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Chiefly   /tʃˈifli/   Listen
Chiefly

adverb
1.
For the most part.  Synonyms: in the main, mainly, primarily, principally.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Chiefly" Quotes from Famous Books



... one of the rubber collectors. He had reached this spot the day before, and had built himself a shelter of leaves and branches. He would be here for ten days or a fortnight, and his food, chiefly cassava, lay in a little pile in the shelter, ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... from America of collections of the people in three or four instances in the Eastern States, demanding delays in the proceedings of the courts of justice. Those States, as you know, depended before the war chiefly on their whale oil and fish. The former was consumed in London, but, being now loaded with heavy duties, cannot go there. Much of their fish went up the Mediterranean, now shut to us by the piratical States. Their ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... I have said has been chiefly appropriate for men. Now my subject widens and shall be appropriate for both sexes. In all ages of the world there has been a search for some herb or flower that would stimulate lethargy and compose grief. Among the ancient Greeks and Egyptians they found ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... was the view of their lost friends, and wondrous the appearance of the Spanish ships, it was not on those that the eyes of the men of the Basilisk were chiefly bent. A greater sight lay before them—a sight which brought them clustering to the forecastle with eager eyes and pointing fingers. The English fleet was coming forth from the Winchelsea Coast. Already before ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... are now scarcely perused but by antiquaries, I thought it might not be unacceptable to my readers to present them with some specimens of his manner, in single thoughts and phrases; and in some few passages of greater length, chiefly of a narrative description. I shall arrange them as I casually find them in my book of extracts, without being solicitous to specify the particular work from which ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... of prostitutes to the city. "This civilizational factor of prostitution, the influence of luxury and excitement and refinement in attracting the girl of the people, as the flame attracts the moth, is indicated by the fact that it is the country dwellers who chiefly succumb to the fascination. The girls whose adolescent explosive and orgiastic impulses, sometimes increased by a slight congenital lack of nervous balance, have been latent in the dull monotony of country life and heightened by the spectacle of ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves

... Carman, with her; and Rose did not leave them alone for a moment at a time. All sentiments that she regarded as hurtful to Irene in her present state of mind she met with her calm, conclusive mode of reasoning, that took away the specious force of the sophist's dogmas. But her influence was chiefly used in the repression of unprofitable themes, and the introduction of such as tended to tranquilize the feelings, and turn the thoughts of her friend away from the trouble that was lying upon her soul like a suffocating nightmare. Mrs. Talbot was not pleased ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... our actions. The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being who may consider the action; and it consists chiefly in the determination of his thoughts to infer the existence of that action from some preceding objects; as liberty, when opposed to necessity, is nothing but the want of that determination, and a certain looseness or indifference which we feel, in passing or not passing, from ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... second book the subject of pleasure leads to education, which in the early years of life is wholly a discipline imparted by the means of pleasure and pain. The discipline of pleasure is implanted chiefly by the practice of the song and the dance. Of these the forms should be fixed, and not allowed to depend on the fickle breath of the multitude. There will be choruses of boys, girls, and grown-up persons, and ...
— Laws • Plato

... knew well, as at one time he had felt inclined to aid the police in their so far fruitless investigations. He therefore skipped the description of the tragedy, and devoted his attention to the last paragraph, toward which he fancied that the finger of Major Jones had been chiefly directed. It was a list of the stolen property, which consisted of jewelry, gold and notes to a very considerable amount. With the waiter's permission, he annexed the paper, cut out the list of articles with a sharp penknife, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... for his health. Porter had been out of town, persistently, ever since the Pullman strike had grown ugly. The duties of the directors were performed, to all intents and purposes, by an under-official, a third vice-president. Those duties at present consisted chiefly in saying from day to day: "The company has nothing to arbitrate. There is a strike; the men have a right to strike. The company doesn't interfere with the men," etc. The third vice-president could make these announcements as judiciously as the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... evince the individuality of the buds of trees. First, there are many trees whose whole internal wood is perished, and yet the branches are vegete and healthy. Secondly, the fibres of the bark of trees are chiefly longitudinal, resembling roots, as is beautifully seen in those prepared barks that were lately brought from Otaheita. Thirdly, in horizontal wounds of the bark of trees, the fibres of the upper lip are always elongated downwards ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... I entered a green lane which I had never seen before. At first it was rather narrow, but as I advanced it became considerably wider. In the middle was a drift-way with deep ruts, but right and left was a space carpeted with a sward of trefoil and clover. There was no lack of trees, chiefly ancient oaks, which, flinging out their arms from either side, nearly formed a canopy and afforded a pleasing shelter from the rays of the sun, which was burning fiercely above. Suddenly a group of objects attracted ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... to set in play all these feminine self-conceits, appeared to pay very little heed to the matter, and, while these pretty damsels were vying with one another to attract his attention, he seemed to be chiefly absorbed in polishing the