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Consonant   Listen
noun
Consonant  n.  An articulate sound which in utterance is usually combined and sounded with an open sound called a vowel; a member of the spoken alphabet other than a vowel; also, a letter or character representing such a sound. Note: Consonants are divided into various classes, as mutes, spirants, sibilants, nasals, semivowels, etc. All of them are sounds uttered through a closer position of the organs than that of a vowel proper, although the most open of them, as the semivowels and nasals, are capable of being used as if vowels, and forming syllables with other closer consonants, as in the English feeble, taken. All the consonants excepting the mutes may be indefinitely, prolonged in utterance without the help of a vowel, and even the mutes may be produced with an aspirate instead of a vocal explosion. Vowels and consonants may be regarded as the two poles in the scale of sounds produced by gradual approximation of the organ, of speech from the most open to the closest positions, the vowel being more open, the consonant closer; but there is a territory between them where the sounds produced partake of the qualities of both. Note: "A consonant is the result of audible friction, squeezing, or stopping of the breath in some part of the mouth (or occasionally of the throath.) The main distinction between vowels and consonants is, that while in the former the mouth configuration merely modifies the vocalized breath, which is therefore an essential element of the vowels, in consonants the narrowing or stopping of the oral passage is the foundation of the sound, and the state of the glottis is something secondary."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Consonant" Quotes from Famous Books



... Sobieski. He had turned to meet Lord Berrington and the ever lively Sophia Egerton (now Mrs. Montresor), who both advanced to him at the same instant, to express their gratulations not only at seeing him again, but in a situation of happy promise, so consonant to his avowed rank ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... their art was lawful and agreeable to God's word; but he did not understand it himself. He did not doubt, however, that the two astrologers feared God, and therefore he had a good opinion of them. Lilly assured him that the art of astrology was quite consonant to the Scriptures; and confidently predicted from his knowledge of the stars, that the parliamentary army would overthrow all its enemies. In Oliver's Protectorate, this quack informs us that he wrote freely enough. He became an Independent, and all the soldiery were his friends. When he went ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... English of England with courtesy and good sense.[Q] He protested against certain transatlantic neologisms, including in his list that excellent old word "to berate," and a word so useful and so eminently consonant with the spirit of the language as "to belittle;" but, whether wise or unwise, his protest was at least civil. Other writers, both in books and periodicals, have been apt to take their tone from the Dean rather than from the Archbishop. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... The interrogation tumbled too eagerly from the soldier's lips to be consonant with his wary assumption of innocence. "There are so many Dukes. Myself, I serve only ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... those who belonged to the cathedral church at Seville, and many persons belonging to the bishopric of Dortois highly approved of the doctrines of AEgidio, which they thought perfectly consonant with true religion, they petitioned the emperor in his behalf. Though the monarch had been educated a Roman catholic, he had too much sense to be a bigot, and therefore sent an immediate order for ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... others he was passing through the Fullers' Bazar at Basrah when his ear was struck by the Dak dak (Arabic letters) and the Dakak-dakak (Arabic letters) of the workmen. In these two onomapoetics we trace the expression which characterises the Arab tongue: all syllables are composed of consonant and vowel, the latter long or short as B and B ; or of a vowelled consonant followed by a consonant as Bal, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... with this last overture in the direction of immediate peace in Cuba and its disappointing reception by Spain the effort of the Executive was brought to an end. I again reviewed the alternative courses of action which had been proposed, concluding that the only one consonant with international policy and compatible with our firm-set historical traditions was intervention as a neutral to stop the war and check the hopeless sacrifice of life, even though that resort involved ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... real voice, for Scripture expressly says, Deut. v:4," God spake with you face to face," i.e. as two men ordinarily interchange ideas through the instrumentality of their two bodies; and therefore it seems more consonant with Holy Writ to suppose that God really did create a voice of some kind with which the Decalogue was revealed. (28) The discrepancy of the two versions is treated of in ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza

... the Commentaries. It is not probable that he actually spoke these words, any more than the Roman generals in Livy made use of the very sentences attributed to them. But the language is thoroughly consonant with Albuquerque's character, and exhibits the aims of his policy so clearly that the oration deserves quotation. The text here selected is that of the Commentaries, which is fuller ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens

... find that no one of the great apes can be positively asserted to be nearest to man in structure. Each of them approaches him in certain characteristics, while in others it is widely removed, giving the idea, so consonant with the theory of evolution as developed by Darwin, that all are derived from a common ancestor, from which the existing anthropoid apes as well as man have diverged. When, however, we turn from the ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... As Burgess says, "Almost every act, word, or gesture of the Negro, not consonant with good taste and good manners as well as good morals, was made a crime or misdemeanor for which he could first be fined by the magistrates and then be consigned to a condition of almost slavery for an indefinite time, if he could not ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... secure in her independence, and would be emancipated from irrelevant European complications. The United States would gain support, which is absolutely essential for the proper pacification of the American continent, and would pay for that support only by an engagement consonant with her interest as a food-exporting power. Great Britain would exchange a costly responsibility for an assurance of food in the one event, which Britons must fear—viz., a general European war with strong maritime ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... the chiefs. He had, in consequence, been expelled from the village, but, in nowise disheartened at this banishment, had betaken himself to the society of the border Indians, and had led a careless, haphazard, vagabond life, perfectly consonant to his humors; heedless of the future, so long as he had wherewithal for the present; and fearing no lack of food, so long as he had the implements of the chase, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... was a member of committees, was neither a real expert in, nor a real lover of, Doing Good. In Doing Good, I think, we have got into bad habits. We try in groups to do good to the individual, whereas, if good is to be done, it would seem more likely, and more consonant with precedent, that the individual might do it to the group. Without the smile of a Treasurer we cannot unloose our purse-strings; without the sanction of a Chairman we have no courage; without Minutes we have no ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... demanded in a line like that which opens ‘Orpheus in Hades,’ where the pause of the line fall upon the. To make the main pause of the line fall upon the is extremely and painfully bad, even when the next word begins with a consonant; but when the word following the begins with a vowel, the line is absolutely immetrical; it has, indeed, no more to do with English prosody than with that prosody of Japan upon which Mr. Basil Chamberlain discourses so pleasantly. On the other hand, the elision ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... a transaction was imputed to this Deity solely; who was represented under the character of Perseus, Dionusus, or Hercules. Hence, instead of one person, we must put a people; and the history will be found consonant ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... for a brother or a sister, one year; and for a grandparent, six months. A maternal or paternal uncle or aunt is entitled to about two months or less, according to the intimacy which has existed between the families. Seclusion from society is generally consonant with mourning for near relatives. However, people now go to the theater and small dinners and teas after nine months of mourning for ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... consonant formed below the vocal cords; its sound is compared by some to a g, by others to a guttural r; in Arabic words adopted into English it is represented by gh (e.g. ghoul), ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith

... instances, is no less common both in Gaelic and the Lowland Scots. Stranger still, that prevalent Polynesian sound, the so-called catch, written with an apostrophe, and often or always the gravestone of a perished consonant, is to be heard in Scotland to this day. When a Scot pronounces water, better, or bottle—wa'er, be'er, or bo'le—the sound is precisely that of the catch; and I think we may go beyond, and say, that if such a population could be isolated, and this mispronunciation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... attention should be called to the fact that the work described, though varied and ingenious, exhibits no characters in execution or design not wholly consonant with the art of a stone-age people. There is nothing superior to or specifically different from the work ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes

... emperor thus assumed was not one which the East alone welcomed. Rome, too, recognised that the East had power to make decrees, so long as they were consonant with apostolic doctrine. ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... power into which Congress have been led by it. With great propriety, therefore, has the new system supplied the defect. The general precaution, that no new States shall be formed, without the concurrence of the federal authority, and that of the States concerned, is consonant to the principles which ought to govern such transactions. The particular precaution against the erection of new States, by the partition of a State without its consent, quiets the jealousy of the larger States; as that of the smaller is ...
— The Federalist Papers

... pleases—there are several dissyllabic names at 'his' service (being already in the Regent's): it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweep-stakes;—a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... little bit intensified by her complete pleasure in her frock. It had come by express from New York, that day, ordered by a picture in a catalogue. The box that held it was adorned with a mammoth scarlet star, and the scheme of decoration of the frock was wholly consonant with the star. Catia had ordered it in hot haste, in deference to a rumour which had drifted to her ears, outstretched in readiness for all such rumours, that, even in that relatively small community, it was the custom to put on low-necked frocks for dinner. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... acquaintance with my cousins, however, neither their own studies nor those of their pupils so far engrossed them as to seclude them from society. Bath was then, at certain seasons, the gayest place of fashionable resort in England; and, little consonant as such a thing would appear at the present day with the prevailing ideas of the life of a teacher, balls, routs, plays, assemblies, the Pump Room, and all the fashionable dissipations of the place, were habitually resorted ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... in the political life of modern England more interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant with Wordsworth's eulogy: ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... which, without it, are rendered exceedingly difficult, nay, impossible, to be understood and received. I shall then conclude with a few arguments to prove that, if the extension of the spirit of Christ's Kingdom be the proper object of the churches' pursuit, these views are as consonant with reason as ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves

... prove a matter of fact, as capable of exact scientific demonstration as any other, that the Consonant and Vowel Elements of Oral Language are, in a radical and important sense, repetitory of, or correspondential with, Musical Tones or the Elements of Music, as well as with Chemical Elements, and these again with the Elements of Numerical Calculation, of Form, or the Science of Morphology, and, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... have ever sought to preserve its character of simplicity. It is their aim that everything should be as primitive as possible, consonant with healthfulness, privacy and comfort. While no sanitary precautions are neglected, and water, hot and cold, is extravagantly provided, with free shower baths, there are none of the frills and furbelows that generally ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... &c. adj.; harmonize, chime, symphonize[obs3], transpose; put in tune, tune, accord, string. Adj. harmonious, harmonical[obs3]; in concord &c. n., in tune, in concert; unisonant[obs3], concentual[obs3], symphonizing[obs3], isotonic, homophonous[obs3], assonant; ariose[obs3], consonant. measured, rhythmical, diatonic[obs3], chromatic, enharmonic[obs3]. melodious, musical; melic[obs3]; tuneful, tunable; sweet, dulcet, canorous[obs3]; mellow, mellifluous; soft, clear, clear as a bell; silvery; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... for endless harangues, so little consonant with the customary gravity and taciturnity of our sage forefathers, was supposed by certain philosophers to have been imbibed, together with divers other barbarous propensities, from their savage neighbors, who were peculiarly noted for long talks and council fires; and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... much rather run the risk of displeasing than of injuring them,—if I am driven to make such an option. You obligingly lament that you are not to have me for your advocate; but if I had been capable of acting as an advocate in opposition to a plan so perfectly consonant to my known principles, and to the opinions I had publicly declared on an hundred occasions, I should only disgrace myself, without supporting, with the smallest degree of credit or effect, the cause you ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... prince does not expect any result. Baron Macchio, General Secretary of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, had received "with icy coldness" the prince's expostulation that the submission by Austria-Hungary of grievances against Serbia without permitting time for their examination was not consonant with international courtesy. The baron replied that one's interests sometimes exempted one from ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... the rhythm happens to make it so. This idea is very fully developed and with great wealth of curious Old English illustrations. Under the designation of "tone-color" he treats very suggestively of rhyme, alliteration, and vowel and consonant distribution, showing how the recurrence of euphonic vowels and consonants secures that rich variety of tone-color which music gives in orchestration. The work thus breaks away from the classic grammarian's tables of trochees and anapaests, and discusses the forms of poetry in the ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... almost superfluous to mention that the appellation "Childe,"[2] as "Childe Waters," "Childe Childers," etc., is used as more consonant with the old structure of versification which I have adopted. The "Good Night" in the beginning of the first Canto, was suggested by Lord Maxwell's "Good Night"[3] in the Border Minstrelsy, edited ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... than to adhere to the strict rules. Men say ex usu and republica, because in the one phrase a vowel followed the preposition, and in the other there would have been great harshness if you had not removed the consonant, as in exegit, edixit, effecit, extulit, edidit. And sometimes the preposition has sustained an alteration, regulated by the first letter of the verb to which it is ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... wonder was to find the differences from the common version so few and small. Still there were some such as gave rise to a feeling far above mere interest—one in particular, the absence of a word that had troubled me, not seeming like a word of our Lord, or consonant with his teaching. I am unaware whether the passage has ever given ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... I mean no offence—not the least; but I tell you I do not come for any purpose that is at all consonant to my wishes. I am a Bow-street officer in the execution of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... the youth, who had determined, as an owner of land, to treat the doctor duly de haut en bas, and had a vague notion that a liberal use of the word "sir" would both help thereto, and be consonant with professional style of duel diplomacy, whereof he had read ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... kept down the price.[404] Yet although wool was being deserted for corn it had in Young's time 'been so long supposed the staple and foundation of all our wealth, that it is somewhat dangerous to hazard an opinion not consonant to ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... See sketch of Pinkney, page 18. The flowing or lilting melody of this and the following songs is quite remarkable. It is traceable to the skillful use of liquid consonants and short vowels, and the avoidance of harsh consonant combinations.] ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... past contributed to the support of her household by bending on hands and knees over her grindstone, or scrubbing floors, and that the former should be less valued by man than the latter—these are suppositions which it is difficult to regard as consonant with any knowledge of human nature and the laws by which it ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... to the subject, having the body of Susanna Crum before my eyes every minute of the time for inspiration, Susanna Crum is what I should have named that maid. Not a vowel could be added, not a consonant omitted. I said so when first I saw her, and weeks of intimate acquaintance only deepened my reverence for the parental genius that had so described her ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... thus become a hindrance instead of a help. This was apparently the case in Greek, for though the early printers cast types for all the contractions of the Greek MSS. these have now with one consent been given up. A consonant like x can only be regarded as an abbreviation; it expresses nothing that cannot as well be expressed by ks or gz, both of which combinations in different situations it may represent (see X). No alphabet corresponds exactly to the ideal which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... many barbarous nations, who procure one necessary with another, but never sell anything; as giving and receiving wine for corn and the like. This sort of barter is not contradictory to nature, nor is it any species of money-getting; but is necessary in procuring that subsistence which is so consonant thereunto. But this barter introduced the use of money, as might be expected; for a convenient place from whence to import what you wanted, or to export what you had a surplus of, being often at a great distance, money necessarily made its way into commerce; for it is not ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle

... the form of narration. Here then is the place to determine whether such a change would or would not be an improvement;—nay (to throw down the glove with a full challenge), whether the tragedy would or not by such an arrangement become more regular,—that is, more consonant with the rules dictated by universal reason, on the true common-sense of mankind, in its application to the particular case. For in all acts of judgment, it can never be too often recollected, and scarcely too often repeated, that ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... that there was still a fund of inclination and resource in the country, equal to great and continued exertions, provided the means were afforded of stopping the progress of disgust by changing the present system and adopting another more consonant with the spirit of the nation, and more capable of infusing activity and energy into public measures, of which a powerful succor in money must be the basis. "The people were discontented, but it was with the feeble and oppressive mode of conducting the war, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as all know, it is tiresome to listen to an indistinct speaker, or read a badly-written manuscript; and if, as we cannot doubt, the fatigue is a cumulative result of the attention needed to catch successive syllables; it follows that attention is in such ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer

... this reference is suggested by strict principles of exegesis, it alone is consonant with historical probability. It is a fact that half a century, or even more, before Melito wrote, the author of the epistle bearing the name of Barnabas quotes as 'Scripture' a passage found in St Matthew's Gospel, ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... he had been a powerful young man, of the most unquestionable determination, and that the raps were always consonant to the character of the spirit when in life. He eagerly turned to identify him. The name was correctly given; the date of his death; the length of time he had existed without food and water, and the clothes he had on when he died. Then ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... the physical geography of the western Himalaya and central Asia, I am indebted to Dr. Thomson. It is more consonant with nature, and with what we know of the geography of the country and of the nature of mountain chains, than that of the illustrious Humboldt, who divides central Asia by four parallel chains, united by two meridional ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... the December evenings in Flanders are long, how long, O Lord!—this Sapper officer demonstrated the skill with which the rhymes are chosen. They are vocalized. Consonant endings would spoil the whole effect. They reiterate O and I, not the O of pain and the Ay of assent, but the O of wonder, of hope, of aspiration; and the I of personal pride, of jealous immortality, ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae

... a praefect, and the exile and murder of a pope. At the end of the campaign, Belisarius was recalled; he complied, as usual, with the Imperial mandate. His mind was not prepared for rebellion: his obedience, however adverse to the dictates of honor, was consonant to the wishes of his heart; and when he embraced his wife, at the command, and perhaps in the presence, of the empress, the tender husband was disposed to forgive or to be forgiven. The bounty of Theodora reserved for her companion a more ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... Pegasean race! whose souls, which thou Inspir'st, mak'st glorious and long-liv'd, as they Cities and realms by thee! thou with thyself Inform me; that I may set forth the shapes, As fancy doth present them. Be thy power Display'd in this brief song. The characters, Vocal and consonant, were five-fold seven. In order each, as they appear'd, I mark'd. Diligite Justitiam, the first, Both verb and noun all blazon'd; and the extreme Qui judicatis terram. In the M. Of the fifth word they held their station, Making the star seem silver streak'd with gold. And on the summit of the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... becoming chief magistrate of this borough, I have rather set my face against these operations. It has seemed to me more consonant. . . . And an operation on the scale you propose could not be conducted without ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... George the First in 1715, when it reappears in the second Charles Calvert, a minor, the grandson of the late Proprietary. This gentleman was the son of Benedict Leonard Calvert, and was educated in the Protestant faith, which his father had adopted as more consonant with the prosperity of the family and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... in the world. If cherished, that will certainly dispense blessings to us. Let not that morality now abandon the Kauravas. Going back to those that are present in that assembly, repeat these my words consonant with morality. I am ready to do what those elderly and virtuous persons conversant with morality will definitely ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... plea that they are not such, because they never professed to be such. Others again, though fewer, can pretend even to these higher points of Christianity, as communion with God, walking after the Spirit, and indeed in this they are more consonant to their profession of Christianity. But, as the apostle saith, there may be a practical lie in it too, if we consider and compare their ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... judging them wholly unwise or uncalled for, but because she believed she could herself accomplish more for their true and high objects, unfettered by such organizations, than if a member of them. The opinions avowed throughout this volume, and wherever expressed, will, then, be found, whether consonant with the reader's or no, in all cases honestly and heartily her own,—the result of her own thought and faith. She never speaks, never did speak, for any clique or sect, but as her individual judgment, her reason and conscience, her observation and experience, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Hayley, in the Essay on Epic Poetry. He has remarked, "that if rhyme does not condense the sense, which passes through its vehicle, it ceases to be good, either as verse or rhyme."[2] This rule is laid down too broadly. His own practice was not always consonant with it, as Hayley's never was. With Darwin's poetry, it is said that he was ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... theory, in the present state of our knowledge; it was proposed by Lavoisier, who imagines the focus of heat, or fireplace to warm the body, to be in the lungs: others, however, have thought it more consonant to facts, to suppose, that, instead of the oxygen uniting with carbon and hydrogen in the lungs, and there giving out its heat, the oxygen is absorbed by the blood, and unites with these substances during the circulation, so that heat is produced ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... to require an elaborate criticism. "Grongar Hill" is the happiest of his productions: it is not indeed very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or experience of mankind, that when it is once read, it will be read again. The idea of the "Ruins of Rome" strikes more, but pleases less, and the title raises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some passages, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... innocence will not suffice, for, upon human testimony, no case is free from possible innocence. Even the more direct evidence of crime may be possibly mistaken. But the doubt required by the law must be consonant with reason and of such a nature that in analogous circumstances it would affect the action of a reasonable creature concerning his own affairs. We may make the nature of such a doubt clearer to the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... more favorably received than those in the vernacular; and as a reason for this belief it was alleged that the earliest languages, however barbarous and strange to classic ears, contained words and names which were somehow more consonant to nature and hence more pleasing to their deities.[121:1] Especial magical efficacy has always been ascribed to certain ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... abominable nonsense, and the mere raving of those blindest of the blind who will not see. The beauty of the contents of a phrase, or of a sentence, depends implicitly upon alliteration and upon assonance. The vowel demands to be repeated; the consonant demands to be repeated; and both cry aloud to be perpetually varied. You may follow the adventures of a letter through any passage that has particularly pleased you; find it, perhaps, denied a while, to tantalise the ear; find it fired again at you in a whole broadside; or find it pass into ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... little grayish-silver cobwebs, and here and there they heard the morning chirp of ground-nesting birds. As they went farther up the hill a hum of voices came from above; the voices of people, men and women, mingled and consonant like the voices of the birds, but with a certain tone of trouble and expectancy. Every now and then one individual voice or another would dominate the general murmur, and would be followed by a quick flutter of sound ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... alone it could be said to be as it was designed to be. Each substance, they taught, could be caused to leave its natural state only by violent, or non-natural, means, and any substance which had been driven from its natural condition by violence was ready, and even eager, to return to the condition consonant ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... and jurisdiction. The cessions of different States having been qualified with a reservation of the right of serving legal process within the ceded jurisdiction are understood to be inconclusive as annexing a qualification not consonant with the terms of the law. I present this circumstance to the view of Congress, that they may judge whether any alteration ought to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any more than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it is more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us it does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom of God. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously styled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one will deny, and it has been discussed ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... that all Departments of the executive branch of the Government and the offices subordinate to them shall manifest due honor for the memory of this eminent citizen, in a manner consonant with the dignity of the office thus made vacant and with the upright character of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... could indicate each letter-sound by a glyph or symbol. On the contrary, he thinks a symbol, probably derived in most cases from an older method of picture writing, was selected because the name or word it represented had as its chief phonetic element a certain consonant sound or syllable. If this consonant element were b, the symbol would be used where b was the prominent consonant element of the word to be indicated, no reference, however, to its original signification being ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas

... would ill become me to neglect the support of lawful authority when it is lodged in such worthy hands as those of Lady Margaret Bellenden. But I must needs say this country grows worse and worse daily, and reduces me to the necessity of taking measures with the recusants that are much more consonant with my duty than with my inclinations. And, speaking of this, I must not forget that I have to thank your ladyship for the hospitality you have been pleased to extend to a party of mine who have brought in a prisoner, charged with having resetted [Note: Resetted, i.e. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... I knew nothing about England, and the Court, and the noble families there; but, led away by the vaingloriousness of youth (and a propensity which I possessed in my early days, but of which I have long since corrected myself, to boast and talk in a manner not altogether consonant with truth), I invented a thousand stories which I told him; described the King and the Ministers to him, said the British Ambassador at Berlin was my uncle, and promised my acquaintance a letter of recommendation ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the representation of the language is Collado's transcription with an i of the palatal consonant which all his contemporaries record with a y. Thus in the text we find iomi and coie (terms for native words and Chinese borrowings) where Rodriguez writes yomi and coye. This change was affected while the text was being translated from the Spanish manuscript ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado

... singing most of these pieces very softly and with an extreme slowness so that in the long-sustained notes the singers were forced to divide their task by some taking up the sound when the others were out of breath. Consonant chords thus presented evidently produced music which was very agreeable to the ear, but unquestionably the author could not recognize his work in such rendering. Quite different was the method of the singers in the Sistine Chapel when I heard them ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... surely ceases when it thus appears that ignorance alone has hastily understood that this vowel, extant in this or that word, with a quite alien meaning and use, (—e.g. for lengthening a foregoing vowel—softening an antecedent consonant,)—or with none, and through the pure casualty of negligence or of error, might at any time be pressed irregularly into metrical service. Assuredly Chaucer never used such blind and wild license of straightening ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... building them of wood, guns and all, over the hulls of other vessels; and that the Germans have done the same thing! What would happen if one of the 'dummy' fleets met the other? Would it be a battle of expletives? Would the German consonant triumph over the English aspirate, and both ships go down in ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Spanish negotiator. Perhaps no other course could have been more effectual in securing success than this obvious indifference to it. In the prevalent condition of public feeling and of his own sentiments Mr. Adams easily assumed towards General Vives a decisive bluntness, not altogether consonant to the habits of diplomacy, and manifested an unchangeable stubbornness which left no room for discussion. His position was simply that Spain might make such a treaty as the United States demanded, or might take (p. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... passing from hand to hand. The first burst of savage wonder had abated, and the question now under discussion was the probable existence, the history and the habits of so extraordinary an animal. We have not leisure to record the opinions of these rude men on a subject so consonant to their lives and experience; but little is hazarded in saying that they were quite as plausible, and far more ingenious, than half the conjectures that precede the demonstrations of science. However much they may have been at fault as to their conclusions and inferences, it is ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... love under the banner of Hymen, the great personages in the north have been making war under the inspiration, or rather under the infatuation, of Mars. Now, for my part, I humbly conceive that you have acted much the best and wisest part; for certainly it is more consonant to all the principles of reason and religion, natural and revealed, to replenish the earth with inhabitants than to depopulate it by killing those already in existence. Besides, it is time for the age of knight-errantry and mad heroism to be at an end. Your young military men, who ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... of a residence in the backwoods convinced Mr. Owen that he was not in the situation most consonant with his feelings. He had been, when in Europe, surrounded by people who regarded him as an oracle, and received his ipse dixit as a sufficient solution for every difficulty. His situation at Harmony ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... bibliographical notes (a volume seldom met with now) the learned William Davis records that Louis Elzevir was the first who observed the distinction between the v consonant and the u vowel, which distinction, however, had been recommended long before by Ramus and other writers, but had never been regarded. There were five of these Elzevirs, viz.: Louis, Bonaventure, Abraham, ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... kingdom toward the continent and certain of the islands that lie between the equator and the Arctic and Antarctic poles, and below the region of the torrid zone itself—to the end that according to right reason and the benign counsels of Christian piety, both at home and abroad as will best seem consonant with the purpose of his royal majesty, you may control the fleet and troops of the Spanish army. Especially too that the most brilliant light of faith may beam upon the populous races that dwell in that region of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... had formerly attacked his doctrine, that no English subject thought proper openly to profess himself his follower, or to open any direct communication with him. Thus the Confession of Augsburg, though more consonant to the notions of the English monarch than any other scheme of protestant doctrine, failed to obtain the sanction of that authority which might have rendered it ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... been less consonant with Selden's mood than Van Alstyne's after-dinner aphorisms, but as long as the latter confined himself to generalities his listener's nerves were in control. Happily Van Alstyne prided himself on his ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... grossness by curtailing. Faux pas are told in such a modest way,— The affair of Colonel B—— with Mrs. A—— You must forgive them—for what is there, say, Which such a pliant Vowel must not grant To such a very pressing Consonant? Or who poetic justice dares dispute, When, mildly melting at a lover's suit, The wife's a Liquid, her good man a Mute? Even in the homelier scenes of honest life, The coarse-spun intercourse of man and wife, Initials I am told ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Englishman, who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognise any effect of the patriot in his constitution." And here Fielding gives us a notable example of his own healthy taste in recreation; a taste agreeing very ill with the scurrilous popular myths concerning him, but entirely consonant with the manifest atmosphere of his genius. He deplores the general neglect of "what seems to me the highest degree of amusement: that is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own"; an amusement which need not "exceed the reach of a moderate fortune, and would fall ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... are, in the vast majority, sincere and loyal Yugoslavs who have certain grievances. They do not believe that Croatia has fared very well since the institution of the new State and it would seem wise to give them as much autonomy as is consonant with the interests of the whole country, for then they will only have themselves to blame if there is no improvement. Maybe they are unduly sensitive, but they were for many years in political warfare with the Magyars and this should be taken into consideration. Even if all the grievances ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... the meeting-house, and preached a sermon in which he maintained that the darkness was supernatural. Congregations came together in many other places. The texts for the extemporaneous sermons were invariably those that seemed to indicate that the darkness was consonant with scriptural prophecy.... The darkness was most dense shortly after eleven o'clock."(485) "In most parts of the country it was so great in the daytime, that the people could not tell the hour by either watch or clock, nor dine, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... gentleman's usually stern and handsome countenance had relaxed, and assumed a bland, sweet expression, which was more consonant with the circumstances in which they were assembled. Before he could utter another word, however, he was interrupted, to ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the distances we assume for the density of the medium, the periodic times will be compounded of those distances and the assumed ratio. Seeing, therefore, that the periodic times of the planets observe the direct ses-plicate ratio of the distances, and that it is consonant to all analogy to suppose the contiguous parts of the vortex to have the same ratio, we find that the density of the ethereal medium in the solar vortex, is directly as the square roots of ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... was necessary to determine the declension of a substantive. There was the weak, or simple declension for words ending in a vowel (as, eage, steorra, tunga), and the strong declension for words ending in a consonant (smidh, spraec, le['a]f). The letters i and u were dealt with as semivowels, semi-vowels being dealt with as consonants; so that words like sunu and gifu belonged to the same declension as smidh ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... think that it would be infinitely more consonant with comfort, convenience, and common sense, if persons obliged to travel during the intense cold of an American winter (in the Northern States), were to clothe themselves according to the exigency of the weather, and so do away with the present deleterious custom of warming ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... Africa, would destroy more idols, make more progress in civilizing the natives, suppress more wars, unite in amity more hostile tribes, and convert more souls to Christ, in ten years, than a colony of twenty-thousand ignorant, uncultivated, selfish emigrants in a century. Such a mission would be consonant with reason and common sense; nor could it fail to receive the approbation of God. How simple was the command of our blessed Saviour to his disciples!—'Go ye forth into all the world, and preach the gospel to ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... prefatory and explanatory notice of the authors; but the question occurs, Would Newby claim it? I could not bear to commit it to any other hands than those of Mr. Smith. Wildfell Hall, it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve. The choice of subject in that work is a mistake: it was too little consonant with the character, tastes, and ideas of the gentle, retiring, inexperienced writer. She wrote it under a strange, conscientious, half-ascetic notion of accomplishing a painful penance and a severe duty. Blameless in deed and almost ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... in reason with the contrary of the other, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary must answer to the remanent opposite to that wherewith it is conferred. As, for example, virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so are good and evil. If one of the contraries of the first kind be consonant to one of those of the second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue is good, so shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice, have the same connection, for ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... honorable opportunity to teach could not be conceived, it had never been his ambition to leave his secluded station in life for one involving public obligations. Even in his secluded corner, he found he had aroused more public attention and sentiment than was altogether consonant with the peace and retirement he sought. Besides, he did not know how well he could fulfill the desires of the Elector by teaching nothing that would ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... this question becomes little more than a conflict between aesthetic preferences. Matter is gross, coarse, crass, muddy; spirit is pure, elevated, noble; and since it is more consonant with the dignity of the universe to give the primacy in it to what appears superior, spirit must be affirmed as the ruling principle. To treat abstract principles as finalities, before which our intellects may come to rest in a state of admiring contemplation, is the great ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... as it is given in all works to which I have had access. It is said to be derived from a word meaning dark, hidden, black, and from the ancient name for Egypt, but to my own mind this is an unsatisfactory explanation, and seeking for another more consonant with the character of the science, I think I have found it in ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear

... only the hopelessly prejudiced who can say, as does John Fiske, that "to regard classic paganism as one of the degraded remnants of a primeval monotheism, is to sin against the canons of a sound inductive philosophy." Sinning against the consonant testimony of universal history is a venial offense, it would seem, when the integrity of this "sound inductive philosophy"—that is, of the Spencerian theory—is at stake. It needs but a glance at the well-known facts of religious history to show the working of ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... 1490, he had passed many years in Italy and had but recently returned to Spain, where he was named royal historiographer by Charles V. During his sojourn in Rome, Sepulveda had published a dialogue entitled Democrates, in which he sought to prove that war was consonant with the doctrines of Christianity: "De convenientia, disciplinae militaris ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... they are borne, Nor whither. I conclude the King a beast; Verily a lion if you will—the world A most obedient beast and fool—myself Half beast and fool as appertaining to it; Altho' your Lordship hath as little of each Cleaving to your original Adam-clay, As may be consonant with mortality. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... to give him, to any extent, at any time, and under all circumstances—proving the sincerity of his assurances on the spot by at once offering several pieces of advice. One of these was, that Will should hasten on the consummation of his wishes without delay. This, as may be believed, was so consonant with Will's own opinion that he accepted it at once, and acted upon it then and there, as far as was possible, by plying whip and spur so vigorously that his steed skimmed over the plain more like a ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne

