Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Distinguish   Listen
verb
Distinguish  v. i.  
1.
To make distinctions; to perceive the difference; to exercise discrimination; with between; as, a judge distinguishes between cases apparently similar, but differing in principle.
2.
To become distinguished or distinctive; to make one's self or itself discernible. (R.) "The little embryo... first distinguishes into a little knot."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Distinguish" Quotes from Famous Books



... of voices from the room she had left so hastily soon reached her ears; but though she listened intently, standing close to the door, she was not able to distinguish a word. Once or twice she was sure that she heard the sound of a man's voice. It was nearly a quarter of an hour by her watch—it seemed two hours—before Mrs. Bray's visitor or visitors retired; then there came a light rap on the door. She opened it, and stood ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... Particularly did Blaine distinguish himself in the daring of his stunts. Erwin was hardly behind him. They looped again, they rolled, they did the wing and tail slides, doing the last until they fell almost perpendicularly a thousand feet. Finally they righted hardly two hundred feet above the earth; then ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... excite a new interest on the subject through the community, and in this way—and from its tendency to render the art more generally useful, and to elevate and distinguish it—to make it to all a ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... from new angles. In a carefully written article in "The Theological Monthly," a magazine that he published in collaboration with the learned but crusty Dr. G. A. Rudelbach, he argued that any inquiry concerning the nature of Christianity should distinguish between the questions: What is true Christianity? and Is Christianity True? The first was a historical question, and could be answered only by an examination of the original teachings of Christianity; the second was a ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... their origin. With greater compression of style, and a more natural development of incident, it exhibits the same passion for dealing with legal evidence, and the same acute and comprehensive analysis of character, which distinguish the other writings of the author. He certainly possesses a rare power of clothing the darker emotions of the soul with a life-like naturalness, and depicting the excesses of stern and sullen passion in colors that are no less abhorrent ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... noticed the taste of Mr. Moore for music. "Nor has he neglected those more solid attainments which should ever distinguish the well-bred gentleman, for he is an excellent general scholar, and particularly well-read in the literature of the middle ages. His conversational powers are great, and his modest and unassuming manners have placed him in the highest rank of cultivated society." Although his reputation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 12, No. 349, Supplement to Volume 12. • Various

... who haven't ability enough to play the old game the old way, so they want to put on a new game which doesn't take so much brains and gives away more advertising that's what your anti-saloon league and vice commission amounts to. They provide notoriety for the fellows who can't distinguish themselves at running a business or practicing law or developing an industry. Here you have a mediocre lawyer with no brains and no practice, trying to get a look-in on something. He comes up with the novel proposition that the prostitute has a hard time of it, puts ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... for I'm nothing of the kind. Conceited, if you like, or rather if your natural politeness insists on saying it, and cannot distinguish between the vanity of a puppy and the self-consciousness of real power; but come, tell me of something pleasanter than all this personal discussion—how did mademoiselle convey her tidings? have you seen her note? was it "transport"? was it ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... lightly and gracefully to the special interest he could not but feel, in his private capacity, in any honour which tended yet more highly to distinguish a family with which he trusted his own might at no distant day be allied, he told the Marchese that it was probable that nothing would be done in the matter till ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... for the harmonious concurrence of motions and processes that distinguish living animals, a MATTER OF LIFE has been supposed, and its nature conjectured to be some modification[2] of electricity or galvanism, and which being unsupported, is not deserving of further comment. ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam

... country. For this accursed water changes their countenance, and washes away from them every relic of goodness, every semblance of hope and of comfort." And, indeed, on gazing upon the host after it had come through, I could distinguish no difference in deformity between the devils and the damned. Some of the latter would fain have sculked at the bottom of the river, and have lain there to all eternity, in a state of strangulation, lest they should get a worse bed father on; but here the proverb was verified, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... race with the text. The precise amount of Brandt's workmanship in them has not been ascertained, but it is agreed that "most of them, if not actually drawn, were at least suggested by him." Zarncke remarks regarding their artistic worth, "not all of the cuts are of equal value. One can easily distinguish five different workers, and more practised eyes would probably be able to increase the number. In some one can see how the outlines, heads, hands, and other principal parts are cut with the fine stroke of the master, and the details and shading left to the scholars. The woodcuts ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... easily and effectively avert his blows, and counteract his baleful influence. This gave the clergy the front in the battle against the hosts of Belial. They were proud of the position, and were stimulated to distinguish themselves in the conflict. Cotton Mather represents that ministers were honored by the special hostility of the great enemy of souls, "more dogged by the Devil than any other men," just as, according to his philosophy, the lightning struck the steeples ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... present no such perplexing gradations may be of older date and may have been losing species and varieties by extinction. In this case, the annihilation of intermediate forms which once existed makes it an easy task to distinguish those ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... cultivated rhetoric as an art, to compose epistles and harangues in the names of eminent men. Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with such exquisite taste and skill that it is the highest achievement of criticism to distinguish them from originals. Others are so feebly and rudely executed that they can hardly impose on an intelligent schoolboy. The best specimen which has come down to us is perhaps the oration for Marcellus, such an imitation ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... among European traders in India were the English; for not only were the greater number of pirates of English blood, but pirate captains of other nationalities often sailed under English colours. The native officials, unable to distinguish the rogues from the honest traders, held the East India Company's servants responsible for the misdeeds of the piccaroons, from whom they suffered so grievously. Still, whatever their nationality might chance to be, it is fair to say that ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... manner, and one could almost take a corporal oath on the identity of illuminations and panels which are really the work of different artists. Even yet the illuminations of the Grimani Breviary are attributed in part to Hans Memling—and no wonder! Only the best qualified judges can distinguish them. It is known that Gerard David of Oudewater, in Holland, a master painter, belonged also to the gild of miniaturists. But no miniatures are known to be from the hands of either Ian, or Hubert, or Marguerite ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... water in motion, and the air-bubbles being driven off by the heat. As the water gets hotter, other bubbles appear, rising from the bottom of the tube. They go up for a little way, and then they shrink, and by the time they get to the top of the water, you can hardly distinguish them. These are bubbles of steam, and they get smaller as they rise, because at first the water is colder above than below, in proportion to the distance from the flame, and the cold gradually condenses the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... suddenly I heard, in that room above me, some stranger talking in a harsh determined tone. Then came the captain's answering voice, calmer, more dignified. This conversation went along for some time, growing each moment more excited. Though I could not distinguish a word of it, I had the uncomfortable feeling that there was a controversy on; and I remember feeling annoyed that any one should thus interfere with my composition of your letter, which I regarded as most ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... said the earl. "The lad, as I have told your majesty, is a connection of mine—distant it is true, but one of the nearest I have—and it will give me the greatest pleasure to see him rising so rapidly, and on a fair way to distinguish himself so highly. I feel already as proud of him as if he were my ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... a Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Paris, had taken the name of his estate at Marville to distinguish himself from his father ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... His Word of Truth. Now Truth is the opposite of Falsehood; whence then arose Falsehood with its opposition unto Truth, and how cometh it to be possible that it should be confounded therewith and become doubtful to human beings, so that they need to distinguish between the twain? And cloth the Creator (to whom belong Might and Majesty!) love Falsehood or hate it? An thou say He loveth Truth and by it created all things and abhorreth Falsehood, how came the False, which the Creator hateth, to invade ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... friars, with Boil at their head, who, with Moren Pedro de Margarit, the strategist, respectively represented the religious and military powers; there was Roldan, another insubordinate, the first alcalde of the Espanola; there were Alonzo de Ojeda and Guevara, true knights-errant, who were soon to distinguish themselves: the first by the capture of the chief Caonabo, the second by his romantic love-affair with Higuemota, the daughter of the chiefess Anacaona. There was Adrian Mojica, destined shortly to be hanged on the ramparts of Fort Concepcion ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... trail with more intense eagerness than poor Jarwin followed the track of his lost companion. He even began to develop, in quite a surprising way, some of the deep sagacity of the savage; for he came, before that day was over, not only to distinguish the prints of Cuffy's paws on pretty hard sand, where the impressions were very faint, but even on rough ground, where there were no distinct marks at all—only such indications as were afforded by the pressure of a dead leaf into soft ground, or ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne

... once more came a sad, despairing human cry as of a lost child. I sat bolt upright and looked about me, and even then, whilst I stared, the cry came again, and from the sea. "Is it possible there is a child down by the waves?" I thought, and I tried to distinguish some little human shape in the darkness that seemed hastening on the shoulders of the incoming waves. There came a terrible wail and another silence. I dared not go and search, but I lay and shuddered and felt terribly lonely. The waves followed one another ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... the Mahomet Ali mosque and its columns and its carpets and had taken their guide's and their guidebook's word that it was an inferior structure although so amazingly effective from below; they had looked studiously down upon the city and tried to distinguish its minarets and towers and ancient gates, they had viewed with proper quizzicalness the imprint in the stone parapet of the hoof of that blindfolded horse which the last of the Mamelukes, cornered and betrayed, had spurred from ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... vehement attack upon the writer of these "Impressions" had its effect at the time. In some minds a belief in the truth of that attack lingered long afterwards—but not in the minds of those who could distinguish between honest conviction, based upon actual knowledge, and pre-conceived opinions, based upon hearsay and a superficial acquaintance with ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... perception, if we understand its truthfulness; it will be a question for reawakening it, of placing ourselves mentally in the environment where it was produced, and of awakening the memory, so as to be able to distinguish, without mistake, the limits within which it ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... to justifie all the Relations that have been given of this Animal, even by Authors of reputed Credit; but, as far as I can, to distinguish Truth from Fable; and herein, if what I assert amounts to a Probability, 'tis all I pretend to. I shall accordingly endeavour to make it appear, that not only the Pygmies of the Ancients, but also the Cynocephali, and Satyrs and ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... with this for a base-line, measure the angles of the same stars: it is the same angle. Sitting in my study here, I glance out of the window and discern separate bricks, in houses five hundred feet away, with my unaided eye; they subtend a discernible angle. But one thousand feet away I cannot distinguish individual bricks; their width, being only two inches, does not subtend an angle apprehensible to my vision. So at these distant stars the earth's enormous orbit, if lying like a blazing ring in space, with the world set on its edge like a pearl, and the sun ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... confidences of boyhood for my own pleasure. If I were to continue them into manhood I could not find nor distinguish myself. It would be like emerging suddenly from solitude into a crowd. The bright days of childhood easily separate themselves from all later time, and are painted with the free pencil of the imagination. I have now come almost to the wide gateways of the world where I must join the indistinguishable ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... call from June again drew her to a loophole. The latter then pointed out the body of Jennie seemingly standing in the door of a hut, leaning forward as if to look at the group of men, her cap fluttering in the wind, and her hand grasping a broom. The distance was too great to distinguish the features very accurately; but Mabel fancied that the jaw had been depressed, as if to distort the mouth into a ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... In the first place, many of them were not children, and, in the second place, the Misses Ponsonby held that even walking to church was a thing to be taught, and they desired to turn out their pupils so that they might distinguish themselves in this art also as well-bred people. It was one of the points on which the Misses Ponsonby grew even eloquent. How, they said, are girls to learn to carry themselves properly if they march in couples? They will not do it when they leave the Limes, ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... besides, the others were coming up the walk, and, partly because there were tears in her eyes, and partly because she shrunk nervously from the excessive friendliness with which it seemed to be Mrs Grove's intention on the occasion to distinguish her, she turned, hoping to escape. She did not succeed, however, and stood still at the door, knowing very well what would be Mrs Grove's ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... half-written history in the sad face of Leah Mordecai, the fourth maiden standing pictured against the stone under the archway. She was of the unmistakable Jewish type, possessing the contour of face, the lustrous eye, the massive crown of hair, that so often distinguish and beautify the Hebrew maiden, wheresoever the sun may rise ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... about eight, we pulled into Kiev. Our train was so long that we had some distance to walk before reaching the station. As we approached, I saw a crowd of people being driven into baggage cars. I was so tired and confused by the journey that I didn't distinguish who they were at first. When I got close to them, I saw that they were thin-faced Jews in clothes too big for them. The men looked about them with quick, furtive movements, a bewildered, frightened look in their dark eyes. The women held ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... dusk. The day had faded until he could barely distinguish place for his feet. The purple darkness was filled with men who lectured and jabbered. Sometimes he could see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky. There seemed to be a great ruck of men and munitions spread about in the forest and in ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... at the outpost was very early in the morning; so early that it was impossible to distinguish a man from a high stump at a distance of 100 feet. The lay of the land was new to me; I hadn't the slightest idea of the contour of a foot of the ground to be covered by my company. After getting my men properly stationed along the line, guarding ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves

... Notwithstanding, however, the defective manner in which the generality of the merchants act, some already are beginning to distinguish themselves by the prudence of their conduct, by forwarding, in time, their orders to the manufacturers of India and China, and, in other respects guiding themselves by the principles which characterize the intelligent merchant. Finally, it is to be presumed that, as soon ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... process of fusion which was already going on. From the first moment of his settlement in the Danelaw the northman had been passing into an Englishman. The settlers were few; they were scattered among a large population; in tongue, in manner, in institutions there was little to distinguish them from the men among whom they dwelt. Moreover their national temper helped on the process of assimilation. Even in France, where difference of language and difference of custom seemed to interpose an impassable ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... watch her was sealed in sleep, and then in those dark habiliments which (even as might sometimes happen, if the victim herself were awake) a chance ray of light struggling through chink or shutter could scarcely distinguish from the general gloom, did she steal to the chamber and infuse the colourless and tasteless liquid [The celebrated acqua di Tufania (Tufania water) was wholly without taste or colour] in the morning draught, meant to ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "gentleman" are distinctive. Your friends and acquaintances are all supposed to be ladies and gentlemen. To distinguish them as such implies a doubt. Should you call at a house you ask if the "ladies" are in, so as to distinguish them from the other females in the household. You also toast the "ladies." In referring ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... which were of the vocabulary of the uneducated. Indeed, she had had no inclination to use them, for her father had set her a good example, and she liked to hear good English spoken. That was why Crozier's talk had been like music to her; and she had been keen to distinguish between the rhetorical method of Augustus Burlingame, who modelled himself on the orators of all the continents, and was what might be called a synthetic elocutionist. Kitty was as simple and natural as a girl could be, and as a rule had herself in perfect command; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... hopes. When I gazed toward the sea I could see nothing but sky and water; but looking over the land, I beheld something white; and coming down, I took what provision I had left and went toward it, the distance being so great that I could not distinguish what it was. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... overtake them. Now and then we caught a glimpse of them, at the further end of a long stretch, skirting the bushes, or stooping behind the cover, to reconnoitre the road in advance. To our chagrin, it was clear moonlight, and we could distinguish their forms at a great distance. We should have preferred ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... unconsciously a mental attitude of suzerainty over even the glittering waters of the Caribbean Sea, and the coral reefs under the waters, and the rainbow skies that floated above them. But on this particular morning not even the critical eye of the Governor could distinguish a single flaw in the tropical landscape ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... whether the knowledge contained in the books was of value or not he somehow managed for eight years to hold his opponents at bay and ultimately to win. At Cambridge, July tenth, he spends three shillings and four pence for a "Ribbon to distinguish myself," that is to show his position as commander; also L1.2.6 for "a pair of Breeches for Will," ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... wholly Lionardesque loveliness, whose divine innocence of adolescence, unalloyed by serious thought, unstirred by passions, almost forces a comparison with Sodoma. The only painter who approaches Luini in what may be called the Lombard, to distinguish it from the Venetian idyll, is Sodoma; and the work of his which comes nearest to Luini's masterpieces is the legend of S. Benedict, at Monte Oliveto, near Siena. Yet Sodoma had not all Luini's innocence or naivete. If ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... Bourdonnais, brought the principal inhabitants of Madras to Pondicherry. But some of them contrived to escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service, and soon found occasion to distinguish himself. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... who was in the habit of being present, almost daily, in the Irish House of Commons, and who took critical notice of the remarkable men of his time, states that the Duke never made any striking impression as a speaker; indeed; there was nothing whatever to distinguish him from the herd of young parliamentary nominees, except a certain simple, straightforward, firm, though unassuming statement of his opinions; and even this took place but seldom. The recollection of this gentleman confirms the account of Sir Jonah Barrington, ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... often, while lying in wait for wild pigeons, you will observe the advent of one or two tame ones, or even a flock from some neighbouring farmyard, and, as some of these pigeons are almost certain to closely resemble the wild stock dove (Columba oenas, 1.), some little discrimination is required to distinguish ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... own servants. There was an express contract between the parties; they could, most of them, demand their discharge, if they were ill used by their respective masters; and they were treated therefore with more humanity than those, whom we usually distinguish in our language by ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... return to the stage, might, I fear, completely break down my courage. I am glad for this reason that I am to come out at Manchester, where I know nobody, and not in London, where, although I might not distinguish them, I should know that not a few who cared for me, and were sorry for me, were among my spectators. I am now so little able to resist the slightest appeal to my feelings that, at the play (to which I have been twice lately), the mere sound of human voices simulating distress has ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... left the graveyard the shades of evening had fallen, and the objects around me grown dim and indistinct. As I passed the gateway, I turned to take a parting look. I could distinguish only the chapel on the summit of the hill, and here and there