buckle of his sword belt with his doeskin glove. From time to time, the old lady addressed him in a very low tone, and he replied as well as he was able, with a sort of awkward ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... put up kraut and stuff by the barrel. I have seen some happy days when I was with my daddy and mother. He raised pigs and hogs and chickens and cows. He raised all kinds of peas and vegetables. He raised those things chiefly for the home, and he made cotton for money. He would save about eight or ten bales and put them under his shed for stockings and clothes and everything. He would have another cotton selling ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... Chiefly, however, is the happy change attributable to the discriminating and impartial judgment of the reading public of this golden Victorian era. In the present day, it may be considered a general rule, that no picture is admired, no book pronounced readable, ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight

... than it had been over that of King James; and it were easy to show that the acts of George Villiers' life supplied the main planks of that scaffold in Whitehall whereupon Charles Stuart came to lose his head. Charles was indeed a martyr; a martyr chiefly to the reckless, insolent, irresponsible vanity of this Villiers, who, from a simple country squire with nothing but personal beauty to recommend him, had risen to be, as Duke of Buckingham, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... own writings, the works to which I have been chiefly indebted are Goethes Gespraeche, Gesamtausgabe von Freiherrn v. Biedermann, Leipzig, 1909-11 (5 vols.), in which are collected references to Goethe by his contemporaries; and Der junge Goethe: Neue Ausgabe in sechs Baenden, besorgt von Max Morris, Leipzig, 1910-12, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... distress my adherents shall not chiefly (or by preference) follow the laws which are laid down by the Sastras for ...
— The Siksha-Patri of the Swami-Narayana Sect • Professor Monier Williams (Trans.)

... in commencing business; they accordingly lent him one thousand dollars as a capital to begin with. He opened a grocery in Ann Street, near what was then called the Tin Pot, a place full of abandoned women and dissolute fellows. As he dealt chiefly in liquor, and had a "License to retail Spirits," his drunkery was thronged with customers. But he sold his groceries chiefly to loose girls who paid him in their coin, which, although it answered his purpose, would neither ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... mean, the continual corruption of our English tongue, which, without some timely remedy, will suffer more by the false refinements of twenty years past, than it hath been improved in the foregoing hundred: And this is what I design chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... No one would choose this as a residence, except for the sake of Moenekuss. Oil is very dear, while at Lualaba a gallon may be got for a single string of beads, and beans, ground-nuts, cassava, maize, plantains in rank profusion. The Balegga, like the Bambarre people, trust chiefly to plantains and ground-nuts; to play with parrots is their ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... water was fairly alive with baby jelly-fish. On the left lay Monkey island, so called from a certain old gentleman who had had a peculiar fondness for those animals. His family of poor relations had disappeared at his death, and the island was now chiefly remarkable for a curious clay formation, which time had chiseled into cliffs so mimicking a folding screen that they were known by the name. They were perfectly level on top and perpendicular on the sides, and as double-faced as the most matter-of-fact nicknamer could desire. Sunset ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... at the village, I directed my steps to a house, around the door of which I saw several people gathered, chiefly women. On my displaying my books, their curiosity was instantly aroused, and every person had speedily one in his hand, many reading aloud; however, after waiting nearly an hour, I had disposed of but one copy, all complaining bitterly of the distress of the times, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... blessing of a father's love, have learned to do without it; she has no other comfort, no other balm, and I will not rob her of the little God has left her. I understand how mother feels, I cannot blame her; and while I know that her care and anxiety in this matter are chiefly on my account, I could never respect, never forgive myself, if to promote my own importance or interest I selfishly consented to beggar poor Maud. She cannot live long; death has set a shadowy mark already upon her weird eyes, and until they ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... when you understand that Mistress Lanison has been saved from the intrigues of her uncle and guardian. For the rest, her happiness lies chiefly in your hands, and you may find me more useful as a living friend than I should have proved as a dead enemy. Gad! you look as if you doubted it. No man is such a villain as he is painted, and, being a lover myself, I sympathise with all lovers. Perhaps ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... considers gum and lignin as the principles in unripe fruits which chiefly tend to the formation of sugar during their ripening, and he has given several analyses of fruits in illustration of these views. Mr. Brande also considers the elements of water as probably ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various

... The land, prairie-like in its appearance, lay in what is now known as the St Clair Flats in Kent county, Ontario. It proved to be too wet for successful farming. It was with difficulty, too, that the settlers became inured to the climate. Within a year forty-two are reported to have died, chiefly of fever and dysentery. The colony, however, enjoyed a measure of prosperity until the War of 1812 broke out, when the Americans under General M'Arthur, moving from Detroit, despoiled it of stores, cattle, and sheep, and almost obliterated it. In 1818 Lord Selkirk ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... coffin or a princely Indiaman of the old time. Sir Walter Besant is lord of his own East End, and of that innocent seraglio of delightful and eccentric young ladies to which he has been adding for years past Sir Walter Besant is chiefly remarkable as an example of what may be done by a steadfast cheerfulness in style. His creed has always been that fiction is a recreative art, and we have no better sample of a manly and stout-hearted optimist