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Caustical   Listen
adjective
Caustical, Caustic  adj.  
1.
Capable of destroying the texture of anything or eating away its substance by chemical action; burning; corrosive; searing.
2.
Severe; satirical; sharp; as, a caustic remark.
Caustic curve (Optics), a curve to which the ray of light, reflected or refracted by another curve, are tangents, the reflecting or refracting curve and the luminous point being in one plane.
Caustic lime. See under Lime.
Caustic potash, Caustic soda (Chem.), the solid hydroxides potash, KOH, and soda, NaOH, or solutions of the same.
Caustic silver, nitrate of silver, lunar caustic.
Caustic surface (Optics), a surface to which rays reflected or refracted by another surface are tangents. Caustic curves and surfaces are called catacaustic when formed by reflection, and diacaustic when formed by refraction.
Synonyms: Stinging; cutting; pungent; searching.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Caustical" Quotes from Famous Books



... well indeed with her crutches. But the merry-eyed woman had vanished—she of the Wapello colouring that had persisted during all these years. In her place limped a wan, shrunken, tragic little figure whose humour had soured to a caustic wit. The near-seal coat and the turquoise-and-crushed-diamond ring ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... that the balm he sought in satire, was a dangerous caustic which, while closing one wound, might well cause others to open. At the same time, the money embarrassments inherited from his predecessor in the estate went on accumulating, and the period was approaching when the cassock, donned in boyish ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... same abroad; as Ike Marvel has it, Rousseau and Diderot over in France, philosophers as they professed to be, "blubbered their admiring thanks for 'Clarissa Harlowe."' Similarly, at a later day we find caustic critics like Jeffrey and Macaulay writing to Dickens to tell how they had cried over the death of Little Nell—a scene the critical to-day are likely to stigmatize as one of the few examples of pathos ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... it mildly, my dear, that you have me to attend to such matters," she remarked one day, "or you would most likely have started on your wedding journey a dowd—and there can be no happy marriage," she concluded with caustic philosophy, "which is not founded upon a carefully ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... days the Royal Institution published 'The Quarterly Journal of Science,' the precursor of our own 'Proceedings.' Faraday's first contribution to science appeared in that journal in 1816. It was an analysis of some caustic lime from Tuscany, which had been sent to Davy by the Duchess of Montrose. Between this period and 1818 various notes and short papers were published by Faraday. In 1818 he experimented upon 'Sounding Flames.' ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... significant. He was always an agreeable companion. There was a good deal of bonhomie and pleasantry in his conversation. He was not exactly witty, nor was he very humorous, though he gave a light turn to table-talk and enjoyed exceedingly any pleasantry or fun, even. He often made a quaint or slightly caustic remark, but he took care that it should not be too trenchant. On reading his letters one discovers this playful spirit in many of them, as, for instance, in his letter to the spiritualist who asked his opinion ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... slaked with a brine of common salt (chloride of sodium), there are formed by double decomposition, small portions of caustic soda and chloride of calcium, which dissolve in the liquid. If the solution stand awhile, carbonic acid is absorbed from the air, forming carbonate of soda: but carbonate of soda and chloride of calcium instantly exchange their ingredients, forming insoluble carbonate of lime ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... good fellows, whom he liked well enough in homoeopathic doses. Especially he liked Jack Meredith, cousin of the Desmonds;—a large and simple soul, gravely absorbed in pursuing balls and tent-pegs and 'pig'; impervious to feminine lures; equally impervious to the caustic wit of his diametrical opposite, Captain James Barnard, who eased his private envy by christening him 'Don Juan.' For Meredith fatally attracted women; and Barnard—cultured, cynical, Cambridge—was as fatally susceptible to them as a trout to a May-fly; ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... of a strong, enduring frame, and a keen, vehement, caustic spirit. He had the gift of tongues, and was as familiar with the Abenaki and several other Indian languages as he was with Latin.[235] Of the genuineness of his zeal there is no doubt, nor of his earnest and lively interest in the fortunes of the wilderness flock of which he was the shepherd ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... on, with snatches of caustic criticism, the old gentleman shambled out, the waiter holding the door open for him ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... extinguish in later life. At that time she used to give a good deal of time and thought to her dresses, inventing trimmings and embroidering them; she planned out her costumes with the maid whom she had brought with her from Paris, and so maintained the reputation of Parisiennes in the provinces. Her caustic tongue was dreaded; she was not loved. In that keen, investigating spirit peculiar to unoccupied women who are driven to find some occupation for empty days, she had pondered the President's private opinions, until at length ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... opposite properties, and when brought together they unite and neutralize each other, forming compounds which are neither alkaline nor acid in their character. Thus, carbonic acid (a gas,) unites with lime—a burning, caustic substance—and forms marble, which is a hard tasteless stone. Alkalies and acids are characterized by their desire to unite with each other, and the compounds thus formed have many and various properties, so that the characters of the constituents ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... course taken in good part by the captain, who at once corrected the mistake. But after going twice round the deck, and drawing forth many humorous as well as caustic remarks as to his size and general appearance, he was forced to the conclusion that his sister was not there. The lower ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... was thought to possess some peculiar property for improving the tone of the impression. It is used for moistening the rotten stone in polishing the plate, and may be prepared by putting about an ounce and a half of alcohol in a close bottle, and add half a stick of caustic potash. This will soon become of a deep red color. For use, fill your small bottle, having a quill in the cork, with alcohol, and add a few drops of the above, or enough to change it to a bright orange or ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... Saunders what Tom said about mad bulls; and Mrs. Whiffler relating the anecdote, a discussion ensues upon the different character of Tom's wit and Dick's wit, from which it appears that Dick's humour is of a lively turn, while Tom's style is the dry and caustic. This discussion being enlivened by various illustrations, lasts a long time, and is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler instructing the footman to ring the nursery bell, as the children were promised that they should come down and taste ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... forms of protest was through the satirical poets. Of these caustic writers, Persius (34-62) is obscure and of a moderate degree of merit. Juvenal (about 55-135), on the contrary, is spirited and full of force. Martial (43-101), a Spaniard by birth, was the author of numerous short poems of a pithy and pointed character, called epigrammata. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... to be not unfrequently endowed, and also how atrociously insolent a Franciscan friar would be likely to be (ofcourse from the best motives) to a man like Chaucer, who had burnt into the very soul of monasticism with the caustic of his wit, Ishall continue to believe the legend for the present. If the medival Italians are to be believed, the cudgelling of a friar was occasionally thought necessary even by the most faithful, and I see no reason why hale ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne

... of corporeal substance which weighs upon him so cruelly. You gaze at the mortal heap; and, while it fills your eye with what purports to be Byron, you murmur within yourself, "For Heaven's sake, where is he?" Were I disposed to be caustic, I might consider this mass of earthly matter as the symbol, in a material shape, of those evil habits and carnal vices which unspiritualize man's nature and clog up his avenues of communication with ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with deafness, the Duke of Wellington consulted a celebrated physician, who put strong caustic into his ear, causing an inflammation which threatened his life. The doctor apologized, expressed great regrets, and said that the blunder would ruin him. "No," said Wellington, "I will never mention it." "But will you allow me to attend you, so that the people will not withdraw ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... meant?" said the General, turning to Boris. He spoke as if he were on the parade-ground, every word sharp, caustic, staccato. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... possible. There is internal evidence of this in the abrupt manner in which it opens, and in the absence of allusions to the discords during the voyage and on the arrival. Captain Smith was not the man to pass over such questions in silence, as his subsequent caustic letter sent home to the Governor and Council of Virginia shows. And it is probable enough that the London promoters would cut out from the "Relation" complaints and evidence of the seditions and helpless state of the colony. The narration of the captivity is consistent as it stands, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... something more than a caustic critic. For the terrible ills of his age and country he had one plain and homely remedy, and that for all true Christians to leave the Church of Rome and return to the simple teaching of Christ and His Apostles. If the reader goes to Peter for systematic theology, he will be grievously ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... strangers to each other, turned upon the topics of the day, and the objects in the room, some of which, as we know, were sufficiently remarkable. At Charley's request Mrs. Basil once more narrated the story of the skull; and then epitomized, with caustic tongue, the biography of poor Joanna. Up stairs, she said, she had one of that lady's "seals"—a passport to eternal bliss—which she would bestow as a present upon the young gentleman opposite. Her cynical humor delighted Charley, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... Bizio procured from it a substance sui generis [peculiar in kind], which he calls melania. "The melania is a tasteless, black powder, insoluble in alcohol, ether, and water, while cold, but soluble in hot water: the solution is black. Caustic alkalies form with it a solution even in the cold, from which the mineral acids precipitate it unchanged. It contains much azote: it dissolves in, and decomposes, sulphuric acid: it easily kindles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... to the ill effects of its stainless flowers, those who camp in places where the plant is plentiful being apt to be seized with violent sickness. An attractive fruit with an exalted title (DIOSPYROS HEBECAPRA) scalds the lips and tongue with caustic-like severity, and a whiff from a certain species of putrescent fungus produces almost instantaneous giddiness, mental anguish, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... bricks, slates and tiles; (8) Chinaware and glass; (9) paper and paper-making materials; (10) soap, paint and colours, including articles exclusively used in their manufacture, and varnish; (11) bleaching powder, soda ash, caustic soda, salt cake, ammonia, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of copper; (12) agricultural, mining, textile and printing machinery; (13) precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, mother-of-pearl and coral; (14) clocks and watches, other than chronometers; (15) fashion and fancy goods; (16) feathers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... weight of carbide decomposed should be as high as that obtained in wet generation. The inventor has claimed that his by-product should be valuable and saleable, apparently partly on the ground that it should contain caustic soda. Evidence, however, that a reaction between the calcium oxide or hydroxide and the sodium carbonate takes place in the prevailing conditions is not yet forthcoming, and the probabilities are that such decomposition would not occur unless the residue were ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... exactly the same thing. Brewers will build cathedrals, and found picture galleries, and men that have made their money foully will fancy that they atone for that by leaving it for some charitable purpose. The caustic but true wit of a Scottish judge said about a great bequest which was supposed to be—whether rightly or wrongly, I know not—of that sort, that it was 'the heaviest fire insurance premium that had been paid in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... some of the splendours and "humours" of the coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three. As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have awakened all the sleepers in London. When the maid ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... world, especially with England; and Middleton could not help being struck with the accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which so few Englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of the American character,—shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree of justice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of what was likely to happen,—prophecies which, in one instance, were singularly verified, in regard to a complexity which was then arresting the ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... have slain the four helpless islanders with his own hands, Hollingsworth Chase had stayed his rage with the single, caustic adjuration: ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... the Bishops will not let be printed again All things to be managed with faction Being the people that, at last, will be found the wisest Business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale Cannot get suitably, without breach of his honour Caustic attack on Sir Robert Howard Doe from Cobham, when the season comes, bucks season being past Forgetting many things, which her master beat her for Glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger

... party had hitherto been composed. Now did the Reverend Samuel Pentecost, whose light had hitherto been hidden under a bushel, prove at last that he could do something by proving that he could eat. Now did Pedgift Junior shine brighter than ever he had shone yet in gems of caustic humor and exquisite fertilities of resource. Now did the squire, and the squire's charming guest, prove the triple connection between Champagne that sparkles, Love that grows bolder, and Eyes whose vocabulary is without ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... adroit defence failed to make any impression upon Victoria; and Mr. Reeve, when he retired from the public service, did not receive the knighthood which custom entitled him to expect. Perhaps if the Queen had known how many caustic comments upon herself Mr. Reeve had quietly suppressed in the published Memoirs, she would have been almost grateful to him; but, in that case, what would she have said of Greville? Imagination boggles at the thought. As for more modern essays upon the same topic, Her Majesty, it is ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... the conversation a little further, in the same tone of a half-caustic indulgence. At the end of it, however, Lord Fontenoy was still uneasy. He had only migrated to Malford House for the declaration of the poll, having spent the canvassing weeks mainly in another part of the division. And now, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in a free country," returned the caustic Jack Dunning, "to prefer one estate to another, more especially when other people want it. Your lands are leased to honest, hard-working tenants, who can eat their dinners without ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... cruel scheme of putting him in the position, by a hue and cry against monopoly and corporate interests, where his election to the senatorship would be imperilled if he did not veto the measure. By a caustic speech in the Senate Stringer drew public attention to the skilfully concealed iniquities of the proposed franchise, and public attention thus aroused began to bristle. Newspapers here and there throughout the state put forth ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... failed, upon her courtesy, to appear so; but she was conscious of relapses more and more frequent into the dreary regions of Boredom. Every body would agree with every body else so completely! A bold contradiction, a stinging sarcasm, or a caustic retort, would have been worth any thing just then to take off the cloying taste of the everlasting honey. She roused herself at these last words enough to ask languidly, "What ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... City Home because of epileptic fits, also comes in occasionally. Bettie is a friend of Mrs. Mundy. Owing to kinlessness and inability to care for herself, owing, also, to there being nowhere else to which she could go, she has been forced to enter the Home. Her caustic comments on its management are of a clear-cut variety. Bettie was born for a satirist and became an epileptic. The result at times is speech that is not guarded, a calling of things by ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... Early that literary style which he had found it impossible to cultivate while he still had nothing to say. He grew a peculiar ability for self-glorification and for slugging the other man. Particularly caustic did his pen become in respect to those, whether painters, musicians, poets, novelists or reformers, who had endeared themselves to the great mass of the public. The Aspirant always called the public "the rabble," ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... latter contained Mrs Roby's limited wardrobe. He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... powerful stimulants nor biting draughts nor caustic applications could hinder the deadly parchment from ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... cultivated in the West Indies and other tropical countries. The stem furnishes a milky juice, which becomes hard and black when dry, and is used as a varnish. It also secretes a gum, like gum arabic. The nut or fruit contains a black, acrid, caustic oil, injurious to the lips and tongue of those who attempt to crack the nut with their teeth; it becomes innocuous and wholesome when roasted, but this process must be carefully conducted, the acridity of the fumes producing severe ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... born at Bagnols, in the department of Var; famed for his caustic wit; was a Royalist emigrant at the time of the Revolution, and aided the cause by his pamphlets; he was styled by Burke "The Tacitus of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... from carbon dioxide, and such solutions immediately show by precipitation any contamination from absorption, but the hydroxide is not freely soluble in water; ammonia does not absorb carbon dioxide as readily as the caustic alkalies, but its solutions cannot be boiled nor can they be used with all indicators. The choice of a solution must depend upon the nature ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... of their tour, Tubbs's questions and caustic comment would have given McArthur offense, but a longer acquaintance had taught him that none was intended; that his words were merely those of a man entirely without knowledge upon any subject save those which had come under his ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... the weak and sick he was kindness itself—gentle, sympathetic and patient—but towards his colleagues he was a boor. Distant, haughty, quick to demand all the consideration due him, he was noted far and wide for the caustic way he attacked others for their opinions and beliefs and the respect he required for his own. The general opinion of physicians was that he was a conceited, arrogant, aristocratic man, and he was avoided except for his medical opinion, which was usually very sound. Those admitted ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... materials needed with which to manufacture the supplies are mild carbon steel for the barrels, bayonets, bolt, and locks; well-seasoned ash or maple, straight-grained, for the stocks; brass, iron, powder, antimony, benzol or phenol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and caustic soda, &c. Of these various materials the most difficult to secure are those used in the manufacture ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... to keep house for them, and luckily, she, like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct. Now his wife had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments. Politics, especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child, were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... seen his wife in a passion, and he had frequently been a listener to torrents of abuse from her pretty lips and caustic tongue. Although he had been notorious as the rudest member of the Bar, he had generally come off second best in his frequent battles of words with his beautiful helpmate. Stolid and unimpressible as he was, he can hardly have ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... hence it was that in his paper he steadily did us justice, and in Parliament was sure to repel any unmerited assault upon our national character and policy. He was clear and forcible, with, at times, a most effectively caustic ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... obtained by suspending barium carbonate in boiling water and passing in chlorine. It crystallizes in monoclinic prisms of composition Ba(ClO3)2 . H2O, and begins to decompose on being heated to 250deg C. Barium iodate, Ba(IO3)2, is obtained by the action of excess of iodic acid on hot caustic baryta solution or by adding sodium iodate to barium chloride solution. It crystallizes in monoclinic prisms of composition Ba(IO3)2 . H2O, and is only very sparingly soluble in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... and excrescences of the skin, popularly called moles, may be removed by touching them every second or third day with strong acetic or nitric acid, or with lunar caustic. If covered with hair they should ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... commiseration, of benevolent malice, the writer pointed out how inevitable it was that the critics should have taken Mr. Price, when Divorce was first produced, for the new dramatic genius they were waiting for. 