a lofty obelisk of snow-white marble, rising from the black and heavy mass of foliage around, and pointing upward to the gleam of the departed sun, that still lingered ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... with those who were desirous of reuniting Christians[653]. The method he proposed was to distinguish fundamental points from such as were not, and leave men at liberty to believe or disbelieve the latter. He communicated his project to Casaubon, who highly approved it: but how shall men settle what articles are fundamental? This question is a source of endless ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... of us, those deceiving, ruinous masters, those false gods that can lead us away from the one true Shepherd of our souls? It is, indeed, a curious fact that our deception is so easy. Surely a rational, intelligent being, who stops to consider, ought easily to distinguish between the great God of Heaven and the creatures of His hands. It ought not to be difficult for us to see the transient vanity of human things when compared with the eternal mansions. But the truth of the matter is, that we are ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth: as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to discern resemblances in things (the main point), and yet steady enough to distinguish the subtle differences in them; as being endowed with zeal to seek, patience to doubt, love of meditation, slowness of assertion, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to arrange and set in order; and as being a man that affects not the new nor admires the old, but hates all imposture. So ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... a scene. Amid the throng of a London street we distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics to attract careless observers, yet bearing in his whole aspect the handwriting of no common fate for such as have the skill to read it. He is meagre; his low and narrow forehead is deeply wrinkled; ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... argumentative in the highest degree. So while it is well to classify the selections read, yet fine theoretical distinctions should be abandoned. It is not so necessary to classify and name as it is to compare and distinguish. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... the discussion between myself and Miss Onslow. I listened for a reply from O'Gorman, but there was none; and presently the hailing was repeated—this time from a much nearer point—and immediately followed by an excited shouting and jabbering, in which I believed I could distinguish a word or two of French. I sprang to my feet, and was about to rush up on deck, when Miss Onslow checked the movement by laying her hand upon my arm, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... even the voice of one section. We have seen the same individual coming three times a week to demand something in the name of sovereignty." (Shouts of down! down! in the galleries.) Ibid., 208, session of July 21. M. Dumolard: "You must distinguish between the people of Paris and these subaltern intriguers... these habitual oracles of the cafes and public squares, whose equivocal existence has for a long time occupied the attention and claimed the supervision of the police." (Down with the speaker! murmurs and hooting in the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... young person. She wore on her head only a close white cap; and her gray gown was straight and scant: on her arm she carried a basket of scarlet plaited straw, which made a fine bit of color against the gray and white of her costume. It was just growing dusk, and the doctor could not distinguish her features. At that moment, a lad came running from the inn, and darted across the road, calling aloud, "Tantibba! Tantibba!" The woman turned her head, at the name, and waited till the lad came to her. Dr. Eben stood still, watching them. "So ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... Thorne, in the deep obscurity of the trees, listened, moving near to the dusky, trunk of an old magnolia; he was in no mood for passing civilities, and in this friendly country all wayfarers exchanged greetings. In the sound of the advancing steps, he could distinguish an unmistakable shuffle which proclaimed race—two negroes returning from the little village, beyond Shirley, whither they had gone to make Christmas purchases. They walked by the light of a flaring pine knot, which was ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... difference between picric acid and trinitrotoluene, than which a pleasanter topic for the luncheon table could hardly be selected, and the voice of Clarence Renshaw rose above all other competing noises, as he spoke of the functions of the trochaic spondee. There was nothing outwardly to distinguish this meal from any other which she had shared of late in ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... colonel, Butler, may be imagined. He was accompanied by another white man, probably one of his officers, and several Indians, and he was talking more freely. In the stillness of the summer night, while they were so close at hand, it was as easy to distinguish every word uttered as if the speech was intended for the ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... informs us that the Greek Anaxagoras was the first to enunciate the doctrine that [GREEK: nous],—Understanding in general, or Reason, governs the world. It is not intelligence as self-conscious Reason—not a spirit as such that is meant; and we must clearly distinguish these from each other. The movement of the solar system takes place according to unchangeable laws. These laws are Reason, implicit in the phenomena in question; but neither the sun nor the planets which revolve ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Can he be ignorant that a Catholic bishop is always the same, whether in his see or in the catacombs, and that his character is ineffaceable? Let it not be said that in raising our voice against such misdeeds we encourage the European revolution. We can distinguish between the socialist revolution and the legitimate rights of a nation struggling for independence and its religion. In stigmatizing the persecutors of the Catholic religion, we