than he. He is optimistic of set purpose, and sometimes his cheerfulness ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... Christ as evident in the utterances of Catholic Bishops, like Hartmann of Cologne, as in those of Lutheran Pastors. Put all this together and say if the human race has ever presented a more unlovely aspect. When we try to find the brighter spots they are chiefly where civilisation, as apart from religion, has built up necessities for the community, such as hospitals, universities, and organised charities, as conspicuous in Buddhist Japan as in Christian Europe. We cannot deny that there has been much virtue, much gentleness, much spirituality ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At any rate I did my best to display my appreciation of the gift. We were soon seated together in a little stone arbour, engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's might have done. We passed each other flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk, and found that her name was Weena, which, though ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... legal profession show that the neighborhood of Guildhall was a favorite place of residence with the ancient lawyers, who either held judicial offices within the circle of the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction, or whose practice lay chiefly in the civic courts. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was quite a colony of jurists hard by the temple of Gogmagog and Cosineus—or Gog and Magog, as the grotesque giants are designated by the unlearned, who know ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each animal if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... chiefly belong to my heart?] I think it should be inverted thus: did I not chiefly belong to your hearts. Lacius wishes that Timon would give him and the rest an opportunity of expressing some part of their zeals. Timon answers that, doubtless the Gods have provided that ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... write, found his way into the Republic of Mexico, afterwards moving on to "Alta California." Settling by San Francisco Bay, he became a ganadero, or stock-farmer—the industry in those days chiefly followed by Californians. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... credit of working out in detail the distinction drawn by Aristotle and Buffon between the animal and the vegetative functions. Bichat was not a comparative anatomist; his interest lay in human anatomy, normal and pathological. So his views are drawn chiefly from the consideration ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... avert evil and counteract supposed malignant influences of all kinds, but it is in their connection with diseases of the body that we are chiefly interested. There is scarcely a disease for which a charm has not been given, but it will be seen that those which are most affected by charms are principally derangements of the nervous system, or those periodical ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... chemist's, was in a way the worst. It was for scent, for toilette articles, strange yet familiar to him from their presence in his father's shop, for all manner of cosmetics, for things so outrageous, so unnecessary, that they witnessed chiefly to the shifts she had been put to, to her anxieties and hastes, to the feverish multiplication of pretexts and occasions. Still, they amounted but to a few pounds and an odd shilling or two. Starker's bill ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... him to carve some very pretty figures; Freitje brought all his new fishing-tackle and invited her to go fishing with him at the back of the house. It was not long before Katharine forgot that she was homesick, and grew really interested in her surroundings; and later the dinner, consisting chiefly of fish and rye bread, tasted very good to the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... bounded either by a high wall—"circummured with brick," "with high walles embatailled,"—or with a thick high hedge—"encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge." These hedges were made chiefly of Holly or Hornbeam, and we can judge of their size by Evelyn's description of his "impregnable hedge of about 400ft. in length, 9ft. high, and 5ft. in diameter." Many of these hedges still remain in our old gardens. Within this enclosure the garden was accurately ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... downward step by step, until he has become a critic, and, therefore, my natural enemy? Does he not, in the columns of a certain journal of large pretension but small circulation, call me "'Arry" (without an "H," the satirical rogue), and is not his contempt for the English-speaking people based chiefly upon the fact that some of them read my books? But in the days of Bloomsbury lodgings and first-night pits we thought each ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... things that appear to have struck Captain Widdrington on arriving at Madrid, was the great activity in the building department—an activity arising chiefly from the sequestration of the church property. Convents were being pulled down, or at least altered so as to render them suitable to other purposes. The ground on which one had stood had been converted into a public walk—a chapel had been replaced by a covered market. The large ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... volume are chiefly my own; but I have also taken expressions and sentences freely from others—and especially from Dr M’Crie, in his translation of the ‘Provincial Letters’—when they seemed to convey well the sense of the original. It would be impossible to distinguish ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... handle it with antiseptic precautions. When a critic who has risen high enough to be allowed to sign his reviews in a daily paper calls a new book "a great human novel," you may be absolutely sure that the said novel consists chiefly of ridiculous twaddle. Mr. Whitten is not a humanist in that sense. He has no sentimentality, and a very great deal ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... Johnson's "Rasselas," but Johnson's history of Rasselas. We think it rather hard, that, having, in general, such a limited amount of meaning to express, Mr. Wilson should have followed the maxim of Talleyrand, and employed language chiefly as a means of concealing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... Independents, to whom the inferior sectaries adhered, predominated in the army; and the troops of the new model were universally infected with that enthusiastic spirit. To their assistance did the Independent party among