Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Main   Listen
noun
Main  n.  
1.
Strength; force; might; violent effort. (Obs., except in certain phrases.) "There were in this battle of most might and main." "He 'gan advance, With huge force, and with importable main."
2.
The chief or principal part; the main or most important thing. (Obs., except in special uses.) "Resolved to rest upon the title of Lancaster as the main, and to use the other two... but as supporters."
3.
Specifically:
(a)
The great sea, as distinguished from an arm, bay, etc.; the high sea; the ocean. "Struggling in the main."
(b)
The continent, as distinguished from an island; the mainland. "Invaded the main of Spain."
(c)
Principal duct or pipe, as distinguished from lesser ones; esp. (Engin.), a principal pipe leading to or from a reservoir; as, a fire main.
Forcing main, the delivery pipe of a pump.
For the main, or In the main, for the most part; in the greatest part.
With might and main, or With all one's might and main, with all one's strength; with violent effort. "With might and main they chased the murderous fox."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Main" Quotes from Famous Books



... we have reached it. That's the main point, dear Pessimist; and the commonplace House I offered you has tumbled into a dust-heap of ruins. Don't let's build it up again, whatever else we may do in the way of foolishness. Retrogression is the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... to me in this," she said. Nor was she wrong; for glad of an opportunity to make some concessions, and still in the main have his own way, Wilford raised no objection to the plan as communicated to him by Katy, when, at an earlier hour than usual, he came home to dinner, drawn thither by a remembrance of the face which had haunted ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... of the modern flying machine. With this object in view the wording is intentionally plain and non-technical. It contains some propositions which, so far as satisfying the experts is concerned, might doubtless be better stated in technical terms, but this would defeat the main purpose of its preparation. Consequently, while fully aware of its shortcomings in this respect, the authors ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... off into the main current; once more we were in that roaring torrent, with its fearsome dips and rises, its columned walls corroded with age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight. The water smashed and battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed us in heavy sprays; yet with closed ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... troops arrived, and with them came General Merritt. The Admiral's Secretary and two officers came to the Dictatoriat Government and asked that we allow them to occupy our trenches at Maytubig; from the harbour side of that place right up to the main road, where they would form a continuation of our lines at Pasay and Singalong. This I also agreed to on account of the solemn promises of the Admiral and the trust naturally placed in them owing to the assistance rendered and recognition ...
— True Version of the Philippine Revolution • Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy

... has done it," agreed Andrews. "Who knows? I'll wager that if he has and that if Morowitch had bought an interest in his process Kahan knew of it. He's a sharp one. And Mrs. Morowitch doesn't let grass grow under her feet, when it comes to seeing the main chance as to money. Now just supposing Mr. Morowitch had bought an interest in a secret like that and supposing Kahan was in love with Mrs. Morowitch ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... from the completion of my organ I could converse fluently with them. Of course, I had not mastered all the intricacies of their tongue, and even up to the time of my leaving them I felt that I was a mere learner; nevertheless, I could understand the main drift of all that they said; and what was equally gratifying to me, I could express to them almost anything expressible in English, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... father is, as I fancy him. I make out from the vague hints that Brother Deering (as Fulkerson would call him) dropped when he talked about him that Papa Gage is a shrewd, practical, home-keeping business man, with an eye single to the main chance, lavish, but not generous, Philistine to the backbone, blindly devoted to his daughter, and contemptuous of all the myriad mysteries of civilisation that he doesn't understand. I don't know why I should be authorised ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... determined men who were guarding the leaders' retreat, they, too, like the police, kept at a safe distance from the Fenian revolvers, and devoted themselves to picking up any stragglers who had got separated from the main body ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... pleased to be all together. The new comers had much to tell us, and we in return gave them an account of our doings. We were, above all things, rejoiced at the arrival of Mrs. Rosenthal; our morbid idea having been for months, almost up to the end, that some flying column would be detached from the main body of our army to cut off Theodore from the mountain; and our anxiety had been great on account of Mrs. Rosenthal and her child, as Theodore, according to his system of hostages, had kept her near him as a security to prevent the Magdala ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... narrow street, and yet Rutland Road had been far more beautiful to one voyager at least, for at that moment, exactly at that moment, as timed by the little watch at her wrist, Jack O'Shaughnessy would have turned the corner of the main road to saunter towards his ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... to be of essential service to the interests of Monsieur. It was accordingly resolved that the Marechal-Duc should assume the command of the vanguard, while Gaston placed himself at the head of the main body. Montmorency was accompanied by the Comtes de Moret, de Rieux, and de la Feuillade, who, after some slight skirmishes, abandoning the comparatively safe position which they occupied, recklessly pushed forward to support a forlorn hope which had received orders to take possession of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... construct more if we meet with a sufficiently generous encouragement. We shall have billiard-rooms, card-rooms, music-rooms, bowling-alleys and many spacious theaters and free libraries; and on the main deck we propose to have a driving park, with upward of 100,000 miles of roadway in it. We ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... windows facing on the alley. There is a stairway in the hall just behind the door to the reception room. The study is behind the drawing-room. Opposite this is a side hall and the dining-room. The library and dining-room both open off this hall with the dining room also having doors to the main hall and kitchen. The side hall ends with a stoop in the alley. A small room labeled kitchen, etc. lies behind the dining-room and the hall extends beyond the study beside the kitchen with the cellar stairs on the kitchen side. There is a small rectangle ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... why didn't I see it with my own eyes?—the born thief of the world! Didn't he knock flashes out of yer shoulther with the shilaleh he had—Mr. Keegan, I main? And if it worn't that you hadn't—bad cess to the luck of it!—your own bit of a stick in your hand, wouldn't you have knocked the life out of him for the name he put on your ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great Nation back into hopeless chaos. In effect, four Justices ruled that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to establish an ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... ought not to be violated, but to be accounted holy; also from this consideration, that he ought know, as being in the spiritual world, and in a state of perception, that conjugial love descends from the Lord through heaven, and that from that love, as a parent, is derived mutual love, which is the main support of heaven; and further from this consideration, that adulterers, whenever they only approach the heavenly societies, are made sensible of their own stench, and throw themselves headlong thence towards hell: at least ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... in a note a succeeding paragraph of Scott's letter, which, though it does not relate to the main subject of our correspondence, was too characteristic to be emitted. Some time previously I had sent Miss Sophia Scott small duodecimo American editions of her father's poems published in Edinburgh in quarto volumes; showing ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... swarms she had sent abroad. However, in the midst of this chaos there were principles at work, which reduced things to a certain form, and gradually unfolded a system, in which the chief movers and main springs were the papal and the imperial powers; the aggrandisement or diminution of which have been the drift of almost all the politics, intrigues, and wars, which have employed and distracted Europe to ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Providence had afforded her,[56] and omitted nothing likely to maintain her prestige; but the careful observer might easily have seen that the tide was turning. Brandenburg House was losing its attraction, while Carlton Palace again became the main channel of loyal interest. Addresses from several of the most influential communities in the kingdom were received by the Sovereign in quick succession; and in one from the University of Oxford, the deputation ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... Culloden. Figures such as LOCHIEL, KEITH, GORING, the dour KELLY, HENRY STUART, LOUIS XV., with sundry courtiers and mistresses, move across the film. I should say the author's sympathy is with her main subject, but her conscience is too much for her. I find myself increasingly exercised over this conscience of Miss BOWEN'S. She seems to me to be deliberately committing herself to what I can only describe as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... honest man, perhaps a little too much inclined to be harsh with his son when he had done wrong. Possibly his views of parental discipline were not altogether correct, but in the main he meant right. He was disgusted at the conduct of Charles, and thought no reasonable penalty too ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... marriage which discouraged the bitterest enemies of the hero of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Wagram, this magnificent marriage which was to have been the safeguard of the Empire, proved its ruin. This great event which called forth abundant congratulations and outbursts of noisy delight was the main cause of the most tremendous and most disastrous war of modern times. If he had not blindly counted on his father-in-law's friendship, would Napoleon, in spite of all his audacity, have ventured to march to the Russian ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... many times do I love again? Tell me how many beads there are In a silver chain Of evening rain, Unravelled from the tumbling main, And threading the eye of a yellow star:— So many times do I love again. THOMAS ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... horse and rode off to the place appointed for holding the Methodist Conference,—the new meeting-house near St. David's. He soon overtook the detachment of militia, which was marching to join, at Long Point, the main force which Brock was to lead thither from York by way of Ancaster. He noticed that the men, though tolerably well armed, were very indifferently shod for their long tramp over rough roads. They had ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... The sins mentioned by Isidore are inordinate external acts, pertaining in the main to speech; wherein there is a fourfold inordinateness. First, on account of the matter, and to this we refer "obscene words": for since "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matt. 12:34), the lustful man, whose heart is full of lewd concupiscences, readily breaks ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... fresh from "Main Street," may be less provincial than she sounds. Her question puts up a real problem. When only one girl in one hundred has a chance at the Three R's, is it right to "waste money" on giving certain others the chance to delve into psychology and higher mathematics? When there is not ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren

... notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!" This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... Dan. iii.; the History of Susanna in the language of the A.V. is "set apart from the beginning of Daniel"; and Bel and the Dragon is "cut off from the end of" the same book. The first of these additions alone has an organic connection with the main narrative; the other two are independent scenes from the life, or what purports to be the life, of Daniel—episodes, one in his earlier, one in his later, career. In the Song, Daniel personally does ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... coup, les deux jolies figurantes placees devant le rideau de la coulisse en ecartent les plis, et Duhsanta, l'arc et les fleches a la main, parait monte sur un char; son cocher tient les renes; lances a la poursuite d'une gazelle imaginaire, ils simulent par leurs gestes la rapidite de la course; leurs stances pittoresques et descriptives suggerent a l'imagination un decor que la peinture serait impuissante ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... knows the main facts of Bunyan's life. They may not know that he was of Norman descent (as Dr. Brown seems to succeed in proving), nor that the Bunyans came over with the Conqueror, nor that he was a gipsy, as others hold. On Dr. Brown's showing, Bunyan's ancestors lost ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... wrote. The man was in a state of personal terror, burning with indignation at Van Diemen as the main cause of his jeopardy. For, in order to prosecute his pursuit of Annette, he had abstained from going to Helmstone to pay moneys into his bank there, and what was precious to life as well as life itself, was imperilled by those two—Annette and her father—who, had they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... burdensome weight he carried, the earth opened, . . disclosing a huge pit of black nothingness,—an enormous chasm,—into which, with an appalling clamor as of a hundred incessant peals of thunder, the whole main area of the Temple, together with its mass of dead and dying human beings, sank in less than five seconds!—the ground closing instantaneously over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast devouring food too long denied. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... engineers to judge between such devices—but by means of them the Utopian will travel about the earth from one chief point to another at a speed of two or three hundred miles or more an hour. That will abolish the greater distances.... One figures these main communications as something after the manner of corridor trains, smooth-running and roomy, open from end to end, with cars in which one may sit and read, cars in which one may take refreshment, cars into which the news of the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... Ocean — N. sea, ocean, main, deep, brine, salt water, waves, billows, high seas, offing, great waters, watery waste, "vasty deep"; wave, tide, &c. (water in motion) 348. hydrography, hydrographer; Neptune, Poseidon, Thetis, Triton, Naiad, Nereid; sea nymph, Siren; trident, dolphin. Adj. oceanic; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... field a poor man was turning an ox into the main road, that he might drive the animal to his master's residence by daylight; the wolf swept by, and snapped furiously at the ox as he passed: and the beast, affrighted by the sudden appearance, gushing sound, and abrupt though evanescent attack of the infuriate monster, turned ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... that glows With heat intense I turn the hose Of Common Sense, And out it goes At small expense! We must maintain Our fairy law; That is the main On which to draw - In that we gain A ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... main good I got out of Spike was learnin' how to take old Cast Steel Judson. It was some years after this before I met up with him; but the good effect hadn't worn off and me an' Cast Steel just merged together ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... a few sentences as nicely rounded off as though they had been written, while he rose and gently moved about, as his habit was, in the course of those more extended remarks. Then a chapter or two of The Sea-Cook would be read, with due pronouncement on the main points by one or other of the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... interruptions. The Abbe Bardin was pointing out to her that, unmarried, her son would return to Tonquin, that Lizerolles would be left deserted, her house would be desolate without daughter-in-law or grandchildren; and, as he drew these pictures, he came back, again and again, to his main argument: ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... and perplexed as to the direction of his future movements. The main party were following up his tracks; but to plunge unthinkingly into such a desert as lay in front of them were sheer madness. Fate relented, however, and after much toilsome search Forrest found a small supply of water, enough for a few ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... admiration of my fellow-students;—every line of it; in stupendous language; an artillery celebration of victory. I tried to stop him. Ottilia rose, continually assenting, with short affirmatives, to his glorifying interrogations—a method he had of recapitulating the main points. She glanced to right and left, as if she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... for the new plan there was no doubtful note. The "beats" got a rest for a season while I transferred my attention to the boarding-house. My wife teases me yet with those mighty onslaughts on the new enemy. Having clearly made him out by the light of our evening lamp, I went for him with might and main, determined to leave no boarding-house through the length and breadth of the land, or at least of South Brooklyn. "Ours," I cried, weekly "to fulfil its destiny, must be a nation of homes. Down with the boarding-house!" ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... what I do say, 'Liab, an' dat's de main reason what's made me so stubborn 'bout buyin' dis berry track of lan'. Pears ter me it's jes made fer us. It's all good terbacker lan', most on't de berry best. It's easy clar'd off an' easy wukked. De 'backer growed on dis yer lan' an' cured wid coal made outen dem ar ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... succeeding winter the same symphony was performed in Leipzig. "There is a resistless and audacious energy in the thoughts, a stormy bold progression, and yet withal a maidenly artlessness in the expression of the main motives that lead me to hope for much from the composer;" so wrote Laube, with whom Wagner had shortly before become acquainted. Here again we recognize the stormy, restless activity of the time, which thenceforth did ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl

... slender fingers reached north to the Peak Downs and south to the Murray, filching everywhere from the worker's hard-earned wage. When in the tram they were carried with clanging and jangling through endless rows of houses great and small, along main thoroughfares on either side of which crowded side-streets extended like fish-bones, over less crowded districts where the cottages were generally detached or semi-detached and where pleasant homely houses were thickly sprinkled, oven here he wondered how near those who lived in happier state were ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... "And you are going to the woods with Hanne and her mother, we know all about it!" Hopping and skipping, she accompanied him to the steps, and stood laughing down at him. To-day she was really like a child; the shrewd, old, careful woman was as though cast to the winds. "You can go down the main staircase," she cried. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... the treatment of my subjects. The choice has necessarily fallen, often, not on simply picturesque incident or unfamiliar character, but on the men and things that we think of first, when thinking of the long chronicle of England,—or upon such as represent and symbolize the main current of it. Themes, however, on which able or popular song is already extant,—notably in case of Scotland,—I have in general avoided. In the rendering, my desire has been always to rest the poetry of each Vision on its own intrinsic interest; to write with ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... representoit les fleurs dans tout leur eclat, et les fruits avec toute leur fraicheur. La rosee et les goutes d'eau qu'elle repand sur les fleurs, sont si bien imitees dans ses tableaux, qu'on est tente d'y porter la main." It is said also that in the works of Van-Huysum, "le veloute des fruits, l'eclat des fleurs, le transparent de la rosee, tout enchante dans les tableaux de ce peintre admirable." Sir U. Price observes of this latter painter, "that nature herself is hardly more ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... still stepping along at a rapid pace, and at length emerged, without further difficulty, into a brilliantly lighted street, which, they learned, was the main thoroughfare of the town. Mingling with the crowd, they were ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes

... many of the Psalms, where the initial phrase or idea is repeated at the close, after the insertion of illustrative matter, thus securing a pattern by the "return" of the main idea—the closing of the "curve"—may serve to illustrate the universality of the principle of balance and contrast and repetition in the architecture of verse. For Hebrew poetry, like the poetry of many primitive peoples, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... the surface of the speculum. These sometimes result from the first splash of the melted metal as it is poured into the ring mould. The globules sometimes got oxidised before they became incorporated with the main body of the inflowing molten alloy: and dingy spots in the otherwise brilliant alloy were thus produced. I soon mastered this, the only remaining source of defect, by a very simple arrangement. In place ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... nominally at the head of river navigation, but is really accessible by steamer only during a very small portion of the year, when the water is at an unusually high stage. It is beautifully located, and has a main street known as "The Avenue," which is between two and three hundred feet in width. This avenue is a great business centre, and at almost all times a scene of animated interest, while at its head stand prominently a cathedral and ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... however, that the Marquis had a commission from the Chevalier to invade Scotland; in virtue of which he left the island of Lewes, whence he had for some time been carrying on a correspondence with the Highland chieftains, and landed with the three hundred Spaniards on the main land. The Ministers of George the First lost no time in repelling this attempt by a foreign power, and it is singular that they employed Dutch troops for the purpose; and that Scotland, for the first time, beheld her rights contested by soldiers ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... account of the Capella Sistina, and the stanze of Raffaello, is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion." Even Bottari, his learned editor, is at a loss how to account for his mistakes. Mr. Fuseli finely observes—"He has been called the Herodotus of our art; and if the main simplicity of his narrative, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle him in some degree to that appellation, we ought not to forget that the information of every day adds something to the authenticity of the Greek historian, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... which the Scotch farmer would have of a pleasantness in blue hills and running streams, wholly wanting in the Greek mind; and perhaps also some difference of views on the subjects of truth and honesty. But the main points, the easy, athletic, strongly logical and argumentative, yet fanciful and credulous, characters of mind, would be very similar in both; and the most serious change in the substance of the stuff among the modifications ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... The main reason for this was that in the pushing westward of the refinements of civilization it was perhaps the last thing of its kind that could be celebrated on such a scale on this continent. The modern Provincial Fairground, ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... Locomotive Works under Captain Scott's supervision. As more mountings were made and other people's ideas were enlisted, modifications were introduced; some mountings, entirely of steel, were indeed used for 4.7-in. guns; but in the main these mountings resembled those which were so hurriedly prepared in the last ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... with the muse taken out of him, departed. We stood watching the dawn till there was light enough to look back on our night's work. There was the Englishman with her main-mast gone, and draggled about the bows, beating up under reefed sails for the coast. It was plain to see, although we were two long leagues away, that she had had enough for one night and was going to leave us in peace. For myself, as I looked, I could ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... dwell upon the extent to which the home administration was responsible for the general mismanagement of the war, in its main features and its minute details,—nor the thoroughly English stolidity with which all complaints were received by every member of the Government, from the cabinet minister who dictated pompous and unmeaning despatches, down to the meanest official who measured red tape,—nor the intense and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... off the main thoroughfare and were now brought to a standstill in the courtyard leading to the Savoy. Suddenly Crawshay gripped his companion by the arm and directed his attention to a man who was buying some roses ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... main upleasant To point to covey, or to pheasant, For snobs, who, when the point is mooting, Think letting fly as good ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... tribes by their wealth and power. The time came, as it did in the concerns of nearly every band of Indians, when war was declared against this family, and the enemy came upon them in the darkness, their canoes patroling the shore while the main body formed a line about the fort. So silently was this done that but one person discovered it—a squaw, who cried, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... the excellent book illustrations, which are the special subjects of our inquiry, are peculiarly adapted to meet this; for there are at least twenty people who know a good engraving or wood-cut, for one who knows a good picture. The best book illustrations fall into three main classes: fine line engravings (always grave in purpose), typically represented by Goodall's illustrations to Rogers's poems;—fine wood-cuts, or etchings, grave in purpose, such as those by Dalziel, from Thomson and Gilbert;—and fine wood-cuts, or etchings, for purpose of caricature, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... a hasty review of the various modes of seeking to discover the future, especially as practised in modern times. The main features of the folly appear essentially the same in all countries. National character and peculiarities operate some difference of interpretation. The mountaineer makes the natural phenomena which he most frequently witnesses ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... before mid-night, and, ravished by the beauty of the scene (for, I tell you, Polreen can be beautiful by moonlight), determined to stroll down to the beach and smoke my last pipe there before going to bed. The door of the inn was locked, no doubt; but, the house standing on the steep slope of the main street, I could step easily on to the edge of the water-barrel beneath my window and lower ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... The main armament of the Astronef consisted of four pneumatic guns, which could be mounted on swivels, two ahead and two astern, which carried a shell containing either one of two kinds of explosives invented ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... main entrance where the boys stood waiting, a group of young ladies came straying out of the classroom for ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... recession of the banks of the canon has gone steadily on with the downward cutting of the river. Where the rock is homogeneous, as it is in the inner chasm of the dark gneiss, the widening process seems to have gone on much more slowly. Geologists account for the great width of the main chasm when compared with the depth, on the theory that the forces that work laterally have been more continuously active than has the force that cuts downward. There is convincing evidence that the whole region has been many times lifted up since the cutting began, ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... tossed about like a wounded fish, and dreamt of the devil and Senegal. Towards sunrise, a faint breeze restored me to life and reason. I slumbered till late in the day, and the moment I was fairly awake, ordered my gondolier to row out to the main ocean, that I might plunge into its waves, and hear and see ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... mean that the next time the land slips our little tube will be twisted up like a piece of string, or crushed like an eggshell. That always was a rocky bit of land. I thought in going that far north, though, that we had missed the main line of activity; I mean the disturbances that had once wiped out a whole nation, if your scientists ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen

... at last, "one of the main roads would be best. I'd rather not risk any chance of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... military point of view and this Southern nationalism that even in 1861 had scarcely revealed itself; join with these a fearless and haughty spirit, proud to the verge of arrogance, but perfectly devoted, perfectly sincere; and you have the main lines of the political character of Davis when he became President. It may be that as he went forward in his great undertaking, as antagonisms developed, as Rhett and others turned against him, Davis hardened. He lost whatever comprehension he once had ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... rang out on the still air that startled Migwan like the report of a pistol, followed immediately by another. She came to her senses with a rush. With hardly a moment's warning the ice on which she was standing broke away from the main mass and began to move. Struck motionless by fright, she had not the presence of mind to jump back to the larger field. A wave washed in between, separating her by several feet from the solid ice. The cake she was on began ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... and the double-formed corslet met.[175] The bitter arrow fell on his well-fitted belt, and through the deftly-wrought belt was it driven, and it stuck in the variegated corslet and the brazen-plated belt which he wore, the main defence of his body, a guard against weapons, which protect him most; through even this did it pass onwards, and the arrow grazed the surface of the hero's skin, and straightway black gore flowed from the wound. And as when some Maeonian[176] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... be seen, therefore, that General Elliott's six divisions were all stationed in the narrow Bear River Valley between the two hostile armies: Fisher's, Hardy's and Livingstone's divisions were headed South to fall upon the left wing of the enemy's main army, commanded by Marshal Oyama; while Milton's and Stranger's divisions were marching to the North, and came upon the enemy, who was on his way from Pocatello, at Georgetown. General Elliott therefore had to conduct a battle in two directions: In the South he had to assume the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... who carries his flag on the main-mast. A landlord or publican wearing a blue apron, as was formerly the custom among gentlemen ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... Dominion (unsought by the free) And the Iron Dome, Stronger for stress and strain, Fling her huge shadow athwart the main; But the Founders' dream shall flee. Age after age has been, (From man's changeless heart their way they win); And death be busy with all who strive— ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... who had been spending an hour at the works, brought word that business pressed; a host of things had to be unexpectedly finished off and put in order. He, Alice, and Adela made pretence of a midday meal; then he went into the library to smoke a cigar and meditate. The main subject of his meditation was an interview with Adela which he purposed seeking in the course of the afternoon. But he had also half-a-dozen letters of the first importance to despatch to town by the evening post, and these it was ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... billiard room were two doors, and here a number of people were standing watching the dancing that was going on in the main part of the building. Reynolds presently joined them, and he was greatly surprised at the size of the room, and the number of people upon the floor. There was a gallery immediately overhead, and here ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... which we have a knowledge, only by reason of the fact that it is surrounded by and contrasted with that which is not Moon, and which, in reference to the particular aspect under consideration is, therefore, a Nothing; though it in turn may be a Something or main object of attention in some other view or conception, where some other ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be 'pared by their ...
— The Republic • Plato

