, How forth the Minstrel fared in days of yore, Right glad of heart, though homely in array; His waving locks and beard all hoary gray; While from his bending shoulder, decent hung His harp, the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wild responsive rung: And ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... several species of small fern, now green and fresh; and, to the observing passenger, their forms and colours are a source of inexhaustable admiration. Add to this the hoar-frost and snow, with all the varieties they create, and which volumes would not be sufficient to describe. I will content myself with one instance of the colouring produced by snow, which may not be uninteresting to painters. It is extracted from the memorandum-book of a friend; and for its accuracy I can speak, having been an eye-witness of the appearance. 'I observed,' ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... competition had not dulled his appetite for more, and depressed he was at the prospect of a reverse. That it was coming now he could not doubt. McLauchlan, who was to be Rev., had a flow of words (which would prevent his perspiring much in the pulpit), but he could no more describe a familiar scene with the pen than a milkmaid can draw a cow. The Thrums representatives were sometimes as little gifted, it is true, and never were they so well exercised, but this Tommy had the knack of it, as Mr. Ogilvy could not doubt, for the story of his ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... were called upon to describe truthfully the character of any little child, would you only speak of such naughty impulses as all children have in common, and not even hint at the capacity to ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... one word, said he would be for me here what Professor Schinz, with whom he had formerly studied, had been for me in Zurich. After the opening of the term, when I know these gentlemen better, I will tell you more about them. I have still to describe my home, chamber, garden, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... thought was in Cal's grasp. Express the things and forces balanced in equation to describe them as they are; or, equally, to alter the things and forces instead to fit the equation balance one had in mind; purely a matter of choice. Each was the use of natural law. No chaos here, no magic, one as much true ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... the woful fact. I carried it with me into all companies, into all occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me even a few minutes' oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to grow thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge's "Dejection"—I was not then acquainted with them—exactly describe my case: ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... should have been equally undeserving of mention, if I had told you of the secret, or double, or ex-war—however you like to describe ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... amount of consecrated work done by the loyal women of the North for the army. Hundreds of thousands of women probably gave all the leisure they could command, and all the money they could save and spare, to the soldiers for the whole four years and more of the war.... No words are adequate to describe the systematic, persistent faithfulness of the women who organized and led the Branches of the United States Sanitary Commission. Their voluntary labor had all the regularity of paid service, and a heartiness and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... not necessary to describe the shape and make of the common cow-bell in general use throughout our country; but it is necessary that the reader should bear them in mind in order to understand the manner in which the missionary proposed to accomplish this result. His plan was to strike the bell when in the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... the different corps of troops stationed in Paris, who displayed much enthusiasm for him and much attachment to his person. They agreed to convoke an extraordinary meeting of the moderate members of the councils, to describe the public danger to the Ancients, and by urging the ascendancy of Jacobinism to demand the removal of the legislative body to Saint-Cloud, and the appointment of general Bonaparte to the command of the armed force, as the only man able to ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... philippics, he fearlessly exposed the peculations, the misrule, the oppression, and the inhuman heartlessness of the Company's servants,—speeches which extorted admiration, while they humiliated and chastised. I need not describe the nine years' prosecution of a great criminal, and the escape of Hastings, more guilty and more fortunate than Verres, from the punishment he merited, through legal technicalities, the apathy of men in power, the private influence of the throne, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... our gallant countrymen, who, few in number, and isolated from their comrades, stood at bay in different parts of the land surrounded by hundreds of pitiless miscreants, tigers in human shape thirsting for their blood? And can pen describe the nameless horrors of the time—gently nurtured ladies outraged and slain before the eyes of their husbands, children and helpless infants slaughtered—a very Golgotha of butchery, as all know who have read of the Well ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... I am powerless to describe. My pen is unequal to it. The doctor arose, not so much angry as astonished, white and incredulous. "What did you do that for, any way?" he asked, glaring fiercely at my brother-in-law. Charles was all abject apology. He began by profusely expressing his regret, and offering to make ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... it is probable even if the place had been much nearer, he still could not, seeing that it was some years since he had been to "his part of Norfolk." However, he gave polite attention to Miss Farham, who went on to describe the wonderful flower of ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... the evolution of religion was, if we may so describe it, linear or rectilinear: the process consisted in a series of successive stages. In some cases, as for instance among the aborigines of Australia, it never rose higher than its starting-point, totemism; in others, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... these