the commons chiefly trust in their projects for acquiring the ascendant over ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... belonged to Almagro, to conquer the country of Collao, a mountainous district which was said to be extremely rich. Not being able to make any progress in this country on account of the difficulty of the roads, he had to return; besides which his troops became mutinous, chiefly at the instigation of one Mesa, who had been commissary of artillery under Almagro, and was encouraged by the other soldiers of Almagro who served on this expedition. On this, Candia arrested Mesa and sent him to Ferdinand Pizarro with the evidences ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... not so drastic as his earlier plan, for the king acting in the cabinet through Shelburne and Thurlow objected to many of the proposed retrenchments. Nevertheless, in spite of mutilations, the bill, which became law, effected a saving of L72,000 a year, chiefly by abolishing useless offices. The act also again provided for the payment of arrears of the civil list, amounting this time to L296,000. Burke nobly continued his work by a bill for the reform of his own office, preventing the paymaster ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... Peggy, whom Bohemia began to pity. Mr. Peters, knowing both women would be there and so on the look-out, saw in the distance among the crowd of notabilities a superbly millinered, tall, graceful woman, whose face recalled sensations he could not for the moment place. Chiefly noticeable about her were her exquisite neck and arms, and the air of perfect breeding with which she moved, talking and laughing, through the distinguished, fashionable throng. Beside her strutted, nervously aggressive, a vulgar, ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... were made, as on the former occasion, chiefly in the lumber-yard at Parramatta, and under the superintendence of the same officer, Mr. Simpson. Much of the equipment used for the last expedition was available for this occasion. The boats and boat-carriage ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... have passed since then, and the man is still at Shingle Hut. He was the best horse Dad ever had. He slaved from daylight till dark; keeps no Sunday; knows no companion; lives chiefly on meat and machine oil; domiciles in the barn; and has never asked for a rise in his wages. His name we never knew. We call him "Jack." The ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... between plant and animal life lies in the fact that the plant is concerned chiefly with storing energy, and the animal with consuming it. The plant by a very slow process converts lifeless into living matter, expending little energy and living at a profit. The animal is unable to change lifeless into living matter, but has developed organs of locomotion, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... articulated in a shaking voice, with a gesture of refusal. "I did have an idea of beginning a new life with that money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it, chiefly because 'all things are lawful.' That was quite right what you taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there's no everlasting God, there's no such thing as virtue, and there's no need of it. You were right there. So that's how ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... from a distance has the advantage of sugar cane. Fish is not so plentiful as it ought to be, considering the abundance that there is on the whole coast, but it is extremely good; oysters, prawns, and crabs are as good as in any part of the world. The wheaten bread used in Rio is chiefly made of American flour, and is, generally speaking, exceedingly good. Neither the captaincy of Rio, nor those to the north, produce wheat; but in the high lands of St. Paul's, and the Minas Geraes, and in the southern provinces, a good deal is cultivated, and with great success. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... as regards the astonishing perseverance in supporting the succession of these benefits, or as regards the ultimate event of these benefits. A great wrong has been done for ages; for we have all been accustomed to speak of the Byzantine empire with scorn,{B} as chiefly known by its effeminacy; and the greater is the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... questions, therefore, which chiefly exercised the minds of people in authority, both in England and in India, with regard to Afghan affairs were, What was to be done with Afghanistan now we had got it? and, Who could be set up as Ruler with any chance of being able ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... the prize: be sure that thine eyes be continually upon the profit thou art like to get. The reason why men are so apt to faint in their race for heaven, lies chiefly in ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... wonderful skill with weapons. He could use both hands with equal effect in fighting, could handle three spears at once, keeping one always in the air, and when his men were rowing could run from prow to stern of the ship on their oars. But what we have chiefly to tell is the last adventure of the viking king and how death came to him in the heat of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... place very well, and that being at a distance from sea, it never was sacked by any pirates, whereby the inhabitants were rich, exercising their trade by ready money, with those of Havanna who kept here an established commerce, chiefly in hides. This proposal was presently admitted by Captain Morgan, and the chief of his companions. Hereupon they ordered every captain to weigh anchor and set sail, steering towards that coast nearest to El Puerto ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... Marion was dispatched to Bacon's Bridge on Ashley river, where Moultrie had established a camp for the reception of the militia of the neighborhood, as well as those which had been summoned from the interior. It was to Marion that Lincoln chiefly looked for the proper drilling of the militia. In his hands they lost the rude and inefficient character, the inexpert and spiritless manner, which, under ordinary commanders, always distinguish them. Feeling sure of their Captain, he, in turn, rendered them confident of themselves. Speaking ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... the publication of Wordsworth's "Peter Bell, a Tale". These productions were reviewed in Leigh Hunt's "Examiner" (April 26, May 3, 1819); and to the entertainment derived from his perusal of Hunt's criticisms the composition of Shelley's "Peter Bell the Third" is chiefly owing.] ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... not know himself; the country was entirely unexplored. Except that the direction was west, he had no knowledge whatever. He had often inquired of the shepherds, but they were perfectly ignorant. Anker's Gate was the most westerly of all their settlements, which chiefly extended eastwards. Beyond Anker's Gate was the trackless forest, of which none but the Bushmen knew anything. They did not understand what he meant by a map; all they could tell him was that the range of mountainous hills continued westerly and southerly for an unascertained distance, and that ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... stirring poetry of science is not in guesses, or facile divinations about it, but in its larger ascertained truths—the order of infinite space, the slow method and vast results of infinite time. For Browne, however, the sense of poetry which so overmasters his scientific procedure, depends chiefly on its vaguer possibilities; the empirical philosophy, even after Bacon, being still dominated by a temper, resultant from the general unsettlement of men's [151] minds at the Reformation, which may be summed up in the famous question of Montaigne—Que scais-je? ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... left the room, with his handkerchief to his face. The marquis was really sorry for the blow, chiefly because Malcolm, without a shadow of pusillanimity, had taken it so quietly. Malcolm would, however, have had very much more the worse of it had he defended himself, for his master had been a bruiser in his youth, and neither his left hand nor his right ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... Leland observed as long ago as 1536. One is inclined to wonder where all the earth comes from, which buries old buildings and hides them so carefully; but any student of natural history, who has read Darwin's book on Worms, will cease to be astonished. It is chiefly through the action of these useful creatures that soil accumulates so greatly on ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... Leamington, a crowded audience chiefly of ladies, a platform at one end on which a black cabinet stood. A man, erect and with something of the soldier in his bearing, led forward a girl, pretty and fair-haired, who wore a black velvet dress with a long, sweeping train. She moved like one in a dream. Some half-dozen people from the ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... exact population of the place may have been, its rapid growth is indisputable. The cause of this must be sought, not in natural business reasons, such as have given a permanent increase of population to so many of our Western cities, but chiefly in active and aggressive proselyting work both in this country and in Europe. This work was assisted by the sympathy which the treatment of the Mormons had very generally secured for them. Copies of Mormon Bibles were rare outside of the hands of the brethren, and the text of Smith's "revelations" ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... back from a brow which might have been a scholar's, were it not so florid. A soft, white linen shirt rolls deeply open, exposing a grizzled expanse of powerful chest. Roomy, baggy, spotless, linen trousers do homage to the heat, as does his broad, palm-fiber hat, used chiefly as a fan. Doctor Jim McDonald, six feet in his socks, weighing 180 pounds, erect and manly in bearing in spite of his negligee, is a remarkable specimen of physical manhood at sixty-five. Even with the Saturday afternoon crowds of the cotton-picking season, Main Street seems ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... small island a few miles from Bombay, called by the natives, Garapur, though in the sixteenth century the Portuguese gave it the name of Elephanta, from a huge black stone elephant which they saw on landing. The great temple is reached by a paved causeway from a beach below, and is chiefly underground, though both centre and wings have handsome outside frontages. The chief hall is one hundred and thirty feet long (or about as large as a fair-sized English church), and formerly had many ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... low voice, and looking at him sideways occasionally. Parent got a side view of her and recognized her pretty features, the movements of her lips, her smile, and her coaxing glances. But the child chiefly took up his attention. How tall and strong he was! Parent could not see his face, but only his long, fair curls. That tall boy with bare legs, who was walking by his mother's side like a little man, was George. He saw them suddenly, all three, as they stopped in front of a shop. Limousin ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... matter was that the committee were chiefly Federalists. Mr. Peters was a Republican. In their answer to the petition, the committee assumed that it "was an equitable principle, that every member of the society should, in some way, contribute to the support of religious ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... the capacity of the people was not equal to the apprehension of them. But, during this silence, C. Amafinius arose and took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect, either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that, because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them. And after ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... trailing from her hand and the amethysts rising and falling with her laboured breathing. He glanced at her and then went on: "Burr leaves Richmond to-morrow. He does not go West till summer, and all his schemes may come to naught. What he does or does not do will depend on many things, chiefly on whether or not we go to war with Spain. I am not going West with him—not yet. I have let him talk. I have brought him and Adam Gaudylock together; I have put a little money in this land purchase of his upon the Washita, and I have given him some advice. That ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... they all tried to satisfy his curiosity, they could not succeed in conveying very distinct notions to his mind; partly because there was nothing in the tower to which they could compare the external world, partly because, having chiefly lived lives of seclusion and indolence in Eastern palaces, they knew it only ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... seemed to me impossible to deal with the long period covered by this volume as briefly as the scheme of the series required without leaving out a great many events and concentrating attention chiefly upon a few central facts and a few important personages. I think that the main results of the development