... The main peculiarities were common to Painting and Sculpture, though most noticeable in Painting. An interest in the actual world seems never so far lost sight of, and earlier revived, in Sculpture. Even down to the spring-tide of Modern Art in the thirteenth century, the "pleasant days" when Guido of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... voyage, the natives complained to us of a certain very savage nation which was in use at certain times of the year to invade their territories by sea, sometimes falling upon them by surprise, and at other times by main force, who killed many of their people and devoured the slain, carrying away others into captivity. They told us that this nation, against whom they were hardly able to defend themselves, inhabited a certain island at about an hundred ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... had earned the esteem of his keepers during his successive imprisonments which lasted altogether for nearly nineteen years. He was privileged now to lie away from the other criminals, who were herded together in the main building. He had been given a small apartment that looked towards the river on the far side of a courtyard, called the sergeants' ward. There was even a pump in the centre of this courtyard from whence his granddaughter might fetch him water ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... brig—for such she was—crept up to the Aurora, until her bows were in a line with the barque's stern and not more than twenty feet distant. George stood by the main-rigging, watching her, cutlass in hand, calm and determined, his plans already formed for action in the event ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... citizens of superior possibilities? Our relation to publisher and parent, to the library's adult open shelves of current fiction enter into the problem. The children's over-reading, and their reluctance to "graduate" from juvenile books, these and many other perplexing questions grow out of the main one. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... some bitter experiences and participated in several desperate attacks and defenses, but it was not until the campaign at Ypres that the organization was almost annihilated, when it faced one of the most terrific bombardments of the war, and fought in a section largely cut off from the main line. Here Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar, commander of the battalion, lost his life and nearly all of ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... work as soon as he reached home. He wrote and destroyed and rewrote, erased and substituted, until, as near as he could, he had said what he intended, so at least as it should not be mistaken for what he did not intend, which is the main problem in writing. Then he copied all out fair and plain, so that she could read it easily—and here is ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald

... of purification from contamination, but the main point in the priest's mental process of self-extenuation was that an infidel awaiting the verdict of the Great Mother should ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... a part of the ocean from the main Atlantic Ocean. This smaller part is called the Caribbean Sea. Notice what countries ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs

... rulers, but this is doubtless an exaggeration. It may be said that except in his best patriotic poems his verses lack lyric merit and his ideas are wanting in insight and depth; but his sincerity of purpose was in the main beyond question and he occasionally gave expression to striking boldness of thought and exaltation of feeling. In technique Quintana was a follower of the ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