statements in so far as they apply to Aileen. It would scarcely be fair to describe her nature as being definitely sensual at this time. It was too rudimentary. Any harvest is of long growth. The confessional, dim on Friday and Saturday evenings, when the church was lighted by but a few lamps, and the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length. Their glance, but a moment chronologically, was a season in their history. To Elfride the intense agony of reproach in Stephen's eye was a nail piercing her heart with a deadliness no words can describe. With a spasmodic effort she withdrew her eyes, urged on the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed memories was oblivious of any presence beside her. The deed of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... No words could describe the joy in his wife's heart when her father took their hands and asked their forgiveness for years of estrangement, and told the tale of the intercepted letters, which he might never have discovered had it not been for little Hepsie's Christmas ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... weeks later was handed over to the Government, but it was not until the fourth of March that her guns were mounted, two powerful rifled cannon. At the request of Ericsson, she was named the Monitor, and this name came afterwards to be adopted to describe the class of ships of which she was the first. So dangerous was service in her considered, that volunteers were called for, and Lieutenant John Lorimer Worden was given ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... to fire!" But no one scarcely could throw himself down, so tight as the crowd were packed. I heard a sharp order given, and wondered where I should be the next minute; and then—It was as if—the earth had opened, and hell had come up bodily amidst us. It is no use trying to describe the scene that followed. Deep lanes were mowed amidst the thick crowd; the dead and dying covered the ground, and the shrieks and wails and cries of horror filled all the air, till it seemed as if there were nothing else in the world but murder and death. Those of our armed men who were ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... declared that if he had the remotest idea in what direction it had been left, he would be glad to lead them to the spot. He could describe ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... you state. Barley is an excellent fattener for mature hogs, but is a poor food for young growing pigs. Young pigs should have a balanced ration, which may be defined as a little of almost all kinds of feed and not all of any one kind. We have pigs running on a barley field such as you describe, and in addition to the barley we feed them once a day a slop composed of wheat middling and bran in equal parts by measurement, to which we add about 8 per cent tankage, and they seem to be moving along nicely. Without the slop we don't think they ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... of benefits so great it is impossible either to describe or conceive them; all shall be yours, all that we see here, there, above and below ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... defence over a large district of country, and where nearly every citizen was an enemy ready to give information of our every move. I have described very imperfectly a few of the battles and skirmishes that took place during this time. To describe all would take more space than I can allot to the purpose; to make special mention of all the officers and troops who distinguished themselves, would take a ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Lucien. We now understood l'Encuerado's peculiar way of walking. He fancied he had noticed a young shoot of this plant, and at first concealed the discovery from us, fearing some deception. I can hardly describe the pleasure that was afforded us by obtaining these berries in such a welcome time. This shrub, with its vine-like and thorny stalk, ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... I entered the reception-room there were about twenty or twenty-five people who were to be entertained at dinner. I will not attempt to describe the elegance, not to say splendor, of everything in connection with the dinner. As I ate food for the first time in my life out of gold dishes, I could not but recall the time when as a slave boy I ate my syrup from ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... not to be studied as an absolutely dead thing, but rather as a sentient being.... To measure petals, to count stamens, to describe pistils without reference to their functions, or the why and wherefore of their existence, is to content one's self with husks in the presence of a feast of fatness - to listen to the rattle of dry bones rather than the heavenly harmonies ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... broke in Mrs. Hooper irritably, twining her fingers and tapping the carpet with her foot, "Mr. Letgood doesn't want to leave Kansas City. Don't you understand? Perhaps he likes the folk here just as well as any in Chicago." No words could describe the glance which accompanied this. It was appealing, and coquettish, and triumphant, and the whole battery was directed full on Mr. Letgood, who had by this time recovered ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... reaching Salt Lake in a week, as had been promised, the party were over thirty days in making the trip. No words can describe what they endured on this Hastings Cut-off. The terrible delay was rendering imminent the dangers which awaited them on the Sierra Nevada. At last, upon ascending the steep rugged mountain before mentioned, the vision of Great Salt Lake, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... them their children; and slaughter still exercising its cruelties wherever there is the least expectation of booty. Tho all these details are comprehended in the idea of the sacking of a town, yet it is saying less to state merely that the town was sacked than to describe its destruction in this ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... "The moon does not describe a circle round the earth, but an ellipse, of which our earth occupies one of the foci; the consequence is, therefore, that at certain times it approaches nearer to, and at others recedes farther from, the earth, or, in astronomical ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... Bismarck, which