may thus be seen, though there is much which is here omitted that would have been included had the book been ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... us consider that as we ourselves, with all our members and powers, were chiefly designed and framed to glorify our Maker, the which to do is indeed the greatest perfection and noblest privilege of our nature, so our tongue and speaking faculty were given to us to declare our admiration and reverence of Him, to exhibit our due love and gratitude ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... at the recumbent figure, Paul sped towards the red lamp as fast as he could lift a leg. In his agitation he gave such a tug at the bell that it clanged like a fire-alarm. The doctor's assistant, a dashing young gentleman whom Paul knew from afar, and who was remarkable to him chiefly for an expensive taste in clothing, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... Done it must and will be.' In the following year Lord John Russell, at the age of twenty-eight, became identified with the question of Parliamentary Reform by bringing before the House of Commons a measure for the redress of certain scandalous grievances, chiefly at Grampound. When Lord John's Parliamentary career began, George III. was hopelessly mad and blind, and, as if to heighten the depressing aspect of public affairs, the scandalous conduct of his sons was straining to the breaking-point the loyalty of men of intelligence ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... merry meal at Dunaghee, passed off silently. There was a sense of oppression in the air. Algitha and her sister made spasmodic remarks, and there were long pauses. The conversation was chiefly sustained by the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... second method is one that is capable of demonstrating that the effects of selection are actually due to modifiers. It has been worked out in our laboratory, chiefly by Muller, and used in a particular case to demonstrate that selection produced its effect by isolating modifying factors. For example, a mutant type called truncate appeared, characterized by shorter wings, usually square at the end, (fig. 83a). ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan

... they were dressed! An ankle in silk was better than a thigh in sunlight. An old saw ... beauty lay in the imagination. Women removed their beauty with their clothes. The nymphs on the wall reminded one chiefly that they were careful to scrub their ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... and work my way downwards—Captain Hood was, when he took command of the "Juno," a man of about two-and- thirty years of age, of medium height and slight build, with a well- formed figure, and a face which, though by no means handsome, was strikingly agreeable to look at, chiefly because of its frank, easy, good-natured expression. He was always scrupulously well-dressed, even in the vilest of weather; and there was just the faintest perceptible trace of Bond-street dandyism in his ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... democratisation of knowledge and the substitution of the shadow for the substance, and the casket for the gem. No doubt, in newer places the thing has got to be so. Higher education in America flourishes chiefly as a qualification for entrance into a money-making profession, and not as a thing in itself. But in Oxford one can still see the surviving outline of a nobler type of structure and ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... as a composer had been chiefly exhibited in music appropriate to this his favourite instrument, of all unquestionably the most various and royal in its resources and power over the passions. As Shakespeare among poets is the Cremona among instruments. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... desired not to wound him and make him even more unhappy than he must be already, she neither blamed nor admonished him, and never reminded him of his father's curse. And how beggared was that frugal heart, accustomed to spend all its store of love on so few objects—nay, chiefly on one alone who was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the approbation of those above them, how splendid and lucrative soever the union may appear. I, who know the heart of Almurah, the servant of Mahomet, know him to be virtuous: some excesses he has been guilty of, but they were chiefly owing to his villanous Vizier, Mussapulta." (Here the lion gave a dreadful roar.) "Against your command, Almurah, did he wound this animal, which I endowed with speech for the service of Urad, to teach her that strength and nobleness of soul would ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... angel good, appointed for the guard Of noble Raymond from his tender eild, That kept him then, and kept him afterward, When spear and sword he able was to wield, Now when his great Creator's will he heard, That in this fight he should him chiefly shield, Up to a tower set on a rock he flies, Where all the heavenly arms ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... second point; the causes and motives of anger, are chiefly three. First, to be too sensible of hurt; for no man is angry, that feels not himself hurt; and therefore tender and delicate persons must needs be oft angry; they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... has been the building up of a great body of Indian public servants capable of rising to offices of great trust. Not only, for instance, do Indian Judges sit on the Bench in the High Courts on terms of complete equality with their European colleagues, but magisterial work all over India is done chiefly by Indians. The same holds good of the Revenue Department and of the much, and often very unjustly, abused Department of Police; and, in fact, as Anglo-Indian officials are the first to acknowledge, there is not a department which could ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... were so funny that the spectators could hardly keep their faces straight. Horses with about as much shape as those in a child's Noah's ark, figures resembling Dutch dolls in rigidity, flowers daubed on with the crudest colours, and the final effort, a bird's-eye view of the village, consisting chiefly of tiled roofs and chimney-pots in lurid red ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... did they pass away the pleasant time. The duke somewhat resembled the beautiful river Seine, which folds France a thousand times in its loving embrace, before deciding upon joining its waters with the ocean. In quitting France, it was her recently adopted daughter he had brought to Paris whom he chiefly regretted; his every thought was a remembrance