'There comes a moment,' said this caustic writer, 'in the affairs of men when the new is not only eagerly accepted, but when it is confounded with the original. Wearied by the old stereotyped form of drama, the critics had been astonished by a novelty of subject, more apparent than real, and by certain surface qualities in the ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... journalist who had acquired more reputation by dint of doing nothing than others had derived from their achievements. A bold, caustic, and powerful critic, he possessed all the qualities that his defects permitted. An outspoken giber, he made numberless epigrams on a friend to his face; but would defend him, if absent, with courage and loyalty. He laughed at everything, even at his own career. Always impecunious, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... afterwards entertained the warmest regard, was Edwin Johnson,[2] Assistant-Adjutant-General of the Bengal Artillery, in which capacity he had accompanied Brigadier Wilson from Meerut. He had a peculiarly bright intellect—somewhat caustic, but always clever and amusing. He was a delightful companion, and invariably gained the confidence of those with ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... I am giving a little dinner-party—just a few unusual people—to meet an American author who has recently come to England. Do come; but, you brilliant man, don't be too caustic, will you? ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... the gold, and it is ready to use. Clear the article to be plated from all dirt and grease with whiting and a good brush; if there are cracks it may be necessary to put the article in a solution of caustic potash. At all events every particle of dirt and grease must be removed; then suspend the article in the cyanuret of gold solution, with a small strip of zinc cut about the width of a common knitting needle, hooking the top over a stick which will ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... various divisions of the capitalist class that the most caustic and virtuous tirades against Gould came. The boards of trade and chambers of commerce were largely made up of men who, while assuming the most vaniloquent pretensions, were themselves malodorous with fraud. To read the resolutions passed by them, and to observe retrospectively the supreme airs of ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... not framed to express enthusiasm. It was caustic, cold and delicate. His eyes were as clear and as hard as a sky of frosty morning, and his small, firm lips were hard. His chin and lower lip advanced slightly, so that when he smiled his teeth met edge to ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Passing now to the weekly papers, of which we can name only two or three, we find the Conservative "Press," the Anglican-Clerical "Guardian" the "Examiner,"—a representative of a somewhat old-fashioned form of Liberalism or "Whiggery,"—and the caustic, Liberal-Conservative "Saturday Review," (already mentioned,) on the side of the South; the advanced Liberal "Spectator" on that of the North. It is a significant sign of the widespread Southernism ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... able to publish these "Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ——'s library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his Mayflower ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of Mr. Coote ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... this ironic thrust, Tessie would walk toward the screen door with a little flaunting sway of the hips. Her mother's eyes, following the slim figure, had a sort of grudging love in them. A spare, caustic, wiry little woman, Tessie's mother. Tessie resembled her as a water color may resemble a blurred charcoal sketch. Tessie's wide mouth curved into humor lines. She was the cutup of the escapement department ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... was so wonderful a mass of chiffon and silk and lace that Arethusa began to remember sundry lessons in economy also; she feared its cost would prove terrific. She had never seen anything nearly so Wonderful in the shape of a Gown before. Then too, those caustic remarks of so positive a nature concerning green with her red hair, which Miss Eliza had spoken so often in her hearing, began to worm themselves ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... busy with the petty duties of her days, and left him lorn. Madame de Sevenie had taken a flattering fancy to him, and frequently came to gossip beside his bed or chair. He found her tremendously entertaining, endowed as she was with an excellent and well-stored memory, a gift of caustic characterization and a pretty taste in the scandal of her bygone day and generation, as well as with a mind still active and better informed on the affairs of to-day than that of many a Parisienne of the haute ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... promised visit, and that he should pay it with her. He gave way at last, and she allowed herself to be soothed and caressed. Then, when she seemed to have recovered herself, he gave her a tragic-comic account of the three weeks' engagement, and the manner in which it had been broken off: caustic enough, one might have thought, to satisfy the most unfriendly listener. Daphne heard ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... scarred pride. It was gone at once, in a rush of pity. She stepped forward quickly in the darkness, was visited by fear, and stopped. He had seemed absolutely himself all the evening. A little more talkative, perhaps, a little more caustic than usual. And now to find him like this! There was no great share of reverence in Barbara, but what little she possessed had always been kept for her eldest brother. He had impressed her, from a child, with his aloofness, and she had been proud of kissing him because he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... characteristic than his two English tracts against Sherlock, his Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication of the Trinity, 1693-94, 4to., {403} and his Tritheism charged on Sherlock's new Notion of the Trinity, 1694, 4to. For caustic wit and tremendous power of vituperation, I scarcely know any controversial works which surpass, or even equal them. South looked upon Sherlock with profound scorn as a Sciolist, and hated him most cordially as a heretic and a political renegade. He ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various

