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




Deteriorate   /dɪtˈɪriərˌeɪt/   Listen
Deteriorate

verb
(past & past part. deteriorated; pres. part. deteriorating)
1.
Become worse or disintegrate.
2.
Grow worse.  Synonyms: degenerate, devolve, drop.  "Conditions in the slums degenerated" , "The discussion devolved into a shouting match"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Deteriorate" Quotes from Famous Books



... twenty-four. With a well-designed mill, as has already been indicated, the wind will, for the greater part of the year, be sufficient to lift the whole of the sewage and storm-water, but, if it is allowed to do so, the standby engine will deteriorate for want of use to such an extent that when urgently needed it will not be effective. It is, therefore, desirable that the attendant should run the engine at least once in every three days to keep it in working order. If it can be conveniently arranged, ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams

... to give you the answer. The blood of the House of Hohenzollern is of a very high order for it is the blood of divinity in human veins. Yet since there is no eugenic control, no selection, the quality of that blood would deteriorate from inbreeding, were there no fresh infusion. Then where better could such blood come than from the men of genius? No man is given the full social privilege of the Royal Level except he who has made some great contribution to ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... growing seem agreed that we cannot expect its disease-resisting quality to last at most more than twenty years from its first introduction (in 1877), and that in time the constitution of the "Champion" will deteriorate, and it will become ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... the same plants from year to year, it is always desirable to have a fresh stock coming on, as the old bulbs may deteriorate after two or three years. This can easily be managed by successive sowings of seed, as ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... on back and edges with a soft cloth. In returning the volumes to their places, notice should be taken of the binding, and especially when the books are in whole calf or morocco, care should be taken not to let them rub together. The best-bound books are soonest injured, and generally deteriorate in bad company. Certain volumes, indeed, have evil tempers, and will scratch the faces of all their neighbours who are too familiar with them. Such are books with metal clasps and rivets on their edges; and such, again, are those abominable old rascals, chiefly born in ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... became as corrupt as the language; words foreign to the Egyptian vocabulary, incorrect expressions, and barbarous errors in syntax were multiplied without stint. The taste for art decayed, and technical ability began to deteriorate, the moral and intellectual standard declined, and the mass of the people showed signs of relapsing into barbarism: the leaders of the aristocracy and the scribes alone preserved almost intact their inheritance from an older civilisation. Egypt still attracted them: they looked ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the skin is thin and tender, the legs smooth, the feet moist and limber, and the eyes full and bright. The body should be thick and the breast fat. Old turkeys have long hairs, and the flesh is purplish where it shows under the skin on the legs and back. About March they deteriorate in quality. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... emigrants who go to the Colonies act under similar circumstances as they did, and from being on arrival strong, hopeful and brave, they, from lack of something in themselves or from want of the needful advice and sense to adopt it, gradually deteriorate past all recovery. I recollect the billiard-marker at one of the Christchurch hotels was the younger son of a baronet. He worked as billiard-marker for his food, and as much alcohol as he could get. I believe he ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... places where one might deteriorate pleasantly: Port Said, Shanghai, parts of Turkestan, Constantinople, the South Seas—all lands of sad, haunting music and many odors, where lust could be a mode and expression of life, where the shades of night skies ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... vitality and deteriorate the ultimate tissue in which force is reposited. Alcohol is an agent, the sole, perpetual and inevitable effects of which are to avert blood development, to retain waste matter, to irritate mucous ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... anchovy is sometimes coloured[281-] with bole armeniac, Venice red, &c.; but all these additions deteriorate the flavour of the sauce, and the palate and stomach suffer for the gratification of the eye, which, in culinary concerns, will never be indulged by the sagacious gourmand at the expense of these two primum ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... certainly be so extended in practical operation as to include those of all classes, whether authorized or unauthorized. If this view be correct, the currency of the District, should this act become a law, will certainly and greatly deteriorate, to the serious injury of honest trade ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... himself; and for this simple reason, that it reverses the very laws of nature, and is more cruel even than pestilence. For instead of issuing in the survival of the fittest, it issues in the survival of the less fit: and therefore, if protracted, must deteriorate generations yet unborn. And yet a peace such as we now enjoy, prosperous, civilised, humane, is fraught, though to a less degree, with the very same ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... services, and because of his shrewdness and skill in affairs, the King created him Marshal of France. But from that time onward the man who had been the able lieutenant of Jeanne Darc and had fought by her side at Jargeau and Patay began to deteriorate. Some years before he had married Catherine de Thouars, and with her had received a large dowry; but he had expended immense sums in the national cause, and his private life was as extravagant as that of a prince ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... retained such a disposition, what an extensive blessing to society would she have proved! Such, however, in two many instances, is the corrupting influence of large possessions, that it is always questionable, whether in the very great majority of cases an increase of riches would not deteriorate the principle of benevolence; and whether, if placed amidst the splendid scenes of elevated rank, our eyes would not be soon so dazzled, as to incapacitate us either for seeing the wants of the poor, or the necessities of the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al Qaeda ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... eye-strain. But whatever be the explanation of this interesting exception, it yet remains true that the regular work of the school, week in, week out, year after year, causes the eyes of our children to deteriorate, or at least the two go hand in hand with grounds for a very strong suspicion in the minds of those who have expert knowledge of the general situation that the one is the ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... breathing capacity by lacing, to have a sound and vigorous organization. If girls will persist in ruining their vital organs as they grow up to womanhood, and if women will continue this destructive habit, the race must inevitably deteriorate. It may be asserted, therefore, without exaggeration, that not only the welfare of the future generations, but the salvation of the race depends on the correction of this evil habit. The pathological consequences of continued and prolonged ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... chlorine thru it until the resin is precipitated. It is further whitened by being pulled. This is what is known in the market as "white shellac." It comes in lumps. Orange shellac is the stronger and is less likely to deteriorate, but white is easier to apply because it sets less rapidly. Another advantage of the white is its colorlessness. Shellac is soluble in both grain alcohol (ethyl alcohol) and wood alcohol (methyl alcohol), but grain alcohol is preferable. Great care must be taken ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... not the less fearful in its consequences. In a room occupied by forty-five persons, THE FIRST MINUTE, thirty-two thousand four hundred cubic inches of air impart their entire vitality to sustain animal life, and, mingling with the atmosphere of the room, proportionately deteriorate the whole mass. Thus are abundantly sown in early life the fruitful seeds of disease and ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... expense of their boys associating entirely with convict servants. I am not aware that the tone of society has assumed any peculiar character; but with such habits, and without intellectual pursuits, it can hardly fail to deteriorate. My opinion is such that nothing but rather sharp necessity should compel me ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... professionalism when they teach their subject as an end in itself or for their own satisfaction. Ministers can be professional in relation to their parishioners. Parents can be professional in relation to their children. Any relationship can deteriorate into mere professionalism. ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe

... good authorities that the reproductive element in man is not so well developed as to be really fit for the reproduction of the species before the age of twenty-four or twenty-five. After the age of forty-five or fifty, the reproductive elements deteriorate in quality, and become ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... quantity formed from starch during the fermenting process. It is evident, therefore, that bread cannot be fermented without some loss in natural sweetness and nutritive value, and bread made after this method should be managed so as to deteriorate the material as ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... of our members remarked, no gas burners to heat and deteriorate the atmosphere, or to blacken the ceilings; and therefore, under the brilliant sparkle of glow lamps, the summit of such human felicity as is expected by a body of eighteen or twenty business men, intent on dispatching business and restoring the lost tissue by means ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various

... which grow under the shelf in the greenhouse or in a corner of the cellar lack something of divinity; while there is not a restaurant chef in the world who has not a long record of ruined mushrooms to his name. No sooner does a public cook get at a mushroom than it begins to deteriorate. When the chef comes in at the door the savour flies out of the window. It is a point of honour with him. When therefore I said that one can never have enough mushrooms I meant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... incipient cloud, looked at horizontally, is absolutely quenched by a Nicol prism with its longer diagonal vertical. But as the sky-blue is gradually rendered impure by the introduction of particles of too large a size, in other words, as real clouds begin to be formed, the polarization begins to deteriorate, a portion of the light passing through the prism in all its positions, as it does in the case of skylight. It is worthy of note that for some time after the cessation of perfect polarization the residual light which passes, when ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... wondering how you will manage when the bulbs deteriorate; for, of course, there's no renewing them from Holland, nor any prospect of ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that air of refinement which characterized it when the block was devoted to residential purposes entirely. Now just suppose for a moment that this street were a canal, and that this house were a canal-boat. The canal could run down as much as it pleased, the neighborhood could deteriorate eternally, but it could not affect the value of this house as the home of refined people as long as it was possible to hitch up a team of horses to the front stoop and tow it into a better locality. I'd like to wager ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... dosage, rather than to give the heart a sudden shock from an enormous dose of digitalis. The preparation selected must be the best obtainable, but the exact dosage of any preparation can be determined only by its effect, as all preparations of digitalis deteriorate sooner or later. It is well to administer digitalis at first three times a day, then as soon as its action is thoroughly established, reduce to twice a day, and later to once a day, in such dosage as is ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... is that we have in this woman a paranoid psychosis of a definitely dementia praecox type which after ten years has shown only suggestive signs of deterioration in her lack of purpose in work, and her dulling in emotional response. This failure to deteriorate seems to stand in definite relationship to her system of ideas. That these have a constructive tendency is shown by the translation of her cruder thoughts into the setting of the occult with the suggestion of propaganda and in their pragmatic value. With her "new religion" she has ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... weighs about one hundred and twenty pounds. Santo is the great coffee port and here can be seen ships from every civilized land taking on cargoes of coffee. If it is well kept coffee gets better with age, so it can be piled in great warehouses for months or even years and not deteriorate. Nearly a dozen million bags of coffee are shipped from Santo annually and as we are the greatest coffee drinkers in the world about half of the entire crop ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... Every stick of matured, merchantable timber in the forests, not needed for protection of water-sheds, is for sale. By matured timber is meant a tree that has reached its maximum growth and development, and is beginning slowly to deteriorate, and should, like any ripe crop, be harvested. There is no limit either high or low. In New Mexico one contract for 1907 called for 50,000 feet and another for 10,000,000, and each was made and carried out ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... established by him, but gradually permitted to fall into desuetude, and become confounded with the polytheistic hierarchy of the confusing religion. Just as the grand oneness and simplicity of the Christian religion has been permitted to deteriorate into many petty sects, each with its absurd limitations, and its particular little method of ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... from his neck. An' you'll see that this cruelty of nature—this work of the wolf an' cougar—is what makes the deer so beautiful an' healthy an' swift an' sensitive. Without his deadly foes the deer would deteriorate an' die out. An' you'll see how this principle works out among all creatures of the forest. Strife! It's the meanin' of all creation, an' the salvation. If you're quick to see, you'll learn