of her—his every memory a regret. Therefore, whenever, now and then, despite his command over himself, he was lost in thought, De Wardes left him entirely to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone, anything, was enough for Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonizing platitudes the vicar had delivered himself of—chiefly because something seemed to be professionally required of him in the presence of a man of Knight's proclivities—were swallowed whole. The presence of Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary courtesy; but ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... inference that they were foreigners rather than natives, some being traders from Gaul, but the majority either Roman colonists or the followers and hangers-on of the stationary camp. Indeed, it may be gathered from the description of Tacitus, that these traders were chiefly commissariat contractors and brokers or money-changers. The Romans do not appear to have evinced a high order of commercial instinct, nor to have looked upon the development of trade as one of the chief objects of government. Their mission was to overrun other ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... learn how to cry "Cuckoo!" by example or instruction. Its foster-parents speak another language, and its own folk have ceased from singing by the time it is out of the nest. A good deal has been written about the way in which the note varies, chiefly in the direction of greater harshness and a more staccato and less sustained note, towards the end of the cuckoo's stay. According to the rustic rhyme, it changes its tune in June, which is probably poetic licence rather than ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... they chiefly look upon the cow, ox, elephant, ape, eagle, swan, peacock, and serpent, as sacred; among plants, the lotus, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... around was the still peace of the lagoon city; only in the great square there was a gentle stir and flutter and rustle and movement; for thousands of doves were flying about, and coming down to be fed, and a crowd of varied human nature, but chiefly not belonging to the place, were watching and distributing food to the feathered multitude. People were engaged with the doves, or with each other; few had a look to spare for the great church; nobody even glanced at the columns bearing ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... what I did, but I was not pleased to have Miss Wyeth know it. Although my time was chiefly spent in killing time, I had once, in a fit of energy, succeeded in writing some verses 'To a Tomtit,' so I evaded a humiliating confession by saying that I had done a ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... the third time draw the two extremities of this precious fabric into close proximity in order again to compare them. Nothing I presume can be fairer than to elect that, once more, our attention be chiefly directed to what is contained within the twelve verses (ver. 9-20) of S. Mark's first chapter which exactly correspond with the twelve verses of his last chapter (ver. 9-20) which are the subject ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... process of ripening commences, as it were, within itself; that is to say, the fruit ceases to depend upon the tree for sustenance or farther development. The pulp becomes gradually sweetened and softened, chiefly by the change of the starch into more or less of soluble sugar. When the bananas are shipped to our Northern markets they are as green as the leaves of the trees on which they grew. Most of us have seen cartloads of them in this ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... the errors, and these are the fruits of misspending our prime youth at the schools and universities, as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the ascertaining the signification of words, to DECLARE THEIR MEANING; where either common use has left it uncertain and loose, (as it has in most names of very complex ideas;) or where the term, being very material in the discourse, and that upon which it chiefly turns, is liable to any doubtfulness ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... and, as it proves, impressed; but the Bishop is too clever to be very proud of his victory; for he knows it has been a personal, much more than a real one. His strength has lain chiefly in the assumption (which only the entire monologue can justify or even convey) that his opponent would change places with him if he could; and he knows that in arguing from this point of view he has been only ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... uncle of Mahomet, who was sent with presents to the Emperor. The first mosque was built at Canton, where, after several restorations, it still exists. There is at present a very large Mahometan community in China, chiefly in the province of Yunnan. These people carry on their worship unmolested, on the sole condition that in each mosque there shall be exhibited a small tablet with an inscription, the purport of which is recognition of allegiance to the ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... private life her information had not been very ample. She had heard several times from May, but May occupied her pen chiefly with her husband's political aims. She had heard once from Sandro himself, when he informed her that his wife had borne him a daughter and that all had gone very well indeed. Again Miss Quisante smiled approvingly. She sent her love to May and expressed to Sandro the hope that the ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... exaggeration, of all time—must be reckoned The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau. It deals with leading personages and transactions of a momentous epoch, when absolutism and feudalism were rallying for their last struggle against the modern spirit, chiefly represented by Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, and Rousseau himself—a struggle to which, after many fierce intestine quarrels and sanguinary wars throughout Europe and America, has succeeded the prevalence of those more ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... wars, and the subsequent oppressive reigns, interior commotions and foreign invasions, forsook the Latium and Campania, and resorted for a peaceful enjoyment of their liberty, some into the islands where Venice now stands, and many into the mountains of the Grisons, where they chiefly fixed their residence in the Engadine,[O] as appears not only from the testimonies of authors,[P] but also from the names of several places and families which are evidently ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.