... also takes charge of the wines and silver, does very much the same as the butler in the bigger house, except that he has less overseeing of others and more work to do himself. Where he is alone, he does all the work—naturally. Where he has either one footman or a parlor-maid, he passes the main courses at the table and his assistant ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... country. As the world has been let in upon them, they have heard of happier climates, and less arbitrary government; and if they are disgusted, have emissaries among them ready to offer them land and houses, as a reward for deserting their Chief and clan. Many have departed both from the main of Scotland, and from the Islands; and all that go may be considered as subjects lost to the British crown; for a nation scattered in the boundless regions of America resembles rays diverging from a focus. All the rays remain, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... and the confessions that had been made to them, and whatever else had been done during the time of his banishment. The prebends were regarded as irregular for more than three months; at the end of that time he erected a stage at the main doors of the holy cathedral church, and thereon publicly absolved them—having previously published an edict that at the said function should assemble all the Indians, Sangleys, mestizos, and negroes of the neighboring ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... produced in fact more than one, and we take them in their order. The first was that it struck our young woman as absurd to say that a girl's looking so to a man could possibly be without connections; and the second was that by the time Kate had got into the room Milly was in mental possession of the main connection it ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... "There are relations of mine who have a pecuniary interest in my life. I am the main condition of a contingent reversion in their favor. If I am missed, I shall be inquired after." I have wondered since at my own coolness in the face of the doctor's pistol; but my life depended on my keeping my self-possession, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... hundred Falgunis, approaching me whose arms and weapons never go for nothing, will surely fly away in all directions. Encounter Bhishma in combat, or strike the hill with thy head, or cross with the aid of thy two arms alone the vast and deep main! As regards my army, it is a veritable main with Saradwat's son as its large fish, Vivinsati as its huge snake, Bhishma as its current of immeasurable might, Drona as its unconquerable alligator, Karna and Salwa and Salya its fishes and whirlpools, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in the little book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for the business he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, but when any member of his clergy was invited to step into the farther room, the person so invited ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and commentaries are scarce; famous collectors pride themselves in owning one or several of them. Of the well-known collections of cookery books the most outstanding perhaps is that of Theodor Drexel, of Frankfurt on the Main, who owned nine different editions of Apicius. The Drexel catalogue forms the basis of a bibliography—Verzeichnis der Litteratur ueber Speise und Trank bis zum Jahre 1887, bearbeitet von Carl Georg, Hannover, 1888, describing ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... bankrupt and dependant, and that John Sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever so much money for the aid which his generosity now chose to administer. George carried the pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old widower whom it was now the main business of her life to tend and comfort. The little fellow patronized the feeble ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... controversies had for some years acquired a wider and more absorbing interest in England than in any period since the Commonwealth. But it does not yet appear to have occurred to any class that a national policy, which made it its main object to encourage the kidnapping of tens of thousands of negroes, and their consignment to the most miserable slavery, might be at least as inconsistent with the spirit of the Christian religion as either the ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... was very courteous to me, in his way. He invited me to luncheon the day after I arrived. Present: the President, Mrs. Wilson, Miss Bones, Tom Bolling, his brother-in-law, and I. The conversation was general and in the main jocular. Not a word about England, not a word about a foreign policy or ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... reflected that Sally would probably tattle the whole thing; the more so, if she were charged not to mention it. Yet he was rather relieved, when he went to tell his sister, to find that she knew the main ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... have got out, or been got out by the drains? As far as I know, there is no system of pipes large enough to allow of the passage of a man through the pipes which join the main sewers; but, as a set-off to that, there is a chimney—the ancient chimney of Marie Antoinette—which communicates with the Depot, and the roof I am now on: it must have been by this chimney that the escape was made! Let us see whether ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... then the streak of saw-dust running along in the midst of the brook below, and forming yellow nooks to imprison bubbles and sticks and leaves and what not, every now and then making a jet outward and joining the main body—and lastly the saw-mill yard, with its boards, white, dark and golden, piled up in great masses, with narrow lanes running through—and gray glistening logs, with their bark coats off, waiting their turn to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... lies less in some special gift or opportunity vouchsafed to one and withheld from another,—less in that than in the differing degree in which these common elements of human power are owned and used. Not how much talent have I, but how much will to use the talent that I have, is the main question. Not how much do I know, but how much do I do with ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... With fondness she pursues it, if no guide Recall, no rein direct her wand'ring course. Hence it behov'd, the law should be a curb; A sovereign hence behov'd, whose piercing view Might mark at least the fortress and main tower Of the true city. Laws indeed there are: But who is he observes them? None; not he, Who goes before, the shepherd of the flock, Who chews the cud but doth not cleave the hoof. Therefore the multitude, who see their guide Strike at the very good they covet most, Feed there and look no further. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... for? Liberty. This is the great Object of their State Governments, and has not the federal Constitution the same Object in View? If therefore a Doubt arises respecting the Exercise of any Power, no Construction, I conceive, should militate with the main Design, or Object of the Charter. If there is a total Silence in the Constitution, is it not natural to conclude that an Officer holding during Pleasure is removable by the same Power which appointed him, whether vested in a single Person, or ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... They were coming into the crowded, brilliantly lighted main street of the city, and their two faces were quite plain ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... grant me peace, I consulted my reason, but I have now consulted my heart. In spite of the terrible sacrifices which you have imposed on me, sire, I desire most anxiously that the treaty, which has already been secured by the approval of the main points, will entitle me soon to resume my amicable relations with your imperial majesty, which the war interrupted for a moment. It is an agreeable duty for me, monsieur mon frere, to manifest, by a proof of confidence, my sincere ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... of the fighting, too," added Smith. "But I'll tell you how it was; and you, Mr. Harmar, may judge whether our defeat was owing in any degree to the exertions of the enemy. After General Howe took possession of Philadelphia, the main body of the British was encamped at Germantown. Our army lay at Skippack Creek, about sixteen miles from Germantown. Well, General Washington having received all the reinforcements he expected, and knowing that the enemy had been considerably weakened by sending detachments to take ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... is war, and, what is more, this war is this war. I will not attempt to paint the picture. Every one must realise by now that the main concentration of all military effort is directed at creating in the trenches an ever-intenser inferno of heavy shells. In a great army there is every degree of risk to be run or immunity to be enjoyed; but at the very front, where all is ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot

... and moved along the main street between the rows of ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... rather thought I would give up that point too. After another silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... we've already got. 'There will, of course, still remain a surplus; but as they will have ample trouble and inconvenience to put up with during the year, they should also be allowed some balance in hand so as to make up what's wanted for themselves. The main object is, of course, to increase profits and curtail expenses, yet we couldn't be stingy to any excessive degree. In fact, were we even able to make any further economy of over two or three hundred taels, it would ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... not without weight," said the bishop, gallantly coming to her rescue. "There are few things upon which I wax more indignant than the increasing interference of the State with the home. This hysterical agitation against child labor, for instance; while warranted in exceptional cases, it is in the main destructive of the formation of the habit of industry which cannot be acquired too young. When the State presumes to teach a mother how to feed her child, when and where to educate it, when and where to send it to work, the State goes too far. There is nothing more dangerous ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... be at least two days more before I can hear from dad," Merry remarked, just as they struck into the main street of the "camp," "and before we interfere too much with the professor I think we ought to learn from headquarters just how far we ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... Hanlon interrupted with a grin. "But this was my assignment, and my recommendations will govern. The main thing is, will you consent ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... pretty sight to see a camp town during carnival. The one main street, which does not boast of pavements, and is generally a yard deep in dust, is gaily decorated with bunting and festoons. Small stands are put up every ten yards or so, in which the "caballeros" take up their positions and pelt the "senoritas" with confetti and "serpentinas" (blocks of different ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... Frenchman airily. "I might claim that the term adventurer, as applied to me, is a harsh one. You may inquire where and how you choose in Paris, and you will find no discredit attached to my name. But that phase of the difficulty is now of no consequence. Let us keep to the main issue. Some three months ago I made the acquaintance of a lady fitted in every respect to fill my ideal. I was on good terms with her father, and by no means distasteful to the lady herself. Given a fair opportunity, I thought ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... with eminent satisfaction to all concerned until I got ready to go off at some new tangent. If I did not imagine myself in the actual embrace of some grave physical or mental disease, I feared that something would in the near future attack me; and that brings me to the main topic of ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs

... They persisted in demanding acts. Step by step under terrific gunfire the President's resistance crumbled, and he yielded, one by one, every minor facility to the measure, always withholding from us, however, the main objective. Not until he had exhausted all minor facilities, and all possible evasions, did he publicly declare that the amendment should pass the House, and put it through. When he had done that we rested from the attack momentarily, in order ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... the Queen's Speech, that all obstacles to an unbroken chain of loyal settlements, stretching from ocean to ocean, should be removed." British Columbia, which had become a Province in 1858, has now urging the Imperial Government with might and main to furnish a waggon-road and telegraph line to connect her, not only with the Territories and Canada, but with the United Empire. She was met by the stiffest of opposition, the opposition of a very ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... suggestion (ridiculous from her standpoint) after she left the lawyer's house, her expression of countenance did not show it. She walked cheerfully along the shaded street toward Milton's railroad station, for the old Corner House stood upon the corner of Willow and Main Streets, opposite the Parade Ground, quite on the other ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... schools we've got there, and as for this part of the town—well, I reckon the apartment houses will fairly take your breath away. Apartment houses! Well, that's what I call progress—apartment houses and skyscrapers, and we've got them, too, down on Main Street. I'll show them to you to-morrow. Yes, by George, we're progressing so fast you can hardly see how we grow. Why, there wasn't a skyscraper or an apartment house in the city when you left here, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... once to write down the date for each day and the main thing he did or that happened on it. He called this his diary. He had now a better way of keeping time than on his tree calendar. He did not need ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison

... note of "external solemnity," which may give precedence to one or two feasts, which are equal in the above-mentioned matters—i.e., in Gradation I., Classification II., Precedence III. But the main point is that only doubles of first and second class have the right, as a rule, of transference. ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... in which his companion, frightened at her own temerity, resolved that she would not call him Gerry again. It was sailing too near the wind. She was glad he went back from this side-channel of their talk to the main subject. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... is able to have "the loose end" to unwind the ball of time. But, still, in some cases the clairvoyant is able to get en rapport with the astral records of past-time by the ordinary methods of meditation, etc. The main obstacle in the last mentioned case is the difficulty of coming in contact with the exact period of past-time sought for—in psychometry, the vibrations of the "associated ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... said.—He took another after he got the most of his clothes on, "to settle his mind and give him his bearings." He then shaved, and put on a clean shirt; after which he recited the Lord's Prayer in a fervent, thundering bass that shook the ship to her kelson and suspended all conversation in the main cabin. Then, at this stage, being invariably "by the head," or "by the stern," or "listed to port or starboard," he took one more to "put him on an even keel so that he would mind his hellum and not miss stays and go about, every time he came up in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... thus caused I did all I could to attain my main object—an introduction to the King—and for this purpose made use of my former acquaintance with the court musical director, Count Redern. This gentleman received me at once with the greatest affability, invited me to dinner and a soiree, and entered into a hearty discussion ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... improvement of the roads throughout England was exceedingly slow. Though some of the main throughfares were mended so as to admit of stage-coach travelling at the rate of from four to six miles an hour, the less frequented roads continued to be all but impassable. Travelling was still difficult, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... qualities of speech are important, emphasis is of cardinal value. Listeners will never recall everything that a speaker has said. By a skilful employment of emphasis he will put into their consciousness the main theme of his message, the salient arguments of his contention, the leading motives of action. Here again is that close interdependence of manner and material referred to in the preceding chapter. In later chapters will be discussed various methods of determining ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... people who do not value themselves less for being fond of cherries. There is, I admit, a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is rather of the Bloomfield sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the Poor Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth all his energy is altogether of the belly. He never has these fine intervals of lunacy into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. But for a' that and twice as muckle 's a' that, I would not exchange ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... solemn "Good-morning." The Brotherhood of Engineers had warned him too, and he was a little troubled; but he had cast in his lot with the rest, and it might be as well to wait and see what they did. The main shaft ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... over a mile a minute; there were also larger machines for long-distance flying which could carry two passengers. The machines were so designed that their wings could be folded back along their bodies, and their wires, struts, and so on packed into the main parts of the craft, so that they were almost as compact as the body of a bird at rest on its perch, and they took up comparatively little space ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... is happily better than his argument. He discriminates with much skill the manners of the several countries that pass in review before him; the illustrations, with which he relieves and varies his main subject, are judiciously interspersed; and as he never raises his tone too far beyond his pitch at the first starting, so he seldom sinks much below it. The thought at the beginning appears to have pleased him; for he has repeated it in "the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... up to that time only four legions at his disposal, returned to Italy, brought away five fresh legions, and arrived on the left bank of the Saone at the moment when the rear-guard of the Helvetians was embarking to rejoin the main body which had already pitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar cut to pieces this rear-guard, crossed the river, in his turn, with his legions, pursued the emigrants without relaxation, came in contact with them on ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... numerous other plants, which, apart from being a revival of a very early primitive belief, form one of the prettiest chapters of our legendary tales. Although found under a variety of forms, and in some cases sadly corrupted from the dress they originally wore, yet in their main features they have not lost their individuality, but still retain ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... the Volsces, and To send for Titus Lartius, it remains, As the main point of this our after-meeting, To gratify his noble service that Hath thus stood for his country: therefore please you, Most reverend and grave elders, to desire The present consul, and last general In our well-found successes, to report A little of that worthy work perform'd By Caius Marcius ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... 'mockin'-buds' and 'hants' and 'horg-killing time,' and of sweeping animadversions as to all 'free niggers'; and to narrate how 'de quality use ter cum'—you spell it c-u-m because that looks so convincingly like dialect—'ter de gret hous.' Those are the main ingredients. And, as for the unavoidable love-interest—" Charteris paused, grinned, and pleasantly resumed: "Why, jes arter dat, suh, a hut Yankee cap'en, whar some uv our folks done shoot in de laig, wuz lef on de road fer daid—a ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... worked out is extravagant; but it is the extravagance of an inspired lover. To quarrel with its technical exuberance on the ground that Mr Kipling should have made it less like the vision of an engineer is simply to miss almost the main impulse of Mr Kipling's progress. It is true that unless we share Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for The Night Mail as a beautiful machine, for the men who governed it as skilled mechanicians, and for all the minutiae of the control ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer

... exception, pretend to adore her but it is flattery; you know that she loves it and that it pleases me. Now Martel—Madonna mia! What is this?" She broke off sharply and pointed toward the main gateway to the grounds. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... reported that when asked his impression of President WILSON Mr. BALFOUR remarked, "Gee! He's the top shout and the main ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various

... which, however, generally die after the operation of tapping. I called the spot Glen Osborne*; we rested here a day. We always have a great deal of sewing and repairing of the canvas pack-bags to do, and a day of rest usually means a good day's work; it rests the horses, however, and that is the main thing. Saturday night, the 4th October, was a delightfully cool one, and on Sunday we started for some hills in a south-westerly direction, passing some low ridges. We reached the higher ones in twenty-two miles. Nearing them, we passed over some fine cotton-bush flats, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... had met his two comrades up on the main street of the village. He had told them, with a good deal of amusement, of his late talk ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... few days in Rouen, where he always lingered longer than he intended to, he had crossed the river at Sotteville an had followed main roads which led him to the south and east through the heart of the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... attempt. He waited patiently till the judges proceeded to Salisbury; and, learning that their guard had not accompanied them, entered that city with two hundred men at five o'clock in the morning of Monday.[b] The main body with their leader took possession of the market-place; while small detachments brought away the horses from the several inns, liberated the prisoners in the gaol, and surprised the sheriff and the two judges in their beds. At first Wagstaff gave orders that these three should be immediately ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... the rest of his countrymen. As a painter he is rivalled by Dunbar and James I., more rarely by Thomson and Ramsay. The "lilt" of Tannahill's finest verse is even more charming. But these writers rest in their art; their main care is for their own genius. The same is true in a minor degree of some of his great English successors. Keats has a palette of richer colours, but he seldom condescends to "human nature's daily food." Shelley ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... wish—but, above all, you ought to feel free to marry. That is the essential equipment of a man; he isn't a man if he feels that he isn't free to marry. He may not want to do it, he may not be in love. That's neither here nor there; the main thing is that he is as free as a man should be to take any good opportunity—and marriage is included in the list of good opportunities. If you become a slave to morbid notions, no wonder you are depressed. Slaves usually are. Do you want to slink through life? Then shake ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... spite of the bad education of girls, what would their judgment have been, had it been strengthened by suitable instruction, or rather left unaffected by evil teaching, for to preserve or restore the natural feelings is our main business? You can do this without preaching endless sermons to your daughters, without crediting them with your harsh morality. The only effect of such teaching is to inspire a dislike for the teacher and the lessons. In talking to a young girl you need not make her afraid of her duties, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... they count 12 per cent., but some of the states have none." Professor March asserts that "one of the causes of the excessive illiteracy among the English-speaking people is the difficulty of the English spelling;" and his argument proceeds on the assumption that this is in fact the main cause. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... the trees of the park, grouped by distance, seemed blent into one thick mass of wood; to the right, as I now (descending the cliff by a gradual path) entered on the level sands, and at about the distance of a league from the main shore, a small islet, notorious as the resort and shelter of contraband adventurers, scarcely relieved the wide and glassy azure of the waves. The tide was out; and passing through one of the arches worn in the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... bear me to the main," he said; although bad, he was too honest to quote the other line, feeling that he had not ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... will negotiate for peace," said the king to himself, "but the emperor desires to win laurels in the war, and will try to cut off the negotiations of his mother by a coup de main. One must be on ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... combing she saw, now, as a person sees in a dream, sailors rushing and struggling aft along the slanting main deck. The engines had ceased working but the dynamos were running on steam from the main boilers, and through the noises that filled the night the sewing machine sound of them threshed like a pulse. What had happened, what was happening, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... Prince of Parma, with almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron of war-ships at Dunkirk, and his flotilla of other ships and of flat-bottomed boats for the transport to England of the picked troops, which were designed to be the main instruments in subduing England. Thousands of workmen were employed, night and day, in the construction of these vessels, in the ports of Flanders and Brabant. One hundred of the kind called hendes, built at Antwerp, Bruges, and ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... the land of the mountain and wood, Farewell to the home of the brave and the good, My bark is afloat on the blue-rolling main, And I ne'er shall ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... all set out for the stables. These buildings at Highlawns, framed by great trees, were old-fashioned and picturesque, surrounding three sides of a court, with a yellow brick wall on the fourth. The roof of the main building was capped by a lantern, the home of countless pigeons. Mrs. Rindge was in a habit, and one by one the saddle horses were led out, chiefly for her inspection; and she seemed to Honora to become another woman as she looked them over with a critical eye and discussed them with Hugh and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill



Words linked to "Main" :   chief, sewer line, electric main, territorial waters, in the main, infrastructure, important, of import, main drag, main file, main-topsail, international waters, high sea, main rotor, master, sewer main, gas main, main course, main entry word, water main, pipe, offing, intense, main street, coup de main, hydrosphere, main deck, water, primary, main-topmast, base, pipage, briny, main office, riser main, Frankfurt on the Main, piping, dependent, main diagonal, main road



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com