that the ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... She wrote better, too. We took her stuff sometimes for the Fact. At the same time, she seemed to me to be morally deteriorating, as people who grab and take things they oughtn't to have always do deteriorate. And she was trying all the time to square Hobart with the rest of her life, fitting him in, as it were, and he didn't fit in. I was interested to see what she was making ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... unexceptionable article of diet. The best is made of unbolted wheat flour. A mixture of wheat and rye flour, or of corn meal with either, makes excellent bread. The meal and flour should be freshly ground; they deteriorate by being kept long. If raised or fermented bread is required, hop yeast is the best ferment that can be used. [For complete directions for bread-making, see ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... affection, the subsequent records of which I am about to relate. What is so unearthly, so beautiful, as the first birth of a woman's love? The air of heaven is not purer in its wanderings—its sunshine not more holy in its warmth. Oh! why should it deteriorate in its nature, even while it increases in its degree? Why should the step which prints, sully also the snow? How often, when Falkland met that guiltless yet thrilling eye, which revealed to him those internal secrets that Emily was yet awhile too happy to discover; ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of much of the alleged evidence, we must conclude that alcohol, when given in large enough doses, may sometimes affect the germ-plasm of some lower animals in such a way as to deteriorate the quality of their offspring. This effect is probably an "induction," which does not produce a permanent change in the bases of heredity, but will wear away in a generation or two of good surroundings. It must be remembered that although ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... appearance of the bricks as to the quality, at least they can judge as to the presence of an abundance or a scanty quantity of the "fiber." Since the spawn remains in good condition for several years, there is usually no danger in the use of spawn which may be one or two years old. But it does deteriorate to some extent with age, and young spawn is therefore to be preferred to old spawn, provided the other desirable qualities are equal. Those who attempt to cultivate mushrooms, and depend on commercial or manufactured ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... developments, the more frequent and sustained use of any organ strengthens, develops, and enlarges that organ, and gives it a power commensurate with the duration of this employment of it. On the other hand, constant disuse of such organ weakens it by degrees, causes it to deteriorate, and progressively diminishes its faculties, so that in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... new territories did not consider that the diminution of every establishment was the removal of a market, of an effectual demand for land produce; and that, when all the waste lands should be brought into tillage, the whole would deteriorate in fertility, from the want of fallows, Under the prevailing system of agriculture, which afforded the lands no other means of renovation from over- cropping. The settlements of land which were made throughout our new land acquisitions upon these fallacious assumptions of course failed. During a ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... decomposition of the ore, and concentrated by degradation, is probably the reason of the great richness of many of what are called the "caps" of quartz veins; that is, the parts next the existing surface, and has also, perhaps, originated the belief that auriferous lodes deteriorate in value in depth. I at one time, after having studied the auriferous quartz veins of Australia, advocated this theory, which was first insisted upon by Sir R.I. Murchison, but further experience in North ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... left a lot of their saw logs hung up in the woods, where they'll deteriorate from rot and worms. This is their last season in ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... water twenty miles or more wide, and is reached only through a narrow entrance. Dewey judged that the channel was too deep to be mined successfully except by trained experts and that both contact and electrical mines would deteriorate so rapidly in tropical waters as to be effective only for a short time. He therefore decided to steam through the channel at night, disregarding the mines, and to attack the Spanish fleet which lay within. The plans worked out even better than he had hoped. ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... a certain fact that, unless the temper itself is specially controlled, and specially watched over, it may deteriorate even when the character in other respects improves; for the habit of defeat weakens the exercise of the will in this particular direction, and gradually diminishes the hope or the effort of acquiring a victory over the indulged failing. It is a melancholy consideration, if it be, as I believe, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... of eating sulphur with grapes; neither would any one, and I can prove to them that this need never be done; and, moreover, that the use of sulphur, when timely and judiciously applied, does not in any way deteriorate the fruit. I much question if the most practised eye could detect sulphur on the grapes exhibited, although they have been twice covered with it; and as to the mildew itself among vines, I fear it no more than I do green-fly among cucumbers, which is so ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various