... fellow-feeling for each other, and kind of Quack public-spirit! Not great Lavoisier himself, or any of the Forty can escape this rough tongue; which wants not fanatic sincerity, nor, strangest of all, a certain rough caustic sense. And then the 'three thousand gaming-houses' that are in Paris; cesspools for the scoundrelism of the world; sinks of iniquity and debauchery,—whereas without good morals Liberty is impossible! There, in these Dens of Satan, which one knows, and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the Scots Observer. I noticed it because it made a suggestion, about the intention of the author in writing the book, which needed correction. The second was an article in the St. James's Gazette. It was offensively and vulgarly written, and seemed to me to require immediate and caustic censure. The tone of the article was an impertinence to any man ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... The other man is for others, for the world, for salons; the court, the sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of admirable qualities. What a horrible jest it is!—and the world is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain women, at their air of superiority to their ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... subtle mind for some means of escaping from his fetters; but no one having rendered him any assistance in this respect, he was absolutely obliged, therefore, to submit to the burden of his own evil thoughts and caustic spirit. ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Mitscherlich in 1834, may be prepared by reducing nitrobenzene in alcoholic solution with zinc dust and caustic soda; by the condensation of nitrosobenzene with aniline in hot glacial acetic acid solution; or by the oxidation of aniline with sodium hypobromite. It crystallizes from alcohol in orange red plates which melt at 68deg C. and boil at 293deg C. It does not react with acids or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... he placed some caustic soda and in another some pyrogallic acid, from each of which he took just a drop, as he had done before, inclining the tubes to let the fluid gravitate to the throttle end. Finally in the flame he sealed both the tip and ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... nonsense as that power may be exercised, and phenomena produced, by non-entities. But if so, what else is Positivism than another form of that very metaphysicism which it condemns? and a form, too, peculiarly obnoxious to Mr. Mill's caustic remark that 'as in religion, so in philosophy, men marvel at the absurdity of other people's tenets, while exactly parallel absurdities remain in their own, and the same man is unaffectedly astonished that ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... Henry W. Kiel. He motored me to the Hotel Statler where my rooms were full of roses and, in spite of an iron bed, we were more than comfortable. I am like stuff that is guaranteed not to wash, so I sat down at once to talk to the reporters, among whom I observed one man of supreme intelligence. Caustic and bitter, he interrupted the females and asked to be allowed to return to us after dinner. Mr. Paul Anderson and I had a first rate discussion, while my secretary typed and telephoned till, with his usual consideration, he came back to send me to bed, ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... artery was ruptured by a cart wheel passing over the thigh, and death ensued although there were scarcely any external signs of contusion and positively no fracture. Boerhaave cites a curious instance in which a surgeon attempted to stop hemorrhage from a wounded radial artery by the application of a caustic, but the material applied made such inroads as to destroy the median artery and thus ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... instability, its charm. Soon he had become as great a favorite as Mr. Jefferson himself, though winning his enviable position by qualities the very opposite of that gentleman's. Mr. Morris rivalled the Parisians themselves in caustic wit, perfect manners, and the thousand and one social graces of the time, while Mr. Jefferson captivated all by his democratic manners and entire indifference to social conventionality, much as the incomparable Dr. Franklin (whose originality and address in society were indeed sui ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... utmost importance to England, and that by the secret article, which it was said existed in the convention, implying that after all we were to give it up, the national honour had been meanly sacrificed. The caustic Junius and other writers took this side of the question. Another party, however, at the head of whom Dr. Johnson may be reckoned, endeavoured to demonstrate that the whole group was worth little or nothing, and that it would have been absurd to go to war about them. Both parties ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the technical term for the operation by which fibrous raw materials are reduced to a residue of cellulose pulp by means of chemical treatment. In these tests about 300 pounds of hurds were charged into the rotary with the addition of a caustic-soda solution, such as is regularly employed in pulp mills and which tested an average of 109.5 grams of caustic soda per liter, or 0.916 pound per gallon, and averaged 85 per cent causticity. Sufficient ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill

... in its "Introduction" was this sentence: "Each hour, as life advances, am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality conferred by a newspaper." This brought upon its writer a whirlwind of caustic criticism in the American papers, and soon became a challenge of battle by one who was to prove himself brave, able, fearless, and right through coming years of hot and bitter strife. By one of the leading editors the glove was taken up in these words: "The press ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... did. And simply as a wild story, one fancies that it will appeal quite as effectually, no matter how many editions may be its future, to a public perhaps unsympathetic toward its elliptical satire, its caustic wit, its fantastic course of narrative, and its incongruous wavering between the flippant, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... energetically) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (With a dry snigger) You intended to devote ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... measure, the criticism of the church has of late been suspended, it is certainly reopened now, in good earnest. Nor is this criticism confined to outsiders; the church is forced to listen in these days to caustic censures from those who speak from ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... at this caustic remark and the accompanying scorn on the high-bred face; and the flush which had risen to her cheek a moment before vanished, leaving her quite pale, although ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... feared some shock, and wanted to brace himself up to meet it, he went to the decanter and poured out some whisky, which he swallowed neat; yet, even then, he opened Kelly's letter first. There proved to be nothing special in it—congratulations on his book, some caustic comments on Fleet Street and its ways, and the always-repeated invitation to come to town, and stay ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... biggest of which was that bathroom without water that had sent Annalise out on strike, was the information that a remittance would oblige. A remittance! Poor Fritzing. He crushed the paper in his hand and made caustic mental comments on the indecency of these people, clamouring for their money almost before the last workman was out of the place, certainly before the smell of paint was out of it, and clamouring, too, in the face of the Shuttleworth countenance and support. He had not been a ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... from disappointment. With Charley, any emotion always reached the ultimate absurdity. He was a flowing, flexible phantom of translucent color and radiance. But now the colors faded like gaudy rags in caustic solution. Charley whined as Denver went through the grotesque ritual of donning space helmet and zipping up his glass cloth and metal foil suiting before he dared venture outside. Charley even tried to help by pouring himself through ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen

... spectators: "The piece has fallen." Abbe Arnaud, Gluck's devoted defender, arose in his box and replied: "Yes! fallen from heaven." While Mademoiselle Levasseur was singing one of the great airs, a voice was heard to say, "Ah! you tear out my ears;" to which the caustic rejoinder was: "How fortunate, if it ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... gush, unto the illumination and purification of the whole being. A stray word, an unknown influence, a breath of the Spirit, is continually effecting such changes, such salvations. True, there are many fettered by vices, torn by sins, ploughed by the caustic shares of remorse, lost to peaceful freedom, lost to spiritual joys, lost to the sweet, calm raptures of religious belief and love, and, in that sense, plunged in damnation. But this, they say, is the only hell there is. At the longest, it can endure but for the night of this ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... lady and for thee it will always flow the right way," said the dwarf. "I showed the complaining citizens who it is that slaughters their flesh and blood, and from whom to look for peace and content. I poured caustic into their wounds, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... which he invariably showed himself at his best and in a softer mood than he had been before. Unfortunately, these moments never lasted long, and he used to revenge himself on those who had surprised him in such reveries by indulging in the most caustic and cruel remarks which he could devise in order to goad them out of all patience. A strange man with strange instincts; and it is no wonder that, once, a person who knew him well, and who had known him in the days of his ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... afternoon. The bliss of the water on their thin young legs and scrawny bodies was Heaven. They did not swim; they lay inert, letting the waves move them about, and out of the depths of a deep content making caustic comments about the human form as revealed by the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... a single foot of any kind, or even a single long syllable, may be, and sometimes is, in certain rather uncommon instances, set as a line, is not to be denied. "Dr. Caustic," or T. G. Fessenden, in his satirical "Directions for Doing Poetry," uses in this manner the monosyllables, "Whew," "Say," and "Dress" and also the iambs, "The gay" and, "All such," rhyming them ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... any good results. Ten days passed in this manner, the haemmorrhage only ceasing for a few moments at a time, and the child was nearly exsanguinated from the continued serous seepage and the paroxysmal haemorrhages, when a lucky application of caustic potassa almost immediately stopped the haemorrhage. This case was seen by nearly all the leading medical men of Leghorn, who lent their aid and counsel to save the little life. The case is interesting from the length of time it persisted, and that even after all the loss of blood and suffering ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... Farmer; his success in which parts after the impressions made by Parsons and Edwin was little short of a miracle. His popularity now became settled. He was the original representative of Old Rapid, Caustic, Brummagem, Lazarillo, (Two Strings to your Bow,) Crack, Nipperkin, Sir Abel Handy, Sir Robert Bramble, Old Dornton, &c. In 1797 and 1798, he played at the Haymarket, but his summer vacations were chiefly filled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the standard was not ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... why the relations between the two men should not have been noticeably cordial. Roosevelt had from the start thrown in his lot with the men who had been most emphatic in their denunciation of the Marquis's part in the killing of Riley Luffsey. Gregor Lang, who was the Marquis's most caustic critic, was Roosevelt's warm friend. "Dutch Wannigan," moreover, who had been saved only by a miracle in the memorable ambuscade, was one of Roosevelt's cow-hands. That summer of 1885 he was night-herder for the Maltese ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... extravagant politeness. As Nikitin spoke but seldom, there was little opportunity for the manifestation of what Semyonov must have considered "his childishly romantic mind," and Nikitin, on his side, made on no single occasion a reply to the challenge of Semyonov's caustic cynicism. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... discretion and modesty, would have hesitated to face the audience; but Douglass possessed neither retiring modesty nor the sobriety which comes with years. He not only read the resolutions, but he defended them with such vigorous logic and with such caustic criticism of Whigs and half-hearted Democrats, that he carried the meeting with him in tumultuous approval of the course of Andrew Jackson, past ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... disease from forming in mortal mind afterwards to appear on the body; but to do this requires attention. The thought of 198:15 disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant, - perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or 198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving an- other direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs, until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a 198:21 vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces a picture of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... Potash.—The solution of blood obtained in water is boiled, when a coagulum is formed soluble in hot caustic potash, the solution formed being greenish by transmitted and ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... with his colleagues he had suddenly become rather a person of importance. His "place" in the country was held in some dim way to increase the grandeur of the College. He found himself deferred to and congratulated. Mr. Redmayne was both caustic and affectionate. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... monkeys, that the dullness at all disappears. After the country of Leaphigh is reached the story is far less absurd and more entertaining; though (p. 135) Cooper's descriptions are of the nature of caricature rather than of satire. There are, however, many shrewd and caustic remarks scattered up and down the pages of the latter part of the work, but they will never be known to anybody, for nobody will ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... and most malicious personage, his name will be enough—it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at the Funambules. Bixiou had the ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... to recall a part of the speech made by François Coppée on the occasion: “It is with the greatest pleasure that I present to my confrères my good friend, the ballad-writer, Aristide Bruant. I value highly the author of Dans la Rue. When I close his volume of sad and caustic verses it is with the consoling thought that even vice and crime have their conscience: that if there is suffering there is a possible redemption. He has sought his inspiration in the gutter, it is true, but he has seen there a reflection ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... themselves from Miss Raper. Yet they did not consider themselves abused, nor did they harbor any hard feelings toward her on account of her sharp tongue. They realized that she was a "crackerjack" trainer, and for the sake of winning that contest they were willing to endure her caustic comments meekly. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... children returned with the wailing Samuel Saul to the place where Mandy, 'Vada, and Aunt Sophie were standing, loftily ignoring the angry mother and making caustic remarks calculated ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... are our own meadows in June! But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant—a sufficient reason for most members of the Ranunculaceae to stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices. Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk's hood, even to murderous practices. Since children will ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... the hall, still coughing. The match smell had given way to the harsh, caustic stench of burning weeds. He stared at his cigarette in horror and threw it into the sink. The smell grew worse. He threw open the hall closet, expecting smoke to come billowing out. "Ellie! Somebody's ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse

... (Tagalog, Cauong).—A fine palm. Gives a sweet juice which turns into good vinegar. The trunk gives a Sago, called by the natives Yoro. The ripe seeds are a deadly poison. An infusion of the seeds in water is so caustic that it has been used to throw on to Moro pirates and thieves; wherever it touches the body it burns so terribly that none can suffer it or cure it. Sometimes it is thrown into the rivers to stupefy the fish, which then float and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... have sufficient nerve for the operation, and a suitable instrument, they should cut out the central part bitten, and then bathe the wound for some time with warm water, to make it bleed freely. The wound should afterwards be rubbed with a stick of lunar caustic, or, what is better, a solution of this—60 grains of lunar caustic dissolved in an ounce of water—should be dropped into it. The band should be kept on the part during the whole of the time that these means are being adopted. The wound should afterwards be ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... pull out the pilus or hair), any substance, preparation or process which will remove superfluous hair. For this purpose caustic alkalis, alkaline earths and also orpiment (trisulphide of arsenic) are used, the last being somewhat dangerous. No application is permanent in its effect, as the hair always grows again. The only permanent method, which is, however, painful, slow in operation and likely to leave ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... of his wit was its unexpectedness; sometimes acrid, sometimes humorous, his sayings came forth, like Topham Beauclerk's in Dr. Johnson's day, like Talleyrand's in our own, poignant without effort. His calm, gentle voice, contrasted with his startling caustic utterance, reminded people of Prosper Merimee: terse epigram, felicitous apropos, whimsical presentment of the topic under discussion, emitted in a low tone, and without the ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... to her husband's shocked comment on the un- princely appearance of the young man and the wofully ordinary suit of clothes worn by the Count, was sufficiently caustic, and he was silenced—and convinced. Neither of the distinguished foreigners looked the part ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... personal instance; and it will be vastly easier, in such Babylon as ours, to designate a virtue, without naming its possessor! Still, you know me too well, to believe that I shall be frightened out of free, or even caustic remark, by any critique of the papers, or by any dignified frown of the literary coteries of the city.... This LORGNETTE of mine will range very much as my whim directs. In morals, it will aim to be correct; in religion, to be respectful; in literature, modest; in the arts, attentive; ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... in the oxidizing flame of the blowpipe; and also by the yellow precipitate formed when sulphuretted hydrogen is passed though their acidified solutions. This precipitate is insoluble in cold dilute acids, in ammonium sulphide, and in solutions of the caustic alkalis, a behaviour which distinguishes it from the yellow sulphides of arsenic and tin. Cadmium is estimated quantitatively by conversion into the oxide, being precipitated from boiling solutions by the addition of sodium carbonate, the carbonate thus formed passing into the oxide ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... his few intervals of leisure, in a little knot of relations and friends, he delighted in quiet conversation, through which occasionally ran an undercurrent of pleasantry, not unmixed with caustic wit. At his table he was the least heard among the company, and so far from being the hero of his own tale, I never heard him voluntarily refer to any of the great ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... Victor, seemed to favor this idea, or perhaps, first suggest it; however this may be, by flattery and attention she set about managing Grossi, who, in fact, was not very manageable, being the most caustic and brutal, for a man who had any pretensions to the quality of a gentleman, that ever I knew. The reader may judge for himself by two or three traits of character, which I shall add by ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense local feeling, and the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a climax, surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut up their emotions with caustic words. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... will take more from a woman than even from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... recommended by the Board of Agriculture: "To prepare caustic alkali wash, first dissolve 1 lb. of commercial caustic soda in water, then 1 lb. of crude potash (potashes or pearl ash of oilmen) in water. When both have been dissolved, mix the two well together, then add 3/4 lb. of soft soap or agricultural treacle, stir well, and add sufficient water to make ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum

... these questions is that there are some substances called bases, which are the opposites of acids, and some of which are as powerful as acids. Lye, ammonia, caustic soda, and baking and washing soda are common bases. The strong bases, like lye and caustic soda, are also called alkalies. If you want to see what a strong base—an alkali—will do to "the most delicate of fabrics," and to fabrics that are not so delicate, ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... inequalities, becomes in Ibsen's hands a singularly plastic medium of dramatic expression. The marble is too richly veined for ideal sculpture, but it takes the print of life. The wit, exuberant as it is, does not coruscate indiscriminately upon all lips; and it has many shades and varieties—caustic, ironical, imaginative, playful, passionate—which take their ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... tablecloth, and hard cane chairs, expanded until she fancied herself in the drawing-room of Blenheim House. Between the landladies there was little enough to choose. Mrs. Raithby Lawrence, notwithstanding her caustic tongue and suspicious nature, had at least made some pretense at gentility. The woman who faced her now—hard-featured, with narrow, suspicious eyes and a mass of florid hair—was unmistakably ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... common with young people than with adults, are very unsightly, and are sometimes very difficult to get rid of. The best plan is to buy a stick of lunar caustic, which is sold in a holder and case at the druggist's for the purpose, dip it in water, and touch the wart every morning and evening, care being taken to cut away the withered skin before repeating the operation. A still better plan is to apply acetic acid gently once a day ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... projects (including aviation, communications, computer-aided design and manufactures, medical electronics), wood and paper products, potash and phosphates, food, beverages, and tobacco, caustic ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... would have been difficult for the favourite to manage the great machine with his single hand. But there was no disposition on the part of the ancient minister to oppose the