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Irregular   Listen
adjective
Irregular  adj.  Not regular; not conforming to a law, method, or usage recognized as the general rule; not according to common form; not conformable to nature, to the rules of moral rectitude, or to established principles; not normal; unnatural; immethodical; unsymmetrical; erratic; no straight; not uniform; as, an irregular line; an irregular figure; an irregular verse; an irregular physician; an irregular proceeding; irregular motion; irregular conduct, etc. Cf. Regular. "Mazes intricate, Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular Then most when most irregular they seem." "Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower." "A flowery meadow through which a clear stream murmured in many irregular meanders."
Synonyms: Immethodical; unsystematic; abnormal; unnatural; anomalous; erratic; devious; crooked; eccentric; unsettled; uneven; variable; changeable; mutable; desultory; disorderly; wild; immoderate; intemperate; inordinate; vicious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Irregular" Quotes from Famous Books



... The town is not large, and not very pretty. The newly-built portion is the best, for it at least has broad, tolerably long streets, in which the houses are of brick, and sometimes large. In the by-streets I frequently found wooden barracks ready to fall. The square is large, but irregular; and as it is used as a general market-place, it is ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... the elegant walks that surround this gulf of death, without contemplating, that time is drawing us towards the same focus, and that we shall shortly fall into the centre: that this irregular circle contains what was once generous and beautiful, opulent and humane. The arts took their rise in this fruitful soil: this is the grave of invention and of industry; here those who figured upon the stage are fallen, to make way for others, who must follow: though multitudes ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... were missing from the bluff were hidden to give warning or retard the approach of the posse. A gray haze, slowly rising between the fringe and the distant hillside, was recognized as the dust of a cavalcade passing along the invisible highway. In the hush of expectancy that followed, the irregular clatter of hoofs, the sharp crack of a rifle, and a sudden halt were faintly audible. The men, scattered in groups on the bluff, exchanged a smile of ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... furniture it infinitly comes short of Richelieu. It may be it may yeeld nothing to it in its bastiments, for its all built of a brave stone, veill cut, which gives a lustre to the exterior. Yet we discovered the building many wayes irregular, as in its chimlies, 4 on the one side and but 3 on the other. That same irregularity was to found in the vindows. In that which theirs up of it theirs roome to lodge a king and his palace. Al the chambres are dismantled, wtout plenishing save ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... the two Peruvians were cruising through the Ellices, Bully was exploiting the Paumotu Archipelago, and arousing the anger of the French authorities, by his irregular business methods. For instance, he would "buy" pearl-shell from the traders and kick them over the side if they had the audacity to ask for payment. In accordance with his custom, Bully, on this ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... island the pointed firs made a dark, irregular sky-line against the azure. Here there were no trees, nothing to obstruct the illimitable stretches of water and picturesque shore. It was a nearer and more overwhelming view of what had taken Sylvia's breath when she discovered the mighty sea on ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... Loeben's lyrics,[22] they are irregular, inconsistent, and odd as to orthography,[23] melodious and flowing in form, poor in ideas, rich in feeling that frequently sounds forced, representative of nearly all the important Germanic, Romance, and Oriental verse and strophe forms, ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield

... women—a painter of women from the woman's point of view that desires the world only to think of woman in her pose as woman, reticent, careful to screen the impulsive, most of all the vexatious, the violent, and the irregular moods of femininity's temperament from the eyes of the passer-by; always eager to show woman dressed for the part, and well dressed. She was incapable of stating the deeps of character; and had she had the power, she would have ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... also on that bridge, so that steamers could enter the river after sunset if desired. The wharfage is wholly occupied by steamers and sailing-craft trading within the Archipelago. The tides are very irregular. The rise and fall at springs may be taken to ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... and running off into capricious furrows and mouldings. There are innumerable refts, and channels, and crescents, and cupolas, half-finished or only hinted at. There are chambers of every height and shape, leading into one another by irregular portals, but all rough and rude, as though there might have been an original plan, from which, while the general arrangement is kept, every ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... Bristol Channel; on the N.E. the Avon, like a silver streak, divides it from Gloucestershire; it is bordered on the E. by Wiltshire; its S.E. neighbour is Dorset; and on the S.W. it touches Devon. Its shape is so irregular that dimensions give a misleading indication of its extent. Its extreme length is about 60 m., and its greatest width 38; but it narrows so rapidly westwards that where it abuts on Devon its average width is only 15 m. In point of size it stands seventh on the list of English ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... south. Like them, they were slothful and effete. Their training was imperfect; their discipline was lax; their courage was low. Nor was even this all the weakness and peril of their position; for while the regular troops were thus demoralised, there existed a powerful local irregular force of Bazingers (Soudanese riflemen), as well armed as the soldiers, more numerous, more courageous, and who regarded the alien garrisons with fear that continually diminished and hate that continually grew. And behind regulars and irregulars ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... huge glacier, which gives birth to the high fall. Fit companion to the Cylindre rises the Tours de Marbore, forming a part of Mont Perdu. Not a scrap of vegetation breaks the ruggedness of the vast semicircle of rocks. The floor of the Cirque is an irregular heap of rocks, with the exception of a large heap of snow at the base of the precipices, under which the waters of the cascades run, like the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... there is in the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and that it represents more labor than 100,000 miles of ordinary railroad. It was begun in 214(?) and finished in 204(?) B.C. It is twenty-five feet wide at base, and from fifteen to thirty feet high. Towers forty feet high rise at irregular intervals. In some places it is a mere earthen rampart; in others it is faced with brick; and then again it ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... in the narrative of the life of Galileo. But Sister Maria Celeste, though never leaving the convent, managed to preserve a close intimacy with her beloved father. This was maintained only partly by Galileo's visits, which were very irregular and were, indeed, often suspended for long intervals. But his letters to this daughter were evidently frequent and affectionate, especially in the latter part of his life. Most unfortunately, however, all his letters have been lost. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... before him, he urged them to resume their debate. "It looks," he said, "as if you could give noe reasons or as if you were affraid to be convinced.... I desire you to lay aside that irregular proceeding ... and resume the debate." The Council, he added, had given their unanimous consent to the bill. "Consider the affaires of the Quitt Rents, Consider the King's favour in every thing you may aske even to a cessacon ... and reflect if it be tante for you not to concurr in a thing that, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... which are superficially at least most characteristic of the histrionic life had power to displease him, so that he was obliged constantly to overlook and condone and pretend. He disliked besmoked drawing-rooms and irregular meals and untidy arrangements; he could suffer from the vulgarity of Mrs. Rooth's apartments, the importunate photographs which gave on his nerves, the barbarous absence of signs of an orderly domestic life, the odd volumes ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... of Maine is rugged and hilly. The primitive rocks of which its geological structure is chiefly composed are broken into ridges which run parallel to the great streams, and therefore in a direction from north to south. These ridges terminate in an irregular line, which to the east of the Penobscot may be identified nearly with the military road to Houlton. From the northern summit of these ridges an extensive view of the disputed territory can in many places be obtained. This is the case at the military post at Houlton, whence ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... do not arise out of the purely technical problems that are his daily concern, but out of the rarer and more fundamental, and hence enormously more difficult problems which beset him only at long and irregular intervals, and go offer a test, not of his mere capacity for being drilled, but of his capacity for genuine ratiocination. No man, I take it, save one consciously inferior and hen-pecked, would consult his wife about ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... the irregular ridges of the bluffs extending inland from the Mississippi, and had attained the summit of a gentle swell of land commanding an extensive prairie view, and the whole landscape was bedecked with flowers of every hue and shape. The ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... side to another could pass through the sun. The way in which the planetary orbits are tilted is slight in comparison with that of the orbits of comets, for these are at all sorts of angles—some turned almost sideways, and others slanting, and all of them are ellipses long drawn out and much more irregular than the planetary orbits; but erratic as they are, in every case a line drawn through the sun and extended both ways would touch each ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... offered an apology to the Court of Aldermen for his conduct, confessing "that the question by him put at the last Common Council after the lord mayor was out of the chair was altogether irregular," and asked pardon. His apology, so far as it went, was accepted in good part by the court, but upon some explanation being asked of him as to his not refusing to put a question when commanded to refuse, and his offering to put another ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... perched on the southern slope of a wooded hill, with a broad fertile valley lying spread out before it, and the woods behind affording every promise of sport. The house, my father said, was good, odd and irregular, built at different times, but quite habitable, and with plenty of furniture, though he opined that mamma would think it needed modernising, to which she replied that our present chattels would make a great difference; whereat my father, looking at the effects of more ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in the same species; it might have been thought that changes of this nature could have been effected only by slow degrees; yet Sir J. Lubbock has shown a degree of variability in these main nerves in Coccus, which may almost be compared to the irregular branching of the stem of a tree. This philosophical naturalist, I may add, has also shown that the muscles in the larvae of certain insects are far from uniform. Authors sometimes argue in a circle when they state ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... vaguely an irregular round knob, of wood, perhaps, resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but as another broken- down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal sound proceeded from it I concluded it must be the head of the ship-keeper. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... shed blood, and it is more fitting that they should be ready to shed their own blood for Christ, so as to imitate in deed what they portray in their ministry. For this reason it has been decreed that those who shed blood, even without sin, become irregular. Now no man who has a certain duty to perform, can lawfully do that which renders him unfit for that duty. Wherefore it is altogether unlawful for clerics to fight, because war is directed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... established, and these were provided with two or three cannons and two armoured trains, which latter were held in readiness to proceed to any place within their immediate sphere of action when anything irregular occurred on the line. They were used besides to carry reinforcements and stores when needed. The armoured train was indeed a very important factor in the British military tactics, and one we had to take fully into account. The railway between these two stations was also guarded by blockhouses. ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... acres smooth and fit for the plough. The soil was the deposit of centuries, and the inclination, from the woods to the stream, was scarcely perceptible to the eye. In fact, it was barely sufficient to drain the drippings of the winter's snows. The form of the area was a little irregular; just enough so to be picturesque; while the inequalities were surprisingly few and trifling. In a word, nature had formed just such a spot as delights the husbandman's heart, and placed it beneath a sun which, while its fierceness is relieved by winters of frost and ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... wages. Explosions in ammunition plants, moreover, threw many out of work and frightened away many more to other occupations which seemed more secure. Thus, these difficulties and hardships attached to their new jobs together with the strangeness of their surroundings caused the Negroes to be very irregular in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... pit having assumed the appearance of a large even platform, and the tides being favourable, it was determined to lay down the first course, which consisted of a few irregular and detached stones for making up certain inequalities in the interior parts of the site of the building. Having taken the dimensions of the first or foundation stone, a model of its figure was made, and this was taken by the engineer in a fast-rowing boat to the work-yard at Arbroath: ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton

... rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray of blue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk—a clump of five rays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half a mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there was a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to form ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... little distance looked up from her meal and surveyed the intruders with mild attention, but apparently satisfied that they contemplated no invasion of her rights, resumed her agreeable employment. Over an irregular stone wall our travelers looked into a thrifty apple-orchard laden with fruit. They halted beneath a spreading chestnut-tree which towered above its neighbors, and offered them a grateful shelter from the ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... justice. To a generation trained under the teaching of lawyers like Coke, and accustomed to regard the tenure which prevailed in England as good in itself, it must have appeared that to pass from the irregular dominion of uncertain customs to the rule of clear, definite law, was little less than a transition from anarchy and injustice to a condition of order and equity. They acted in precisely the spirit of their descendants, who are absolutely ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... harbour, the plain of Liguania covered with plantations, and dotted with white farm-houses quivering in the beams of a tropical sun. Beyond it rose the magnificent amphitheatre of the Blue Mountains, one piled upon another, reaching to the clouds, and intersected by numerous deep, irregular valleys; one of their spurs, with Rock Fort at its base, appearing directly over the ship's port-quarter; while before the beam was seen, at the end of a narrow spit of sand, Fort Augusta, its guns ready ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... very unfortunate. For her irregular birth he had contempt and for her haphazard upbringing only pity. He saw no place in a well-ordered society for sculptors who ran away with other men's wives and lived on chestnuts and left their illegitimate children to be picked up at the roadside. He was the type of young man who, theoretically, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... circumstances in which accuracy was scarcely possible. He was journeying along the border of lakes and over the face of the country, in company with some hundreds of wild savages, hunting and fishing by the way, marching in an irregular and desultory manner, and his statements of distances are wisely accompanied by very wide margins, and are of little service, taken alone, in fixing the site of an Indian town. But when natural features, not subject ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... remarkable. When a drop comes in contact with the oil, the latter apparently solidifies round the drop of acid, forming a black envelope which grows in size and gradually absorbs and acts upon so much of the surrounding oil as to assume the appearance of a large dried currant of somewhat irregular shape. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... conceive myself exhorted among the rest to communicate such thoughts as I have, and offer them now, in this general labour of Reformation, to the candid view both of Church and Magistrate; especially because I see it the hope of good men that those irregular and unspiritual courts have spun their utmost date in this land, and some better course must now be constituted. He, therefore, that by adventuring shall be so happy as with success to ease and set free the minds of ingenuous and apprehensive men from this needless thraldom; ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... snow over and around the hole through which it breathes, and here its young are born and live until old enough to venture into the water. This house is called an oglow, and is constructed very much like an Esquimau igloo in shape, though it is more irregular and has ramifications that extend to neighboring holes. These oglows are found with the assistance of dogs, as previously described, or by prodding with a seal spear the hillocks of snow that look like seals' houses. When a hunter finds an oglow during the season that the young ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... Leaves thick, 4 to 10 in. long, elliptical-oblong or lance-oblong, acute, narrowed toward the base, very smooth, with somewhat revolute margins. Flowers large (1 in.), with an irregular bell-shaped corolla and sticky stems, in large clusters, white or slightly pinkish with yellowish dots. July. Evergreen shrub or tree, 6 to 20 ft. high, throughout the region, especially in damp swamps in ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... nebula," he said to the captain, through the speaking-tube which they had arranged for their intercommunications on the bridge, "is denser than I had supposed. The condensation is enormous, but it is irregular, and I think it very likely that it is more rapid in the north, where the front of the globe is plunging most ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... after a while he returneci to Wei. He liked Duke Ling personally, and the liking was mutual; time and again he went back there, hoping against hope that something might be done,—or seeing no other horizon so hopeful. Now Ling had a consort of some irregular kind: Nantse, famed for her beauty and brilliance and wickedness. Perhaps ennuyee, and hoping for contact with a mind equal to her own, she was much stirred by the news of Confucius' return, and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... all my history. To give freedom to posterity I had forsworn my own. I must attend upon every signal; and soon my father complained of my irregular hours and turned me from his house. I was engaged in betrothal to an honest girl; from her also I had to part, for she was too shrewd to credit my inventions and too innocent to be entrusted with the truth. Behold me, then, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... and he waved his men into place before the Palace, and was about to ride down upon the native army, but Cumner's Son whispered to him, and an instant after the lad was riding alone upon the dark legions. He reined in his horse not ten feet away from the irregular columns. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... discovered herself, and fell upon the necks of her father and lover, with whom she retired into the private apartments. The sultan and his vizier were made happy in the company of the daughter of the latter and the other ladies. The master of the ship, as his troubles had atoned for his irregular behaviour, was received into favour, and had his vessel restored; but the savage chief of the banditti was put to death, by being cast into a burning pile, that no further injury might be offered to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... Bess (with her ears drooping, and her nose nearly touching the ground) following me as quietly as a dog, I was rejoiced by the sight of curling smoke, and, on turning a corner, I came suddenly upon a little village green, around which some half dozen cottages were scattered at irregular distances. I directed my steps towards one of these, before which a 45crazy sign, rendered by age and exposure to the weather as delightfully vague and unintelligible as though it had come fresh from the brush ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... town like-named—'duffel,' too, from a town near Antwerp so called, which Wordsworth has immortalized—'shalloon' from Chalons—'jane' from Genoa—'gauze' from Gaza. The fashion of the 'cravat' was borrowed from the Croats, or Crabats, as this wild irregular soldiery of the Thirty Years' War used to be called. The 'biggen,' a plain cap often mentioned by our early writers, was first worn by the Beguines, communities of pietist women in the Low Countries in the twelfth century. The 'dalmatic' was a garment whose ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... deserved it. He was about twenty-six years of age, above medium height, with a lithe and graceful figure which the riding costume that he was wearing well set off. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, with good though irregular features, he was pleasant-faced and attractive rather than handsome. The cheerful, good-tempered manner that he displayed even at that trying early hour was a true indication of a happy and light-hearted disposition that made him as liked by his brother officers as by other men who did not ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... robots were pushing through the doors into the silent streets. They joined the crowd moving out, Jon slowing his stride so his shorter friends could keep pace. Dik Dryer moved with a jerking, irregular motion, his voice as uneven as the motion ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison

... is not continuous, but traversed by an irregular sort of break, through which it seems practicable to make way. Into this the gig is directed, and pulled through with vigorous strokes. Five minutes afterward her keel grates upon a beach, against which, despite the tumbling ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... Cossack officer, which is as full as a dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and opened his eyes as he regarded them. They were lighter men than the Hussars, and they carried themselves with the swing that is the peculiar right of the Punjab[11] frontier force and all irregular horse. Like everything else in the service, it has to be learned; but unlike many things, it is never forgotten, and remains on the body ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... trifle more cynical and dissatisfied than usual, Honor thought. His strong jaw and irregular features hid his thoughts, but not their reflection which showed a mental unrest. He was clearly not a happy man, and was plainly a discordant element in light-hearted company. "A real wet blanket," Tommy whispered in her ear. "If one ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... principle, probably, that being "in for a penny" justified being "in for a pound," the pony laid himself out for a glorious run. He warmed to his work, caused the dust to fly, and the clothes-basket to advance with irregular bounds and swayings as he scampered along, driving many little dogs wild with delight, and two or three cats mad with fear. Gradually he drew towards the more populous streets, and here, of course, the efforts on the part of the public to arrest him became more frequent, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... being of the patrician order, had obtained the office of tribune against the law, and, therefore, nothing done by him was valid. Cato was displeased at this, and opposed Cicero, not that he commended Clodius, but rather disapproved of his whole administration; yet, he contended, that it was an irregular and violent course for the senate to vote the illegality of so many decrees and acts, including those of Cato's own government in Cyprus and at Byzantium. This occasioned a breach between Cato and Cicero, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, gave the whole city a characteristic and fanciful appearance. Old towers, old belfries, old crosses, slender spires innumerable, rose up amid a world of quaint gables and angular roofs. Story above story sprang those curious dwellings; irregular yet homogeneous; dear to the painter's and the poet's eye; elaborate in ornament; grotesque in design; well suited to the climate, and admirably adapted to the wants and comforts of the inhabitants; picturesque like the age itself, like its costume, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... in early use by many tribes of men and originating in the attempt to combine leaves, vines, and branches for purposes of comfort, are flat because of function, the degree of flatness depending upon the size of filaments and mode of combination; and in outline they are irregular, square, round, or oval, as a result of many causes and influences, embracing use, construction, material, models, &c. A close approach to symmetry, where not imposed by some of the above mentioned agencies, is probably due to esthetic tendencies ...
— A Study Of The Textile Art In Its Relation To The Development Of Form And Ornament • William H. Holmes

... Quebec were increased just after Phips's arrival by a force of seven hundred regulars and militiamen under Callieres, who had come down from Montreal with all possible haste. So agile were the French and so proficient in irregular warfare that Phips found it difficult to land any considerable detachment in good order. Thirteen hundred of the English did succeed {129} in forming on the Beauport Flats, after wading through a long stretch of mud. There followed a preliminary skirmish in which three hundred French were driven ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby

... of the river were at first much alike, but after a few hours the left bank became more hilly, and at intervals presented bluffs and rocks, rude and irregular in shape, which we imagined to be ruins of ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... crags cast their irregular shadows athwart the cove and a sudden puff of wind, which had freshened as the day wore on, ruffled the quiet waters and caused them to slap angrily at the base of the ledge. Dickie Lang cast a weather-eye to seaward ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... style,—a stable, a barn, a hay-barn, a sheep-pen with a shed attached, and a milk-house; and stretching around the whole lay the farm,—a straggling patch of corn land of from twelve to fifteen acres in extent, that, from its extremely irregular outline, and the eccentric forms of the parti-coloured divisions into which it was parcelled, reminded one of a coloured map. Encircling all was a wide sea of heath studded with huge stones—the pasturage land of the farmer for his sheep and cattle—which ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... corruptions introduced by the clergy, such as indulgences to priests to have concubines, and the worship of images, not, indeed, inculcated, but knowingly permitted.' He strongly censured the licensed stews at Rome. BOSWELL. 'So then, Sir, you would allow of no irregular intercourse whatever between the sexes?' JOHNSON. 'To be sure I would not, Sir. I would punish it much more than it is done, and so restrain it. In all countries there has been fornication, as in all countries there has been theft; but there may ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... seems to be that a great demand had arisen for Chinese women at Hong Kong, the most direct cause being the irregular conduct of foreigners—officials, private individuals, soldiers and sailors—who gathered there at the time of the opium wars, and settled there in large numbers when Hong Kong became a British possession. This demand was responded to from the ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... For being unable, that is, having a moral Impotence of Will to restrain his evil Propensions and govern his vicious Appetites, and finding his guilty Enjoyments, attended with inward Uneasiness and unavoidable Remorse, and being conscious that his irregular Life is inconsistent with Safety and Happiness in a Future State; to remove the troublesome Misgivings of his Mind from the Apprehensions of Guilt here, and rid himself of the Fears of Suffering hereafter, he at length disclaims the Belief of a Supream Being and a ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore

... the Protector. In August following Cromwell's departure, Waterford and Duncannon were taken by Ireton; and there only remained to the Confederates the fortresses of Sligo, Athlone, Limerick, and Galway, with the country included within the irregular quadrangle they describe. The younger Coote making a feint against Sligo, which Clanrickarde hastened to defend, turned suddenly on his steps, and surprised Athlone. Sligo, naturally a place of no great strength after the invention of artillery, soon after ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... an irregular body of land raised above the level of the ocean. This, no doubt, is the smallest portion of the globe; but it is the part to us by far most interesting. It is upon the surface of this part that plants are made to grow; consequently, it is by virtue of this land that animal life, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... A. M. the artillery opened in our front; but after perhaps two hours of irregular firing, it ceased altogether, and we were led to the conclusion that but few rebels were in this vicinity, the main body being at Murfreesboro, probably. Going to the front about ten o'clock, I met General Hascall. He had had a little fight at Lavergne, the Twenty-sixth Ohio ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... for although it stands on a perfectly flat plain, towards the sea there are the Port Hills, and the town itself is picturesque, owing to the quantities of trees and the irregular form of the wooden houses; and as a background we have the most magnificent chain of mountains—the back-bone of the island—running from north to south, the highest peaks nearly always covered with snow, even after such a hot summer as this has been. The climate is now ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... Lizzie, with the memory of her sudden importance, almost took up the role of baffled innocence. "I declare, Miss Redmond, I didn't know what to do or say to those people. The whole thing seemed so irregular, with you not leaving any ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... was preserved at Scone in a silver casket, his arm in a silver casket at Aberdeen, and his staff, baculus or bachul, at S. Fergus, in Buchan. In 721, Fergustus Epis. Scotiae Pictus signed at Rome canons as to irregular marriages. He belonged to the party that conformed to Rome as distinguished from the strict adherents ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... is an irregular group of seven structures, all connected by arcades except the last building to the east, a moving-picture hall. The main entrance is at the west, where a broad low flight of steps leads up to a plaza between ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... Squirrel. (Sure to please Nature Irregular. Lovers of Either Sex. Pungent with wood-lore. Prowly. Scampery. Deliciously wild. Apt to be just a little bit messy perhaps with roots ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... had a splendid excursion up to the top of the pass that leads from here up to the other side of the island. Road in the proper sense there was none, and the track incredibly bad, worse than any Alpine path owing to the loose irregular stones. The mules, however, pick their way like cats, and you have only to hold on. The pass is 6000 feet high, and we ascended still higher. Fortune favoured us. It was a lovely day and the clouds lay in a great sheet a thousand feet below. The peak, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... proportions of all kinds, and a general good taste in most of those subjects which make the amusement and delight of the ingenious people of the world. Let such gentlemen as these be as extravagant as they please, or as irregular in their morals, they must at the same time discover their inconsistency, live at variance with themselves, and in contradiction to that principle on which they ground their highest pleasure and entertainment. Of all other beauties which virtuosos pursue, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... prosecuting a war against Spain, whose king was energetically supporting the Catholic League in Germany. Accordingly, in spite of Parliament's refusal to grant him the necessary funds, he embarked in war. With only the money which he could raise by irregular means, Charles arranged an expedition to take Cadiz and the Spanish treasure ships which arrived there once a year from America, laden with gold and silver. The expedition failed, as well as Charles' attempt to ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... him with a single excerpt from his admirable chapter of Gardening in the "Elements of Criticism":—"Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular, and even vicious emotions; but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gayety and harmony of mind it produceth inclineth the spectator ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... communication had been his own, and that it was being repeated on all sides. In reality the only sound that now disturbed the night was the echo of his own and Bertram's footsteps, the latter hurried and irregular for the ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... compelled to endure. The following were the arrangements made for the defence:—On the north, Major Vibart, of the 2nd Cavalry, assisted by Captain Jenkins, held the redan, which was an earthwork defending the whole of the northern side. At the north-east battery, Lieutenant Ashe, of the Oude Irregular Artillery, commanded one 24-pounder howitzer and two 9-pounders, assisted by Lieutenant Sotheby. Captain Kempland, 56th Native Infantry, was posted on the south side. Lieutenant Eckford, of the Artillery, had charge of the ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... purposes if we could coat our iron with another and less easily oxidized metal than with such dissimilar substances as paint or porcelain. Now the nearest relative to iron is nickel, and a layer of this of any desired thickness may be easily deposited by electricity upon any surface however irregular. Nickel takes a bright polish and keeps it well, so nickel plating has become the favorite method of protection for small objects where the expense is not prohibitive. Copper plating is used for fine wires. A sheet of iron dipped in melted tin comes out coated with a thin ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... the hunter, though a mile or more off, knew that something had happened from the irregular barking of the other dogs, and also because he did not hear the yelling of the two leading dogs. So he blew his horn, called the rest of his dogs, and gave up the chase until he had replaced his leading dogs by others, which he always had on ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer

... a large irregular fabrick, and seemed suited to receive a numerous train of followers, such as, in those days, served the nobility, either in the splendour of peace, or the turbulence of war. Its present family inhabited only a small part of it; and even this part appeared forlorn ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... succession of falls from rock to rock; but it has always reappeared, and we have never seen it really lost. Now it begins to lose itself in gulf after gulf. Formerly it still had a course, though it was so precipitate, so confused, and so irregular; but here it is engulphed with a yet greater precipitation in unsearchable depths. For a long time it disappears altogether from view, then we perceive it slightly, but more by hearing than by sight, and it only ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... out that Enthusius is very particular as to his coffee, that he is excessively disturbed, if his meals are at all irregular, and that he cannot be comfortable with any table arrangements which do not resemble those of his notable mother, lately deceased in the odor of sanctity; he also wants his house in perfect order at all hours. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... about half the size of ours; the bed stood in a recess by the door, for the passage ended there, and its breadth was added to his garret; but the ground on which the house was built was evidently irregular, for the party-wall formed an obtuse angle, and the room was not square. There was no fireplace, only a small earthenware stove, white blotched with green, of which the pipe went up through the roof. The window, in the skew side of the room, had shabby red curtains. ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac

... place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins the high road to Canterbury. Well, ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind's eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves between. The forest has never so good a setting, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... fig tree grew below the mouth of the cave. Jack slipped his foot into the crutch where a bough struck away from the parent stem, swung himself up, and tumbled into the hollow, which was an irregular circle about nine feet across. The Panthays at once followed him, and all three pushed over the broken floor within, towards ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... expressed its office, so the building itself was made to fit its site and to show forth its purpose, forming with the surrounding buildings a unit of a larger whole. The Athenian Acropolis is an illustration of this: it is an irregular fortified hill, bearing diverse monuments in various styles, at unequal levels and at different angles with one another, yet the whole arrangement seems as organic and inevitable as the disposition of the features of a face. The Acropolis is an example of the ideal architectural republic wherein ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... she received the letter, she was on the way to Cincinnati. Arrived there, she was met by her husband with some show of affection. He was greatly changed since she had seen him, and showed many indications of irregular habits. He appeared to have plenty of money, and took rooms for his wife in a respectable boardinghouse. The improvement in his child pleased him much. When he went away it was only about five months old—now it was a bright little boy, and could run about ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... utmost. They accordingly proposed to free themselves from any obligation to pay overtime, as long as the eight consecutive hours were not exceeded. The leaders of the union saw the danger lurking under this suggestion, in that it might mean all sorts of irregular hours, or even a two-shift system, involving perpetual night work, and going home from work long distances in the middle of the night. After many months of haggling, the union won its point. All work after five o'clock was to be paid at overtime rate, with the exception of Monday, when the closing ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... though it marked the passage of many hundred thousand cattle which preceded our Circle Dots, and was destined to afford an outlet to several millions more to follow. The trail proper consisted of many scores of irregular cow paths, united into one broad passageway, narrowing and widening as conditions permitted, yet ever leading northward. After a few years of continued use, it became as well defined as the course of ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... harlequin. In the brindle dogs the ground colour should be any shade from light yellow to dark red-yellow on which the brindle appears in darker stripes. The harlequins have on a pure white ground fairly large black patches, which must be of irregular shape, broken up as if they had been torn, and not have rounded outlines. When brindle Great Danes are continuously bred together, it has been found that they get darker, and that the peculiar "striping" disappears, and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... hot upon my cheek. There was no necessity for speech. I knew that he intended to seize the first opportunity to attack, and that opportunity was at hand. Behind the bobbing lamp that was approaching us by an irregular trail, as if Soma was winding in and out amidst stone supports similar to the one that sheltered us, was the brute who held us in his grip, and after the events we had witnessed it seemed impossible to reconcile his actions with anything that smacked ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... his seat over the fire, and Mrs Draper, the housekeeper, came and stood over him without speaking. Thus she stood for ten minutes looking down at him and listening. But there was no sound; not a word, nor a moan, nor a sob. It was as though he also were dead, but that a slight irregular movement of his fingers on the top of his bald head, told her that his mind and body were still active. "My lord," she said at last, "would you wish to see the doctor when he comes?" She spoke very low and he did ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... tyranny, but he meant to rule as independently as he could, and from the beginning to the end of his reign there never was a moment when he was not doing something to carry out his aim. But he carried it out in a tentative, irregular fashion which it was as hard to detect as to meet. Whenever there was any strong opposition he gave way. If popular feeling demanded the dismissal of his ministers, he dismissed them. If it protested against his declaration of religious indulgence, he recalled it. If it ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... spot where the beach had but a very slight inclination towards the water from the line of scrub above high-water mark there were literally many thousands of salmon, lying three and four deep, and in places piled up in irregular ridges and firmly packed together ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke

... me," said his father, "unless to ask some question, which is necessary to understand what I say. It is entirely irregular for a pupil, instead of listening to his teacher, to interrupt, in order to tell something ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott

... I do not know whether an American mob would have proceeded to extremities with a lonely woman and dying child, but there was an Irish and Spanish element of ferocity at Burkeville, and the cold, hard Englishwoman was unpopular, besides that, I was supposed to share in the irregular practice that had had such fatal effects. But with that horrible sound, one did not stop to weigh probabilities. I gathered up my child in her bed-clothes, and followed the boy out at the back door, blindly. And where do you think I found myself? where but ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is irregular in outline. The large compact areas at each end are joined by a long, narrow strip, very irregular in outline and less than a township broad at various points. It lies along the southern border of the Great Colorado Plateau, and covers the southern ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... Nevada before the Union Pacific Railroad was finished (1869), and how they are carried now. In 1867, to the perils of the snow and wind and of mountain travel, were added dangers from desperadoes, white as well as red, so that mail deliveries were few and far between, and very irregular, while too often both the carriers and their packs were lost. Slow as the old way was, however, the snow sometimes makes the new way even slower. In spite of miles and miles of snow-sheds and snow-fences, and ever so many steam snow-plows, the railroad is blocked now and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... credit with the people, for thou wilt one day bring them calamities enough." Some that were present laughed at the saying, and some reviled Timon; but there were others upon whom it made a deep impression; so various was the judgment which was made of him, and so irregular ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the time go without training, and so was beaten easily by fellows whom I had always thought my inferiors. The books I read for my amusement out of school hours were all abandoned after a chapter or two; my very letters home became irregular and stupid, and often ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... the hoofbeats wandered about in an irregular, aimless fashion. Not even a scout hunting a good position for observation would ride in such a way, and becoming more daring he raised his head slowly, until he could peep over the grass stems. He saw a horse, fifteen or twenty feet from him, but without rider, bridle or ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... proper subdivisions of the poem, it seems safer to follow the original initializing (but not the marginal numbering of the original MS.: this skips from VII to XIII at line 440—doubtless accidentally substituting X for V—and is otherwise irregular). Cf. footnote, page vi, sup.—For lines 869-70, cf. Jour. Eng. Germ. ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous

... squares off clanged a heavy stroke caught up on the echo by others that sounded smaller farther and farther away, making their irregular, yet familiar phrase ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... observations of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to variations which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... that day the works of the Lord and his wonders in the great deep. Imagine yourself in a ship, large among vessels, but a mere cork upon the waters of that mighty main. On every side, turn where you would, a huge mountain of irregular form was rising-dark, smooth, of unbroken surface, but seeming about to burst from over-extension. How did you come into that strange valley? how should you get out of it? how avoid the rush of that giant billow that even now overhangs your ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... sorrow to Richard that he had not been able to get him his new clothes before he was taken ill. So the first morning he felt it possible, he took his way to the city. There he learned that the company had dispensed with Arthur's services, because his attendance had become so irregular. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... light play of sunshine and shadow, it seemed as if the smartness of paint upon the old weather-boarding would have been an intrusion, and not an advantage. In front of the house was a little space given to flowers; at least there were some irregular patches and borders, where balsams and hollyhocks and pinks and marigolds made a spot of light colouring; with one or two luxuriantly-growing blush roses, untrained and wandering, bearing a wealth of sweetness on their long, swaying branches. There was that spot of colour; all around ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... carelessly, and then passing him, entered the room with the air of one perfectly at home. A suspicion of who he was flashed across Rust's mind. That he himself was unknown to the other was not strange, for he had been so much absent, and when he visited his child it was at such irregular intervals, and for such short periods, that a person might have been even a frequent visitor at his house, without encountering him. Nor was there any thing in the outward appearance of the slovenly, haggard old man to attract attention. But the indifference of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... Vritra, by the wielder of the thunderbolt, (the Kurus), O Dhananjaya, becoming cheerless, gave up all hopes of victory. Desirous of saving themselves, all of them fled away from battle. Some kings fled, riding on cars borne along irregular course without Parshni drivers, and divested of standards and banners and umbrellas, and with their Kuvaras and boxes broken, and all their equipments displaced. Others, struck with panic and deprived of their senses, themselves striking the steeds of their cars with their feet, fled precipitately. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the sound of steps in the path beneath. This twilight sanctuary had never been invaded before, and she rose hastily. The course of an irregular path that followed the lake was broken here by the creek's miniature chasm, but adventurous pedestrians might gain the top and continue over a rough rustic bridge along the edge of Mrs. Owen's cornfield. Sylvia peered down, expecting to see Marian or Blackford, but a stranger was ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... son, Eugene, was afterwards a student in the law office of George F. Farley. He was a good debater as a young man, but as a student rather irregular. He went to New Orleans to reside, became an editor of, or writer on, the Picayune, and on a return voyage from ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... rainy day. The pavement of the side-walks on this street is so sunken and irregular that in wet weather, unless one walks with very great care, he steps continually into small wells of water. Up to her ankles in one of these wells stood the little girl, apparently as unconscious as if she were high and dry ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... despair. One night, shortly after his arrival, he was sitting in one of the windows of the library, looking towards the sea, when his attention was attracted by a figure which was moving near the edge of the surf, and which was dimly visible through the moonless summer night. Its motions were irregular, like those of a person in a state of indecision. It had extremely long hair, which floated in the wind. Whatever else it might be, it certainly was not a fisherman. It might be a lady; but it was neither ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock

... the restless, emphatic air of a man who has but little leisure and is too obviously anxious to make the most of what he has. He always seemed to be talking against time; and as he talked his emotions played visibly, too visibly, on his humorous, irregular face. Taking into account his remarkable firmness of physique, it struck you that this transparency must be due to some excessive radiance of soul. A soul (in Jewdwine's opinion) a trifle too demonstrative in its hospitality to vagrant impressions. The Junior Journalists ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... day,—for a half hour at night when he took charge of the job, and for another half hour in the morning when he relinquished it. That was all except when they chanced to meet during Bannon's irregular nightly wanderings about the elevator. As the days had gone by these conversations had been confined more and more rigidly to necessary business, and though this result was Peterson's own fringing about, still he charged ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... perfectly aware of the situation, and backed by the counsel of his sister, became daily more independent. He did only such work as he cared to do and his hours for arriving and departing were irregular, ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... having arrived from England, Schomberg marched with his augmented army to Lisburn, Drummore, and Loughbrickland. Here the Enniskillen Horse joined them, and offered to be the advanced guard of the army. The Enniskilleners were a body of irregular horsemen, of singularly wild and uncouth appearance. They rode together in a confused body, each man being attended by a mounted servant, bearing his baggage. The horsemen were each mounted and accoutred after their own fashion, without any regular dress, ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... resemblance which they can hardly fail to suggest when at all irregular in form,—that of a wave about to break. Byron uses the image definitely of Soracte; and, in a less clear way, it seems to present itself occasionally to all minds, there being a general tendency to give or accept accounts of mountain form under the image of waves; and to speak ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.... Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root