... been worn this century, had its merits; the vizor is less open to the arrows. But as for these chain suits, they suited only—I venture, with due deference, to declare—the Wars of the Crusades, where the enemy fought chiefly with dart and scymetar. They would be but a sorry defence against the mace and battle-axe; nevertheless, they were light for man and horse, and in some service, especially against foot, might be revived with advantage. Think ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... female modesty. For if any impertinent person should attempt to salute a cheek so guarded, he would encounter these obstacles and be kept at bay some distance from the coveted object. These earrings, which are worn chiefly by the peasant-women, are nearly all made of gold, and because of the size of the spirals and of the other accessories they cost a large sum. But I saw signs of even greater riches amongst the Dutch peasantry ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... and from whom I might reckon on sound information as to the object of my search. It was particularly nice to be hospitably received in my sister's house, where I hoped to revive my somewhat exhausted means of travel. In this hope I reckoned chiefly upon the sale of a snuff-box presented to me by a friend, which I had secret reasons to suppose was made of platinum. To this I could add a gold signet-ring, given me by my friend Apel for composing the overture to his Columbus. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... devised and being constructed which would stop missiles arriving at speeds greater than that of light. Simultaneously, the greatest research project in history had begun to investigate the possibilities of either duplicating the fantastic drive some scientific minds on Mars had come upon—chiefly, it was concluded, by an improbable stroke of good luck—or of matching its effects through a different approach. Since it had been demonstrated that it could be done, there was no question that in time the trained men of the Machine would achieve ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz

... whose name was Freydis; she was wedded to a man named Thorvard, and they dwelt at Gardar, where the episcopal seat now is. She was a very haughty woman, while Thorvard was a man of little force of character, and Freydis had been wedded to him chiefly because of his wealth. At that time the people of ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... Vitelli's approach, thought he might as well spare him half his journey, and marched out to confront him: the two armies met in the Soriano road, and the battle straightway began. The pontifical army had a body of eight hundred Germans, on which the Dukes of Urbino and Gandia chiefly relied, as well they might, for they were the best troops in the world; but Vitelli attacked these picked men with his infantry, who, armed with their formidable pikes, ran them through, while they with arms four feet shorter had no chance ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... open garden window! We spoke naturally of the Great Unforgettable, and lived his rich and varied life again in our thoughts. We followed him against the Longobards and Saracens, against the Hungarians and other Slavs. But we did not like to linger over his thirty years' war against the Saxons, chiefly out of reverence for his memory, for he ought to have used only spiritual weapons in his campaign of conversion. Remember the Frankish King who sent our friend Anschar to the wild Swedes. He had no armed men, but only God's Holy Word. Certainly he was robbed by thieves like St. Paul, but when ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... Borgio did conduct the rear, Whom sullen Vasco heedfully attends; To all but to themselves they cruel were, And to themselves chiefly by mischief friends. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... face, or the pose of my head, or something of that sort," Babbie said bitterly, "or he would not have endured me so long. I have twice had the wedding postponed, chiefly, I believe, to enrage my natural enemy, his sister, who is as much aggravated by my reluctance to marry him as by his desire to marry me. However, I also felt that imprisonment for life was approaching as ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie



Words linked to "Chiefly" :   mainly, chief, primarily



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