new order of things. A cautious, caustic, dry old functionary, talking more with his shoulders than with his tongue, determined never to commit himself, or to risk shipwreck by venturing again into deeper waters than those of the harbour in which he now hoped for repose, Idiaquez ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... attention, and the second carriage arrived. By degrees the grove filled with people—the Elliots, the Thornburys, Mr. Venning and Susan, Miss Allan, Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Mr. Perrott. Mr. Hirst acted the part of hoarse energetic sheep-dog. By means of a few words of caustic Latin he had the animals marshalled, and by inclining a sharp shoulder he lifted the ladies. "What Hewet fails to understand," he remarked, "is that we must break the back of the ascent before midday." He was assisting a young lady, by name Evelyn Murgatroyd, as he spoke. She rose light ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... was in great measure provoked by Lord Cochrane's own fearless conduct. He was reasonably aggrieved at the effort made by the Admiralty authorities to attribute to Lord Gambier, who had taken no part at all in the achievements in Basque Roads, all the merit of their success. To use his own caustic but accurate words, "The only victory gained by Lord Gambier in Basque Roads was that of bringing his ships to anchor there, whilst the enemy's ships were quietly heaving off from the banks on which they had been driven nine miles distant from the fleet." When for this proceeding it was ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... Bishops, and boarding-school misses. Ferdinand Count Fathom will be there, as well as my Lord Ogleby; Lady Bellaston (and Mr. Thomas Jones); Geoffry Wildgoose and Tugwell the cobbler; Lismahago and Tabitha Bramble; the caustic Mrs. Selwyn and the blushing Miss Anville. Be certain, too, that, sooner or later, you will encounter Mrs, Candour and Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite and his uncle, Mr. Crabtree, for this is their main haunt and region—in ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... place, whence arises the caustic condition of his solution, unless it be through the decomposition of the cyanide of potassium which is sometimes added? and if such caustic condition exists, does it not cause a deposition of oxide of silver together with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various

... material especially procured for cartridge-bags is to be carefully inspected to detect any mixture of cotton with the wool, by burning a few bits taken at hazard from each piece; or, by dissolving it in a solution of 1 ounce of caustic potassa in a pint of water—the cloth to be put in when the water is boiling, which is to continue until dissolution takes place. The texture of the stuff is also to be examined and its strength tried, such standard for the latter being established as may be found sufficient ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... Miss Marlowe handed back the "Jessica" essays to her Five A class in English composition. Five A looked glum as they read their marks and the somewhat caustic comments written in their exercise books. Judith flushed as she read: "Neatly and carefully written, Judith, but hardly interesting. You were not asked to give a resume of the play, but a character sketch of Jessica. What do you know about Jessica now that you didn't know before you wrote your essay? ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... all the criticism, even the caustic remarks of Anderson the foreman, because it began to look now very much as if the stubborn, dogged, plodding German were on the road to financial success. He had been through the regular struggles necessary to make his model and get his patent. But he had finally succeeded in all the preliminary ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... and hollow-eyed face, and smiled a withering and commiserating smile. "Ye won't go north this week," he remarked—not without sympathy, for somehow he had taken a liking to me, which even prompted him off and on to favor me with caustic expressions of what he thought of the school board and the leading citizens of the town. I, of course, never encouraged him in his communicativeness which seemed to be just what he would expect, and no rebuff ever goaded him into ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... his mind as soon as he saw them himself. Another philosopher, more prudent, refused to put his eye to the telescope lest he should see them and be convinced. He died shortly afterwards. 'I hope,' said the caustic Galileo, 'that he saw them while ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... looks this morning!" she said, with a charitable wish to change the subject, for Lord Barminster was apt at times to wax caustic over ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... is representative of a large section of the English people. Let us select a passage from one of its leaders. Speaking of the arrogance of the Anglican Church, which, as compared to the Catholic Church, is but a baby, still in long clothes, it gives expression to its views in the following caustic lines. One might almost imagine it were the Tablet or Catholic Times that we are about to quote from, but, nothing of the kind, it is the Nonconformist organ, the Daily News. It writes: "The Anglicans may still persist in patronising the Roman ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... neighbouring village, the news was brought them that a peasant had died of typhus. Three days later Bazaroff came into his father's room and asked him if he had any caustic to burn a cut ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... farina, and grape, or starch sugar. The latter substance is occasionally, for adulterating purposes, added in Europe to cane sugar; it may be detected by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid and of a solution of caustic potassa; the former blackens cane sugar, but does not affect the starch sugar, while potassa darkens the color of starch sugar, but does not alter that of cane sugar. But the copper test is far more delicate. Add ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... "I heard John Randolph (who hated Jefferson) once describe, in his own biting, caustic manner, the delight expressed by him in a new model for the mould-board of ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... edged with Black. No one could be a better Husband than he; no one more attentive and anxious during her last Illness, more than a year long; and, now all is over, I never saw him in better Health or Spirits. Men are not inconsolable for elderly Wives; as Sir Walter Scott, who was not given to caustic Aphorisms, observed ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... free from the coloring matter the product is known as "seed lac." It is then melted and strained and spread out in thin layers in a form called "shell lac." This is what is known as orange shellac in the market. It may be bleached by boiling in caustic potash, and passing 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 ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... that then he suddenly gives him one between the eyes? A blow of the ax on his sinciput (if again I may be permitted to use your ingenious metaphor)? Hah, hah! And do you mean to say that when I spoke to you about quarters provided by the State, that—hah, hah! You are very caustic. But I won't revert to that again. By-and-by!—one remark produces another, one thought attracts another—but you were talking just now of the practice or form in vogue with the examining magistrate. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various



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