... throne, the fleet named another. If intrigue and shameless deceit gained it in one case, murder succeeded in another. Relationship or connection by marriage with the last possessor helped but rarely. This frequent and irregular change, and the personal badness of most sovereigns, caused endless confusion to the realm. This is the staple of the thousand years in which the election of the emperor Leo I., in 457, stands at the head. On the death of Marcian, following that of Pulcheria, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... their productions convinced you of the contrary) that some tremendous outburst of Art was rivalling the Italian Renaissance. For those who were capable of tackling straight lines and the intricacies of perspective there were the steep cobbled streets of charming and irregular architecture, while for those who rightly felt themselves colourists rather than architectural draughtsmen, there was the view from the top of the hill over the marshes. There, but for one straight line to mark the horizon (and that could easily be misty) there were ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... a corner of a little recess half way up the irregular wall, we found Mose, shivering with fear and looking down at us with dumb, animal eyes. We had to drag him out by main force. The poor fellow was nearly famished and so weak he could scarcely stand. What little sense he had ever possessed seemed to have left him, and he jabbered ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... insects smell the approaching observer as the deer wind the stalker. The Gatekeeper butterfly is common; its marking is very ingenious, may I say? regular, and yet irregular. The pattern is complete, and yet it is incomplete; it is finished, and yet it suggests to the mind that the lines ought to go on farther. They go out into space beyond the wing. If a carpet were ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... and it was not long before Henry revived. His arm was slightly pierced in three places and on his left leg were two long, irregular scratches. These were washed and bound up by Dave, and during the time consumed Barringford managed to start up a tiny fire in spite of ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... laboriously, to find it the easiest of any crevice we had traversed, the floor being deeply covered with guano, as was the case with the bird-chamber when we entered it, at last, to find a vast hall of irregular shape, swarming with the guacharo, or butter-bird of South America—a great night-jar, passing its days in these fastnesses of nature, but sallying out at dark to feed. The uproar they made was tremendous, ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... this afternoon we saw an irregular line of purple mountains against a yellow sky, and it was Japan. In spite of the Sunday papers, and the interminable talk on board, the guide books and maps which had made Japan nauseous to me, I saw the land of the Rising Sun with just as much of a shock and thrill ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... to the first question, are to the effect that it appears, from the earliest recorded annals of disease, that epidemics corresponding to the present outbreak have occurred at irregular periods all up the centuries under names and conditions peculiar to the times, and following usually in the wake of some great social cataclysm, strain or upheaval, the result of wars, persecutions, famines and distress—causes which clearly illustrate the close reactive ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... became less reserved; and I found that I was conversing with one of the most renowned officers of irregular cavalry in the late Confederate service—a service which, in the efficiency, brilliancy, and daring of that especial arm, has never been surpassed since Maharbal's African Light Horse were recognised by friends and foes ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... slowly: he was accidentally the witness of a curious scene. There came into the irregular triangle, and walking up to where the fruitstalls stood by day, a woman and a man. The man was an Austrian soldier. It was an Italian woman by his side. The sight of the couple was just then like an incestuous horror to Ammiani. She led the soldier ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sat there, Sylvia gradually became aware that close to her, where the undergrowth began again, the earth had recently been disturbed. Over an irregular patch of about a yard square the sods had been dug up, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Cuba or Venezuela. The plant grows to the height of about six feet, bearing leaves lanceolate in form, about thirty inches long, and from eight to twelve inches wide. The tobacco fields are very irregular. After it is cut it is placed on poles in the field, and afterwards carried to the drying sheds. It is gathered in the dry season in September. After curing, it is removed to the packing house and baled in packages, and then transported on mules ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... wood, and the dying camp-fires gave only light enough to show the tall trunks of the forest trees, black against a background of dull red. Part of Longstreet's army had been in cantonments here during the winter, and many of the huts were still standing, their dim outlines and irregular forms hardly visible, but giving an air of weird mystery to the surroundings. Some of these huts were occupied by the cavalry, and the first we came upon had as its tenant an Irish dragoon, and him we turned out to guide ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs—I should say, that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... showed no sign of failure until within half an hour of his death, and the feet remained warm till within twenty minutes of the event. But the heart and pulse became gradually weaker, the breathing faster and shorter and more irregular, and at thirteen minutes past ten o'clock at ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... calls himself a doctor, but I have set in motion the wheels of the law of this great State of Illinois, and I'll expose the infernal rascal." Then, with a dark, knowing look at me, he hissed (though none of his preceding words had been audible across the street), "An 'Irregular,' sir—cursed sugar-and-water quack—a figure 9 with the tail rubbed off. Why, sir" (in a more conversational but still emphatic tone), "I have given sixty grains of calomel at a dose, and I have given a tenth of ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... bled her. The humor entered and fell on the heart: he then gave her an emetic to remove the humor, and this suffocated her." La Valiere, according to Madame Charlotte, was the only woman who ever really loved the king. She limped a little, had lovely eyes, irregular teeth, and was very neat in her person, while Madame de ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... democratic. The men are nominally under field cornets, commanders, and the General. But they openly boast that on the field the authority and direction of officers do not count for much, and they go pretty much as they please. The camp, though not in the least disorderly, was confused and irregular—stores, firewood, horses, cattle, and tents strewn about the enormous veldt, almost haphazard, though the districts were kept fairly well separate. Provisions were plenty, but the cooking was bad. It ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... in a very creditable style, and manifests a desire to learn to do other kinds of work. She is neat and orderly in her habits, and ever acts in a ladylike manner, while in disposition she is cheerful as a sunbeam, and as playful as a kitten. For about one year, at irregular intervals, a young minister of the name of J. B. Howell, devoted one hour each week to her instruction, and she made some advancement, novel as his method was; but in June last he went to Brazil as a missionary, since which ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... patient was well again; a doubly fortunate circumstance, as we had to pass a terribly rocky and stony road. We were obliged to scramble up and down the mountainous side of a valley, as the valley itself was completely occupied by the irregular course of the river Badin, which wound in a serpentine direction from side to side. Pomegranates and oleanders grew in the valley, wild vines twined themselves round the shrubs and trees, and larches covered the slopes of ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... a package. In the grade specifications given, normal shape refers to the general form of well-grown specimens of the variety in question. For instance: The Wealthy is regular in outline and nearly round, while the Hibernal is somewhat flat and often irregular. In like manner the color must be typical of the variety, whether green, yellow or red. Red apples usually sell better than green or yellow varieties, although the quality may be even poorer. Fruit showing insect or disease injuries cannot be classed as well grown. Grading to size ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... about him," asked Moon, with unshaken persistency, "that he has done so much and said so little? When first he came he talked, but in a gasping, irregular sort of way, as if he wasn't used to it. All he really did was actions—painting red flowers on black gowns or throwing yellow bags on to the grass. I tell you that big green figure is figurative— like any green figure capering on some ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... effrontery with which the question "whether to kiss Rose or Agnes" is put side by side with that "whether it is better to eat flesh cooked in the cauldron or little fishes driven into the net;" the intense solemnity and sorrow for self with which Golias discourses in trochaic mono-rhymed laisses of irregular length, De suo Infortunio; the galloping dactylics of the "Apocalypse"; the concentrated scandal against a venerated sex of the De Conjuge non Ducenda, are jocund enough in themselves, if not invariably edifying. But the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... idea of irregular grace and bewildered melancholy any one can play Hamlet, as we have seen it played, with strut, and stare, and antic right-angled sharp-pointed gestures, it is difficult to say, unless it be that Hamlet is not bound, by the prompter's cue, to study the part of Ophelia. The account ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... innocent volubility the fulness of his heart; and I, from these irregular communications, must pick out, here a little and there a little, the particulars of his new plan. They were to be married, sure enough, that day; the wedding breakfast was to be at Frank's; the evening to be passed in ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... peculiar turban worn by the Northern Arabs and shown in old prints. In modern Egypt the term is applied to the tall sugar-loaf caps of felt affected mostly by regular Dervishes. Burckhardt (Proverbs 194 and 398) makes it the high cap of felt or fur proper to the irregular cavalry called Dely or Delaty. In Dar For (Darfour) "Tartur" is a conical cap adorned with beads and cowries worn by the Manghwah or buffoon who corresponds with the Egyptian "Khalbus" or "Maskharah" and the Turkish "Sutari." For an illustration see Plate iv. fig. 10 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... pincenez illadjusted on her nose. I can hear her highpitched complaining voice bargaining with me over the cost of inoculating her lawn. The ugly stuff of her tasteless dress is before my eyes. It is so real to me I swear I can see the poor, irregular ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... a slave bethought her of a harp; The harper came, and tuned his instrument; At the first notes, irregular and sharp, On him her flashing eyes a moment bent, Then to the wall she turn'd as if to warp Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent; And he begun a long low island song Of ancient days, ere ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... rising from his seat: then be fell back again, saying to himself, "child that I am—it is impossible; my wife went out an hour ago. Yes, but might she not have returned without my seeing her? This would be rather irregular; but I must ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... say to the guv'nor"—thus ran his Jeremiad—"in dealin' with these here irregular settin's out, where nothin's not to say parallel with anything else, nor dimensions lendin' theirselves to accommodation. 'Just you let me orfer it in,' I says 'afore the final stitchin' to, or even a paper template in extra cases is a savin' in the end.' Because it stands to reason there goes more ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... glided up the staircase of the hall, along several winding passages, and up and down several irregular flights of narrow steps, till she paused at the door of a room very dim within, but just lighted by the gleam of a dying fire. As she stepped across the threshold a voice out of ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green



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