... a merry guffaw at once, and thus set off the rest, while Slegge waited till they had done before going on with the by no means poor imitation of Singh's manner of speaking and a rather peculiar utterance of the consonant r. ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... for the safety of philosophy, the publication by a clergyman of such a volume as this, with its purpose clearly indicated by its title, will excite some surprise, and certainly should excite discussion. Mr. Bartol contends for open communion, as most consonant with Scripture, with the spirit of Christianity, with the practice of the early Church, with the meaning and purpose of the rite. He denies that the ordinance of the Lord's Supper has any sacredness above prayer, or any of the other ordinances of religion; and while he appreciates and perhaps ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... thus questioned, gave in the midst of that big assemblage of contemplative Munis a full and proper answer in words consonant with their mode ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... syllables. No one of the wedge-using communities made that decisive step in advance of which the honour belongs to the Phoenicians alone. No one of them carried the analysis of language so far as to reduce the syllable to its elements, and to distinguish the consonant, mute by itself, from the vowel upon which it depends, if we may say ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... well a complete state educational system, with subordinate colleges, academies, schools, libraries, museums, athenaeums, botanical gardens, laboratories and "other useful literary and scientific Institutions consonant with the laws of the United States and of Michigan." These the President and the Didactors were to provide for, as well as for Directors, Visitors, Curators, Librarians, Instructors and "Instructrixes" throughout the various counties, ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... that it is, at least, insinuated in the New Testament; that it is unanimously proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church; that it is embodied in all the ancient liturgies of the Oriental and the Western church, and that it is a doctrine alike consonant with our reason and eminently consoling to ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the Middle Ages was a solution of the problem from Scripture, and this solution deserves to be given as an example of a very curious theological error, chancing to result in the establishment of a great truth. The second book of Esdras, which among ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... things of the wo others, in the fulness of their persons and the robustness of their constitutions, seem to bespeak the reversion of a landed estate, rich acres, fat beeves, a substantial mansion, costly clothing, a chine and curkey, choice wines, and all other good things consonant to the wants and full-fed desires of their bodies. Such men charm fortune by the sleekness of their aspects and the goodly rotundity of their honest faces, as the others scare away poverty by their wan, meagre looks. The last starve themselves into riches by care and carking; the first eat, drink, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... in reply to assurances of loyalty from the President of the Arya Samaj, that "what purports to be a society for religious and social reform and advancement may not be twisted from its proper aims" and "degenerate into a political organization with objects which are not consonant with due loyalty to the Government as established." But neither the spirit of Dayanand's own teachings nor the record of many of his disciples, including some of those actually connected with the gurukuls, is in this ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel— than which nothing could be more absurd. Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog, and it was not a letter but a ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... superior state of happiness. But I hope I shall be pardoned if I attempt to give a view in some degree different of the situation of man on earth, which appears to me to be more consistent with the various phenomena of nature which we observe around us and more consonant to our ideas of the power, goodness, and ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... interpretation (a) seems to me far more probable than (c). What could be more consonant with the natural course of the thought, as developed in the lines which follow, than that Macduff, being told to think of revenge, not grief, should answer, 'No one who was himself a father would ask that of me in the very first moment of loss'? ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... apart from a belief in God is an impossibility? Doubtless such is the conviction of great numbers of people, and, it must be confessed, such usage of the word is not consonant with prevalent custom. Still the emotion which Comte experienced for Humanity was such as no other word would adequately express. As Mr. Mill remarks in his chapters on the Positivist ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan



Words linked to "Consonant" :   letter, labiodental consonant, alveolar consonant, labial consonant, agreeable, consonantal, consistent, geminate, harmonized, dental consonant, phone, harmonised, continuant consonant, velar consonant, voiceless consonant, consonance, letter of the alphabet, surd, harmonic, sound, dental, pharyngeal, nasal, affricate consonant, guttural consonant, alphabetic character



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