... Mode.—For this beverage the ginger beer must be in an effervescing state, and the beer not in the least turned or sour. Mix them together, and drink immediately. The draught is refreshing and wholesome, as the ginger corrects the action of the beer. It does not deteriorate by standing a little, but, of course, is better when ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... variety of the goods. In Leopold's Congo "trade" goods is a term of contempt. It describes articles manufactured only for those who have no choice and must accept whatever is offered. When your customers must take what you please to give them the quality of your goods is likely to deteriorate. Salt of the poorest grade, gaudy fabrics that neither "wear" nor "wash," bars of coarse soap (the native is continually washing his single strip of cloth), and axe-heads made of iron, are what Leopold thinks are a fair exchange for the forced labor ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... in the face. And not merely did his pride and passion bleed for that: he felt that the triumph of the Saccos dealt a blow to his fortune. Was it true, then, that the rough conquerors of the North were bound to deteriorate in the delightful climate of Rome, was that the reason why he already experienced such a sensation of weariness and exhaustion? That very morning at Frascati in connection with that disastrous building enterprise he had realised that his millions were ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... diminish in quantity and deteriorate in quality. It became so exceedingly coarse that the common remark was that the next step would be to bring us the corn in the shock, and feed it to us like stock. Then meat followed suit with the rest. The rations decreased in size, and the number of days that we did not get any, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... worked. "Admittedly, we've already allowed things to deteriorate much too far. We should have done something long ago. I'm not sure I know the answer. All I know is that in order to maintain the status quo, we're not utilizing the efforts of more than a fraction ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... causes: first, however carefully it be stored, carbide deteriorates somewhat by the attack of atmospheric moisture; and since the superficies of a lump (where the attack occurs) is larger in proportion to the weight of the lump as the lump itself is smaller, small lumps deteriorate more on keeping than large ones. The second reason, however, is more important. Not being a pure chemical substance, the commercial material calcium carbide varies in hardness; and when it is merely crushed (not ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... must have sufficient interest in it and in all its activities to improve it in every respect, rather than to allow it to deteriorate by getting out of it everything possible, and then leaving it, like a squeezed orange, to repeat the operation elsewhere. A farm, in order to yield its best and to increase in production and value, must be managed with care, foresight, and scientific understanding. There must be, among other things, ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... deal of a disciplinarian, and upheld the standard of the family with a birch switch when it showed a tendency to deteriorate. Once, when I was being punished for some unfortunate doings which had taken place in the village school, I felt called upon to explain after the whipping had begun that I was ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller

... farmer can afford to keep poor stock. It eats as much, and requires nearly the same amount of care and attention, as stock of the best quality; while it is equally certain that stock of ever so good a quality, whether grade, native, or thorough-bred, will be sure to deteriorate and sink to the level of poor stock by neglect ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... side. Complaints were frequent that the Railroad Administration sacrificed other interests for its own advantage. The future of the roads was said not to be carefully safeguarded, and equipment and rolling stock mishandled and allowed to deteriorate. Above all, at the moment when it was quite as essential to preserve the morale of labor on the home front as that of the troops in France, McAdoo made concessions to labor that were more apt to destroy discipline and esprit de corps than to maintain them. The authority given for the ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... influences. As for traces of moral uplift in the army, I have totally failed to notice any. War may be a stern school of virtue; barrack life is not. Honour, duty, patriotism, are feelings instilled at school; they do not develop, but often deteriorate, during ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... machinery for executing a reaction when no longer exercised; it is the general biological law of "atrophy through disuse" applied to the special case of learned reactions. As exercise improves the linkage between stimulus and response, so disuse allows the linkage to deteriorate. This law is pictured more completely and quantitatively in the ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... of the invasion for me is that it has aged my poor, dear, old mother by ten years! What a change! She can no longer walk alone, and is distressingly weak! How sad it is to see those whom one loves deteriorate little by little! ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... a particular race is a matter of municipal arrangement, and depends entirely on political considerations and circumstances; but the natural equality of man now in vogue, and taking the form of cosmopolitan fraternity, is a principle which, were it possible to act on it, would deteriorate the great races and destroy all the genius of the world. What would be the consequence on the great Anglo-Saxon republic, for example, were its citizens to secede from their sound principle of reserve, and mingle with their negro ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... cocoa, spices, and prepared cereals are bought in cans or moisture-proof containers, they should be emptied from the original packages and placed in jars that can be tightly closed, so that they will not deteriorate by being exposed to the air or moisture. For convenience and economy, these jars or cans should be labeled. Sugar and salt absorb moisture and form lumps when exposed to the air, and they, too, should be properly kept. A tin receptacle ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... has undergone as much change as everything else, and it has now settled down into anything but a pure democracy. Nor could it be otherwise; a republic may be formed and may continue in healthy existence when regulated by a small body of men, but as men increase and multiply so do they deteriorate; the closer they are packed the more vicious they become, and, consequently, the more vicious become their institutions. Washington and his coadjutors had no power to control the nature ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... remain for their whole lives, and their descendants after them, in the same spot, surrounded by precisely the same conditions, and intermarry with others doing the same, and who continue this for a series of generations, deteriorate mentally at least, and probably also physically, although there may not be any mixing of blood. Their whole lives, physical, mental, and moral, become fixed and monotonous, and the partners chosen for continuing the race have nothing new to add to each other's stock. ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... of these animals, as a general rule, unmarketable, or nearly so. But there are very serious diseases—often proving rapidly fatal—which, whilst seriously affecting certain internal organs, do not palpably deteriorate the quality of the flesh. In such cases are we to rely upon the evidence of our mere senses in judging of the wholesomeness of the meat? If we find beef possessing a good color and odour, and firm to the touch, and appearing to be in every respect healthy flesh, are we under such circumstances ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... economical administration. Every one is aware of the multiplicity of men in municipal service. Some of these are entirely incompetent, others partly so; the recent appointees may be more efficient, but the majority of them gradually deteriorate under the subtle influence of the prevailing atmosphere, and each new incoming administration places more and more men on the work, without reason or necessity. All these tendencies have made the cost and maintenance of public ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy

... Drygoods deteriorate in quality when kept on the shelves for several months. Worse than that, they cease to attract the buyers. People go where there is life, activity, and are moved by that which is youthful, new and fresh. Old stocks become ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... to have been carefully avoided. Whether this peculiarity is to be accounted for by the desire of the artist to signify the superiority of the Pagan divinities over mortals, by this absence of any trace of earthly feelings, or whether it was thought that any decided expression might deteriorate from the character of repose and beauty that marks the works of the great sculptors of antiquity, I know not, but the effect produced on my mind by the contemplation of these calm and beautiful faces, has something so soothing in it, that I can well imagine with what pleasure those ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... a lot of trouble to those who deal with it. The getting of it is bad enough, but the tricks of the thing itself are worse. It is subject to all sorts of influences, climatic and other, and tends to deteriorate on its journey to the river and ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... idealize a very inferior man, until her love for him exalts him into something better than he originally was, and her into little short of an angel; but a man almost invariably drops to the level of the woman he is in love with. He cannot raise her; but she can almost unlimitedly deteriorate him." This was true of Adam. Eve, sinning, brought him to her level. Why this should be, Heaven knows; but so it constantly is. We have but to look around us, with ordinary observation, in order to see that a man's ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... obtained, and which they were supposed to serve. The various railroads were juggled with by succeeding groups of manipulators. Management was neglected, and no attention paid to proper equipment. Often the physical layout of the railroads—the road-beds, rails and cars—were deliberately allowed to deteriorate in order that the manipulators might be able to lower the value and efficiency of the road, and thus depress the value of the stock. Thus, for instance, Vanderbilt aiming to get control of a railroad at a low price, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... animals there can be no doubt, from the facts given in the first chapter, that European dogs deteriorate in India, not only in their instincts but in structure; but the changes which they undergo are of such a nature, that they may be partly due to reversion to a primitive form, as in the case of feral animals. In parts of India the turkey becomes reduced in size, "with the pendulous appendage over ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... ability to collect taxes has suffered greatly from militia control and taxation of local areas. As the civil strife persists, the US dollar has become more and more the medium of exchange. Transportation, communications, and other parts of the infrastructure continue to deteriorate. Family remittances, foreign political money going to the factions, international emergency aid, and a small volume of manufactured exports help prop up the battered economy. Prospects for 1990 are grim, with expected further declines in economic ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... given—two or three times should be sufficient. (4) The heads must be protected from the sun. This is accomplished by tying up the points of leaves, so as to form a tent, or breaking them (snap the mid- rib only), and folding them down over the flower. (5) They must be used as soon as ready, for they deteriorate very quickly. Take them while the head is still solid and firm, before the little flower tips ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... small portion of nitrate of potash is formed when the iodized collodion is immersed in the bath of nitrate of silver, by mutual decomposition; but it is in so small a quantity as not to deteriorate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various

... oblique and covert reflections, which, while they do not expressly amount to an accusation of evil, convey the impression that something is seriously defective. Another is, the imputation to a man's practice, judgment, profession, or words, consequences which have no connection with them, so as to deteriorate him in the estimation of others. Another is, the repetition of any rumour or story concerning a man likely to injure his character in society. Another is, being accessory to or encouraging slander ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... and mutual enjoyment, that, at last, some way became entangled amid discords and barriers, and thus come to a disastrous end,—such experiences could be escaped were life lived by the diviner standards. Friendship need never deteriorate in quality if each lives nobly. If one conceives of life more nobly and generously than the other, it may become, not a means of separation and alienation, but a means and measure of just responsibility. There are friendships whose shipwreck is on the rock of undue encroachment ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... Generally speaking, clay and silt soils have a greater natural fertility than sandy soils; limestone soils than those that are deficient in lime. Thus soils that naturally grow chestnut trees, indicating a low lime content, have a tendency to deteriorate under exhaustive cropping much more rapidly than limestone soils. More fertilizers and other methods of soil improvement are necessary in the case of chestnut soils than in the case of limestone valley soils. One of the first questions to ask, therefore, concerning ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... Nearly twenty years ago, when my respected neighbor predicted a "turn in my luck, because it was always so," I could not understand the force of this reasoning, unless it belonged to the nature of bees to deteriorate, and consequently run out. I at once determined to ascertain this point. I could understand how a farmer would often fail to raise a crop, if he depended on chance or luck for success, instead of fixed natural principles. It was possible ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... at last, folding her hands in her lap, "don't let me deteriorate too much. Please keep me from wanting to box people's ears. Lieber Gott, it's so barbarous of me. I never used to want to. Please ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... at him. "You have changed since I last saw you," she said. "I don't mean the change in your manner toward me. I mean something deeper. I've often heard that politics makes a man deteriorate. You must be ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... I that 'ud scorn to deteriorate upon the superiminence of my own execution at inditin' wid a pen in my hand; but would you feel a delectability in my supersoriptionizin' the epistolary correspondency, ma'am, that ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... ryots (farmers) use seed which has been collected from plants grown from inferior seed, or from odd and often poor plants; they also grow plants year after year on the same soil. The fibres obtained, as a rule, and as a result of this method of obtaining seeds, gradually deteriorate; much better results accrue when succession of crops and change of seed are carefully ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour

... invention of Mr. Meacock, a preference has, however, been given, in consequence of the impression that the produce thus immersed in water will absorb a portion of the liquid, which will deteriorate its quality in its passage across the Atlantic. Several gentlemen have shipped coffee submitted to this process to England, but I have ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... the political atmosphere, and refused to recognize the imminent danger of a renewal of the war, because it necessarily would postpone his projected innovations. Assuming the continuance of peace with all the violence of a prejudice, he permitted the strength and resources of the Navy to deteriorate rapidly, both by direct action and by omission to act. "Lord St. Vincent," wrote Minto in November, 1802, "is more violent than anybody against the war, and has declared that he will resign if ministers dare go to war. His principal reason is, I believe, that the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... couldn't get along together: she was convinced that she had a right to individual freedom,—as she spoke of it,—to develop herself. She knew, if she continued to live with me on the terms I demanded, that her character would deteriorate. Certain kinds of sacrifice she was capable of, she thought, but what I asked would be a useless one. Perhaps I didn't realize it, but it was slavery. Slavery!" he repeated, "the kind of slavery her mother had lived . ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... natural world when things reach the highest point of development, they begin to decay or deteriorate; but this is not true in the spiritual world. Never in this life and possibly never in that life which is to come shall we reach the fulness of the type, or, in other words, the highest point of development. As the acorn or the little chick bears in ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... Portugal, and in fact where any of the citrine ottos are used, a much finer product is obtained by using grape spirit or brandy in preference to the English corn spirit as a solvent for them. Nor do they deteriorate so quickly in French spirit as in English. Whether this be due to the oil of wine (oeanthic ether) or not we cannot say, but think it ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... could quite make her out. Ebenezer, the pig, was still too young to be promoted to permanence; but he had already shown such character, intelligence, and self-respecting individuality that MacPhairrson had vowed he should never deteriorate into pork. Ebenezer should stay, even though he should grow so big as ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... sheer neglect and ill treatment every year. It is now becoming so serious a trouble, that in many villages plough-bullocks are too few in number for the area of land under cultivation. The tillage suffers, the crops deteriorate, this reacts on prices, the ryot sinks lower and lower, and gets more into the grasp of the rapacious money-lender. In many villages I have seen whole tracts of land relapsed into purtee, or untilled waste, simply from want of bullocks ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... had a much higher opinion of myself than I have ever had before or since. And there is in that very connection an incident which I remember at that old date which is rather melancholy to me, because it shows how a person can deteriorate in a mere seven years. It is seven years ago. I have not that hat now. I was going down Pall-Mall, or some other of your big streets, and I recognized that that hat needed ironing. I went into a big shop and passed in my hat, and asked that it might be ironed. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in the presence of God, or in a desire to please God by accepting the law of virtue as a declaration of his will; though we must be equally candid in admitting that men and women of this nature have not been observed to deteriorate when they sacrifice their religious beliefs, as thousands of them have done. On the other hand, we will hardly question that numbers of people of coarser nature have been deterred from evil-doing by dread of supernatural punishment. It is, however, notorious in the moral history of Europe that ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... a housekeeper buys her groceries must depend upon where she lives and how large her family is. In a country place, where the stores are few and not well supplied, it is best to buy in large quantities all articles that will not deteriorate by keeping. If one has a large family a great saving is made by purchasing the greater portion ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... connection, from finding its own fundamental being. No matter how we work our sex, from the upper or outer consciousness, we don't achieve anything but the falsification and impoverishment of our own blood-life. We have no choice. Either we must withdraw from interference, or slowly deteriorate. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... myself as I am attacked. The great banks seek to deteriorate my stock. I buy in, and take it out of my adversaries. Is it ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... of the population may deteriorate, there are many signs that the better housed and fed portion of it improves. In the earlier years of this century the so-called manly sports of boxing and other feats of strength ranked high among the national amusements. A man who was [1] successful in these became the hero of a large and demonstrative ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... experience in housekeeping, cooking and purchasing, they have taken up the stage, teaching, factory work, office work, and retail selling. As we have seen, a great many of them are misfits in these callings. Good food is wasted, good stomachs are impaired, and good brains and nerves deteriorate because, as a general rule, only those who are too ignorant or too inefficient for office work or factory work can be induced to take ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... rigorous discipline, would likely make a nice and obedient husband. Personally Mrs. Makebelieve did not admire policemen—they thought too much of themselves, and their continual pursuit of and intercourse with criminals tended to deteriorate their moral tone; also, being much admired by a certain type of woman, their morals were subjected to so continuous an assault that the wife of such a one would be worn to a shadow in striving to preserve her husband from ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... the way down the line. Walter had fought it tooth and nail since the day Torkleson had installed the moose heads in Walter's old office, and moved him down to the cubbyhole, under Bailey's watchful eye. He had argued, and battled, and pleaded, and lost. He had watched the company deteriorate day by day. Now they blamed him, and threatened his job, and he was helpless to ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse

... vats along with the milk from a dozen other milkmen. Some may be good and some bad, but what is the use, each one says, of my taking particular pains when my neighbor produces milk of such poor quality? The result is that it is all far from good and likely to deteriorate rather than to improve. To be sure, at the central station it is bottled and distributed to the consumer in apparently clean glass jars, but this is not the same cleanliness that one gets when the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... house that she looked upon her husband as a great man. He was not a great man—only a growing man; yet was she nothing the worse for thinking so highly of him; the object of it was not such that her admiration caused her to deteriorate. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... time. Zinc has been found to be too brittle for the strain to which it is subjected, in such cases, by the expansion and contraction induced by changes of temperature. A slight oxidation will adhere to the surface, but an acid deposit from the atmosphere will penetrate the coating in points and deteriorate ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... which an earth road has been graded, it will be yielding and will readily absorb water for a long time after the completion of the work. The condition of the surface will naturally deteriorate rapidly during the first season it is used unless the road receives the constant maintenance that is a prerequisite to satisfactory serviceability. The road drag is generally recommended for this purpose, and if a drag is properly used it will serve to restore the ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg

... after childhood, and domestic drudgery destroys her beauty of form and softness and bloom of complexion after marriage. To correct, or rather to break up, this despotism of household cares, or of work, over woman, American society must be taught that women will inevitably fade and deteriorate, unless it insures repose and comfort to them. It must be taught that reverence for beauty is the normal condition, while the theory of work, applied to women, is disastrous alike to beauty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... have deteriorated below the prescribed physical standard will be dropped from the rolls of the academy." Shall not cadets preparing for an industrial life and citizenship be given at least a knowledge of an adequate physical standard? To allow the school child to deteriorate whether before or after going to work is only to waste potential citizenship. Citizens who use themselves up in the mere getting of a living have no surplus strength or interest for overcoming incompetence in civic business, or for achieving the highest aim of citizenship,—the art of self-government ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... coldest that had been known for forty years; and the troops, although in quarters, suffered more from that circumstance than in the preceding winter when in huts. But the Highlanders met with a misfortune that greatly grieved them, and which tended to deteriorate, for several years, the heretofore irreproachable character of the Royal Highland Regiment. In the autumn of this year a draft of one hundred and fifty men, recruits raised principally from the refuse of the streets of London and Dublin, was embarked ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... and the number of small boxes to be squeezed into narrow places. When the hold is full the hatch is fastened down and caulked, as exposure to the salt air injures the teas. The finest kinds are so delicate, indeed, that they cannot be exported by sea; for, however tightly sealed, they would deteriorate during the voyage. The very superior flavor noticed by travellers in the tea used at St. Petersburg is doubtless to be attributed in an important measure to its overland transportation, and its consequent escape from dampness; the large quantities consumed in Russia being, as before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... the Magdalenian race or a regiment thrown off the Asiatic army as it entered America, remain at the primitive level. The American peoples in turn accord with this view. Those which penetrate furthest south remain stagnant or deteriorate; those which remain in the far north remain below the level of civilisation, because the land-bridge to Asia breaks down; but those which settle in Central America evolve a civilisation. A large zone, from Mexico to Peru, was overspread by this civilisation, and it ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... opposition, did our best to expedite the decision. There are no complications requiring time on such an occasion. It is a matter of aye or no. But when time is allowed the chapter of accidents allows an opponent to hope that a situation known to be unusually happy will deteriorate. Of this contingency Disraeli took his chance. Time as it happened was in his favour. It was no question of the substance of the plan, but a moderate change in the political barometer, which reduced to two or three millions a subscription which at the right moment would probably have ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... of men in the position of guards of a prison? The function is abnormal, and unless it be undertaken from high motives and with an exceptional endowment of intelligence and humane feeling, it will steadily deteriorate a man; from being at the start to all practical purposes a social derelict, incompetent for productive employment, and often suffering from an incurable disease, he will sink lower and lower in the scale of manhood and morality. He has two chief aims in life—to requite himself upon defenseless ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... influences of any kind in contact with another metal, or if it be mixed with another metal so as to form an alloy which is not a true chemical compound, the other metal being highly negative to it, powerful galvanic action will be set up and the structure will quickly deteriorate. This explains the failure of boats built of commercially pure aluminium which have been put together with iron or copper rivets, and the decay of other boats built of a light alloy, in which the alloying ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... pagan age, it was the custom for the father to determine, as soon as a child was born, whether it should be exposed to death or brought up; and this not because the rearing of a deformed or weak child would deteriorate a race which prided itself on strength and courage, but from the inability of the parents, from poverty, to bring up their offspring. The newly born child was laid on the ground, and there remained untouched ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... the smokeless powders made of a low grade gun-cotton were found to deteriorate and spoil, experiments were made with gun-cotton of the highest degree of nitration, both alone and in combination with nitro-glycerine. These experiments were first conducted in England by private parties and by the British government, when it was found that high grade gun-cotton ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... wind,' said Eugene, 'for I am off directly. Does it occur to you that the boys of Merry England will begin to deteriorate in an educational light, if this lasts long? The schoolmaster can't attend to me and the boys too. Got your wind? I ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... sanction similar engagements where the purpose sought to be realized is indifferent: but because I did not find anything on earth which was wholly superior to change, and because, for myself in particular, I hoped gradually to perfect my judgments, and not to suffer them to deteriorate, I would have deemed it a grave sin against good sense, if, for the reason that I approved of something at a particular time, I therefore bound myself to hold it for good at a subsequent time, when perhaps it had ceased to be so, or I had ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes

... contingencies are here involved! Meanwhile the influences which imperil in Ireland the principle of Authority, in the domains alike of politics and of morals, are at work incessantly, to undermine and deteriorate the character of the Irish people, to take the vigour and the manhood out of them, to unfit them day by day, not only for good citizenship in the British Empire or the United States, but for good citizenship in ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... his second communication, which goes far to prove the truth of what I had previously supposed, that the cotton of India is capable of great improvement by being judiciously crossed with suitable foreign varieties. Your correspondent thinks if the old varieties deteriorate the new when growing in proximity to each other, the new ought, for the same reason, to improve the old; and no doubt they will, but to a much smaller extent. It is said that a man leaping up into the air attracts the earth (proportionately) as much as the earth attracts ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... a measure the variety commonly cultivated. Growers of Havana tobacco in the Connecticut valley can testify to this, and especially to the increased size of the plants. There are, however, growers of Havana tobacco, who claim that it will never deteriorate in quality, and that seed from Havana is not required in order to secure the delightful flavor of the Vuelta de Abajo leaf. Our experience is the reverse of this, and applies more directly to the flavor of the leaf than the size, color, or texture. In the Connecticut valley Havana leaf ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... forces, though of itself but some cheap object of use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that such assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution of their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious Mayflies of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect, and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first evinced in their well-balanced bearing and manner of speech when he stopped ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... much has Science done to deteriorate the men of the sea. It has robbed them of all the noblest parts of their calling. It has taken away the spirit of adventure, the love of enterprise, and the manly spirit which braved unknown dangers. It has destroyed their interest by its new-modelling of trade; it has divided ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... record." The socialist's answer perhaps would be that under their system government factories would make only perfect goods. But won't the factory superintendent also be anxious to make a "record"? And even government stock will deteriorate on the shelves. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... deteriorate, lose their high moral character. Although this is not the inevitable consequence of great wealth, it is ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... larger proportion of the bin, conditions deteriorate for the worms. Eventually the worms suffer and their number and activity begins to drop off. Differences in bedding, temperature, moisture, and the composition of your kitchen's garbage will control how long it takes but eventually you must separate the worms from their castings ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... had known too many men who had traded their freedom for a home and a fireside and who, once bound, had never been able to go back to the old life. It had not always been the women who had held them, either; the men themselves had seemed to change—to deteriorate, Scott would have said—to have lost the energy and the vigor that made life worth while. You cannot get anything for nothing and you paid for the happiness you might find in marriage with the loss of the one thing which was to ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... men have only been dead for two months, and they've been reduced to nothing but bones already. Even the fabric of their clothing is gone. Why? There must be something here that causes human flesh to deteriorate much faster ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance

... moral sentimental comedies of Richard Steele and succeeding playwrights. The sacrifice of plot to moral purpose and the deliberate introduction of scenes designed to force an appeal to sentiment caused the later drama to deteriorate in a different way. We shall see that the natural hearty humor of Goldsmith's comedy, She Stoops to Conquer(1773), afforded a welcome ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... consider the ores obtained on the east side superior to those on the west. They likewise suppose, but probably without foundation, that the ore will be found to deteriorate in proportion as the workings descend. Red and yellow ochre of superior quality occur in the iron veins, and have at various times been in considerable request. They are now used in the neighbourhood for marking sheep, and ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... call excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same effects which follow the use of spirits—first, invigoration, and subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, in this respect, so stationary among the ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... irresistible disintegration, not of public opinion, but of something subtler and more fundamental: public sentiment. It was possible that civilian France, while collectively seeming to remain at the same height, might individually deteriorate and diminish in ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... been born to social dignity, fortune, courage, and more than the usual allowance of good looks. And though the fortune was lavishly spent, the courage sometimes betrayed into a rather theatrical dare-deviltry, and the good looks prone to deteriorate in style, there was always the social position left, and this was a matter of the deepest importance in Delisleville. The sentiments of Delisleville were purely patrician. It was the county town, and contained six thousand inhabitants, two hotels, and a court-house. It ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... have no conscious basis are likely to be more sound and permanent than those which are consciously built up; and, as a matter of fact, his own were of that kind, though he had his rule and considered himself to be guided by it. "That which gives no pain to another, and does not deteriorate another, or oneself, or any sentient being, cannot be immoral, though circumstances may make it inexpedient." He had written that sentence in his diary before he was twenty, at an age when the expanding soul craves for talismans and golden maxims, and he had clung to it ever since. For what violation ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant



Words linked to "Deteriorate" :   decline, tire, rot, pall, crumble, fade, weary, fatigue, wear off, go to pot, worsen, decay, languish, go to the dogs, wear thin, degenerate, wear down, dilapidate, jade, wear, waste, wear out, deterioration, recuperate



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com