would seem to be exaggerated, this demand was made by Benedetti as an ultimatum and with direct threats of war, which were answered by Bismarck in language of equal violence. In any case the demand was unconditionally refused, and Benedetti travelled to Paris in order to describe what had passed at the Prussian headquarters. His report made such an impression on the Emperor that the demand for cessions on the Rhine was at once abandoned, and the Foreign Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, who had been disposed to enforce this by arms, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... describe the Earl of Kent fully, because he is about to become a prominent person in the story, and also because he had absolutely nothing to recommend him beyond his physical courage, his taste in dress, his fascinating ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... bestow—I cry ye mercy! For your author, tramping the roads, weary yet aglow with exercise, hath met and had familiar fellowship with lusty Hunger, and learned that eating, though a base necessity, may also be a joy. If therefore your author forgetteth soul awhile to something describe and mayhap dilate upon such material things as food and drink and their due assimilation, here and now he doth most humbly crave ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... that there were so many adventurers crowding into the field, and ready to follow on his track. He even took from the mariners their charts, [172] and boasts, in a letter to the sovereigns, that none of his pilots would be able to retrace the route to and from Veragua, nor to describe ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... indeed it was an awful tragedy such as we lack words to describe. Moses commanded the Jews to take a male lamb for each household, to kill it, and to daub its blood over the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of their houses. The flesh they were to eat in the night, roasted, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as the inauguration of the Passover. ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... I can neither forget nor describe those first experiences of real country life, when Eleanor and I rambled about together. I think she was at least as happy as I, and from time to time we both wished with all our hearts that "the other girls" could be there too. The least wisely managed ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... called Cuba, steering S.S.W. At dark, having made seventeen leagues on that course, he saw the land, and hove his ships to until morning. On the 28th he made sail again at S.S.W., and entered a beautiful river with a fine harbor, which he named San Salvador. The journal in this part does not describe the localities with the minuteness with which every thing has hitherto been noted; the text also is in several ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... all those localities, while on the contrary the Isthmus of Panama is beyond doubt the most favorable point, according to the opinion of all the scientific and practical men who have visited that part of the new world.[3] We shall proceed, therefore, to describe that Isthmus as far as is necessary ...
— A Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama • H. R. Hill

... teetering on the pea-green settee, had always kept Sybaris in the background of my head, as a problem to be solved, and an inquiry to be followed to its completion. There could hardly have been a man in the world better satisfied than I to be the hero of the adventure which I am now about to describe. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... many a mile. But the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, with its eight miles of granite walls and its Royal Gorge towering nearly three thousand feet above us! It is rightly named. I cannot undertake to describe it accurately. Here are grand cliffs which seemingly reach the heavens, and in some places the rocky walls come so near that they almost touch each other. As you look up, even in midday, the stars twinkle ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... are not the pert and gum-chewing young persons that story-writers are wont to describe. The girls at Bascom's are institutions. They know us all by our first names, and our lives are as an open book to them. Kate O'Malley, who has been at Bascom's for so many years that she is rumored to have stock in the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... economy in our national expenditures, but it is a misuse of terms to make this word describe a policy that withholds an expenditure for the purpose of extending our foreign commerce. The enlargement and improvement of our merchant marine, the development of a sufficient body of trained American seamen, the promotion of rapid ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... and young girls career adown the mountain sides in what seems the maddest, most reckless way, guiding their half-broken, mustard-coloured steeds with a single rein of plaited straw, adjusted in an artful way which is beyond me to describe. Very quaint they look, on their yellow horses, which remind you of D'Artagnan's orange-coloured charger, immortalised by Dumas in the "Three Musketeers;" their red robes floating in the breeze, their bare feet hanging over the horse's right flank. When they fall off they ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... and his friends, unconscious of what was going forward, walked out of the schoolroom as usual at bedtime. The clock began to strike nine. There was one Greybeard left in the room, who was packing up some of his books, which had been left about by accident. It is impossible to describe the impatience with which he was watched, especially by Fisher, and the nine who depended ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... the Queen' is sung by the professional gentlemen, the unprofessional gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as 'perfectly electrical.' ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... which it has been called well describe its effect on the patient; breakbone fever, dandy-fever, stiff-necked or giraffe-fever, boquet (or "bucket") fever, scarlatina rheumatica, polka-fever, etc. While the suffering is intense as long as the disease lasts it seldom ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... up the next morning, and the tropic light flashed suddenly into the tropic day, Amyas was pacing the deck, with disheveled hair and torn clothes, his eyes red with rage and weeping, his heart full—how can I describe it? Picture it to yourselves, you who have ever lost a brother; and you who have not, thank God that you know nothing of his agony. Full of impossible projects, he strode and staggered up and down, as the ship thrashed and close-hauled ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... cost the artisans their eyesight, so nice and subtle was the work. I could not help noticing that the workmen at the shops in the Ruga Vecchia still suffer in their eyes, even though the work is much coarser. I do not hope to describe the chain, except by saying that the links are horseshoe and oval shaped, and are connected by twos,— an oval being welded crosswise into a horseshoe, and so on, each two being linked ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... imparting to the reader something of his own interest and enthusiasm, has enabled him to interpret nature in a most delightfully fascinating way. He gives the key to his own success when he says, "If I name every bird I see in my walk, describe its color and ways, etc., give a lot of facts or details about the bird, it is doubtful if my reader is interested. But if I relate the bird in some way to human life, to my own life,—show what it is to me and what it is in the landscape and the season,—then do I give my reader ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... delightful chance to Chrissy, this brief transplanting into the flourishing, cheerful town-house, amid the glowing gaiety of the yeomanry weeks. Accordingly she was constantly engaged in checking off every little detail on the finger-points of her active mind, in order that she might be able to describe them to her secluded sisters and her sick mother at home. She was determined not to miss one item of interest; never to sleep-in so as to lose the mount; never to stray in her walks and fail to ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... people having become ultra Tory mad from reading Scott's novels and the "Quarterly Review," has been a mighty favourite, especially with some who were in the habit of calling him a half crazy old fool—touched, or whether he did not; but he asks where did Johnson ever describe the feelings which induced him to perform the magic touch, even supposing that he did perform it? Again, the history gives an account of a certain book called the "Sleeping Bard," the most remarkable prose work of the most difficult language but one, of modern ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... frequently on the scalp, from the size of a pea to an egg, in groups. Wens are elastic lumps, painless and of slow growth, and most readily removed. Space does not permit us to recount the other forms of benign tumors and it would be impossible to describe how they could be distinguished from ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... That long line where all the powers of destruction within man's command are in deadlock has become a symbol for something which cannot be expressed by words. No one has yet really described a shell-burst, or a flash of lightning, or Niagara Falls; and no one will ever describe a trench. He cannot put anyone else there. He can ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... miles from the town) is another imperial garden. There are three mango trees here, which are very remarkable, from their age and size. Their branches describe a circle of more than eighty feet in circumference, but they no longer bear fruit. Among the most agreeable walks in the immediate vicinity of the town, I may mention the Telegraph mountain, the public garden (Jardin publico), the Praya do Flamingo, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... then—such an explosion! I will not pretend to describe her emotions, or repeat her expressions. Enough that my daughters were quickly called in to share the excitement. Although they had never dreamed of such a revelation as Mr. Scribe's; yet upon the first suggestion they instinctively saw the extreme likelihood of it. In corroboration, ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville

... of management has been defined, "as knowing exactly what you want men to do, and then seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.'" No concise definition can fully describe an art, but the relations between employers and men form without question the most important part of this art. In considering the subject, therefore, until this part of the problem has been fully discussed, the other phases of the art may ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... small, informal dance, the word "Informal" should be engraved in one corner. Officers of the army and navy giving a ball, members of the hunt, bachelors, members of a club, heads of committees, always "request the pleasure," or, "the honor of your company." It is not proper for a gentleman to describe himself as "at home;" he must "request the pleasure." A rich bachelor of Utopia who gave many entertainments made this mistake, and sent a card—"Mr. Horatio Brown. At Home. Tuesday, November fourteenth. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence of a person who was then present? And how could he describe the sufferings of a deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be at the summit of bliss, by reason of the return of the beloved object? Never had the apartments been so luxuriously arranged; flowers were ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... passages—the Elizabethan drama from Sackville to Shirley stands alone in the history of the world. The absurd overestimate which has sometimes been made of its individual practitioners, the hyperbole of the language which has been used to describe them, the puerile and almost inconceivable folly of some of their scholiasts and parasitic students, find a certain excuse in this truth—a truth which will only be contested by those who have not taken the very considerable trouble necessary ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... of this work is not to describe all the many races of animals which have been domesticated by man, and of the plants which have been cultivated by him; even if I possessed the requisite knowledge, so gigantic an undertaking would be here superfluous. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... It's impossible to describe adequately the meeting as the newcomers left the carriages and were greeted by those waiting for them. The chatter and laughter of the girls made merry music, but for the most part the young men shook hands in silence, looking deep into one another's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... Lord Crawford and his guard put an immediate end to the engagement which we endeavoured to describe in the last chapter, and the knight, throwing off his helmet, hastily gave the old Lord his sword, saying, "Crawford, I render myself.—But hither—and lend me your ear—a word for God's sake—save ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... own words: she felt that they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced that day and wished to convey. "He was such a delightful old man, and it was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can't describe it," she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. "I understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that very soul ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... appeared the blue muzzle of another automatic, with a silencer on it. Dick ducked as a flame spurted from it. He felt the bullet stir his hair. He grasped at the hand that held it, and missed. Then he was held fast, and the muzzle swung implacably toward his head again. Helpless, he watched it describe that arc of death. It was only later that he wondered why he had fought all the while in silence, instead of crying ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... competent pupil. Edward Phillips was an amiable and upright man, who earned his living respectably by tuition and the compilation of books. He held his uncle's memory in great veneration. But when he comes to describe the education he received at his uncle's hands, the only characteristic on which he dwells is that of quantity. Phillips's account is, however, supplemented for us by Milton's written theory. His Tractate of Education ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... I thought I would write you what I could of my symptoms, and get your opinion of my case, but it took me about two days to write the letter. My head felt so bad that I could not collect myself enough to describe my feelings. You wrote me that my trouble was caused by indigestion, dyspepsia, catarrh, and spinal affection, and that you could cure me, and in fact, make a new man of me if I would send for your special treatment and follow your advice. My son sent for the medicine for me. I took it ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... England.[61] My book proved useful to Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P., the expert photographer of the House of Commons, who went about with his camera to many of the places indicated, and by his art produced permanent presentments of the scenes which I had tried to describe. He was only just in time, as doubtless many of these customs will soon pass away. It is, however, surprising to find how much has been left; how tenaciously the English race clings to that which habit and usage have established; ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... things. The industry itself is one of the first that comes with the invasion of new territory, and makes one think of man's first work in the world: to fell the tree and till the soil. It is impossible to describe that fierce, jubilant song of the saw, which even when we were near was never shrill or shrieking: never drowning our voices, but vibrant and delightful. To Mrs. Falchion it was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... of writing narratives? When I put this extremely reasonable objection, I am told that certain very serious events relating to my niece have happened within my experience, and that I am the fit person to describe them on that account. I am threatened if I fail to exert myself in the manner required, with consequences which I cannot so much as think of without perfect prostration. There is really no need to threaten ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... been busied this past week, save on Sunday, when we rested and performed the Sabbath duties of a Christian, in bringing hither stores from the ship—now bearing them over firm ice, and now wading knee-deep in half-frozen water. I will here describe the house which we have built to shelter us withal. It is among a tuft of thick trees, under a south bank, about a bow-shot from the seaside; it is square, and about twenty feet every way. First we drove strong stakes into the earth round about, which ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... book does not permit of there being given a series of elaborate tables showing the action of various chemical reagents on fabrics dyed with various colours; and such, indeed, serve very little purpose, for it is most difficult to describe the minor differences which often serve to distinguish one colour from another. Instead of doing so, we will point out in some detail the methods of carrying out the various tests, and advise all dyers to carry these out for themselves ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech

... diversification much of the beauty of the work is due. As most of the stitches are easily recognized, and as the copyist can easily adapt methods for the combinations seen, it will not be necessary to definitely describe them. ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.

... moved at seeing each other again under such circumstances," said King William. "I had seen Napoleon only three years before, at the summit of his power. What my feelings were is more than I can describe." ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... wisdom of Solomon man is no mere beast, after all. He may not penetrate the Beyond to describe that "age-long home," but never of the beast would he say "the spirit to God who gave it." But his very wisdom again leads us to the most transcendent need of more. To tell us this, is to lead us up a mountain-height, ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings

... full moon two nights ago. Won't you pull up the blind and describe to me all you see? . . . Tell me fully . . . Remember, I ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker



Words linked to "Describe" :   outline, depict, name, account, identify, exposit, inform, sort, line, key out, represent, set forth, discover, distinguish, inscribe, adumbrate, class, expound



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