fulfil a duty laid on us by our conscience. It behooves us to pray, with renewed earnestness, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... galloped. Behind and mixed up with them were the vilderbeeste, who twisted and turned, and jumped into the air as though they had gone clean off their heads and were next second going clean on to them. It is very difficult, owing to his extraordinary method of progression, to distinguish one part of a galloping vilderbeeste from another; now it is his horns, now his tail, and now his hoofs that present themselves to the watcher's bewildered vision, and now again they all seem to be mixed up together. On came the great herd, making the ground shake beneath their footfall: ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... In order to distinguish between these two classes of migration, I call this latter one "Inter-migration," and desire the term to stand for a change of habitation occurring within the boundaries of a land that is ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... peaks of Hermon and the rills that watered it were fed from his snow-fields. It was inhabited by Druses, but no men were to be seen, except a few poor husbandmen, ploughing on the mountain-sides. The women, wearing those enormous horns on their heads which distinguish them from the Mohammedan females, were washing at a pool below. We crossed the valley, and slowly ascended the height on the opposite side, taking care to keep with the baggage-mules. Up to this ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... portions of the body, notably the udder and teats, and, characteristically, the hoof, together with the absence of rapid spread to practically all cattle in the herd and the complete negative character of inoculation of calves, distinguish between the local disease named and foot-and-mouth disease. Mycotic stomatitis occurs in only from 10 to 50 per cent of the animals in a herd, usually in the late summer or early fall after a dry spell, and it does ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... and, beyond this, is acquainted with every earth in which foxes have had their nurseries, or are likely to locate them. He remembers the drains on the different farms in which the hunted animal may possible take refuge, and has a memory even for rabbit-holes. His eye becomes accustomed to distinguish the form of a moving horseman over half-a-dozen fields; and let him see but a cap of any leading man, and he will know which way to turn himself. His knowledge of the country is correct to a marvel. While the man who rides straight is altogether ignorant of his whereabouts, and will ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... where he knew his brother must come. The whole day passed in tedious watching, and the night was far spent without any tidings of him. About midnight he saw several large canoes making their way over to the west bank of the river, in one of which he imagined that he could distinguish his brother. He observed them soon after landing, and saw by the fires which they made, that they had encamped under some mangrove trees. All his fears and apprehensions vanished in an instant, and he was overjoyed ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... have been inserted in some copies of the "Saxon Chronicle" so early as the tenth century; to distinguish the "old" church or minster at Winchester from the "new", consecrated ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... more wildly than its wont, were colorless, but there was nothing sallow or sickly, nothing of that which is ordinarily understood by the word pallid, in their clear, warm, transparent purity; nothing, in a word, of that lividness which the French, with more accuracy than we, distinguish from the healthful paleness which is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... good reason said "that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying." I know very well that the grammarians—[Nigidius, Aulus Gellius, xi. ii; Nonius, v. 80.]— distinguish betwixt an untruth and a lie, and say that to tell an untruth is to tell a thing that is false, but that we ourselves believe to be true; and that the definition of the word to lie in Latin, from which our French is taken, is to tell a thing which we know in our conscience to be untrue; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the young heiress had been trained to adorn her future station; to appreciate the arts and elegances that distinguish (no matter what the rank) the refined from the low, better than if she had been brought up under the hundred-handed Briareus of fashionable education. Lady Vargrave, indeed, like most persons of modest pretensions and imperfect cultivation, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... danger, and passing the Cape, we steered across Princess Charlotte Bay, keeping wide to the southward of the reefs fronting it, in order that we might the more easily distinguish them; the sun at that time of the day being in the direction of the ship's head. The soundings gradually decreased with a soft muddy bottom, as we approached the eastern shores of the bay; which is so large and free from shoals, that a vessel not wishing to anchor might pass the night standing ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... animals, though he sometimes surpassed him in the finish and the harmony of his decorative arrangements of dead game and still life. Accordingly the one usually painted dead and the latter live birds. In other respects there is not much to distinguish their works. ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... definition of our science would distinguish it from other sciences, especially from those neighboring sciences with which it ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... the officer admitted. "There are scores of these little rills about. They make their way down from the bogs at the top of the hills, and there is nothing to distinguish one from the other." ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... moved away from the edge of the schooner, and drew near the base of the foremast, which offered better concealment. He was now but a few feet from the forecastle scuttle and could see it outlined by a dim pencilling of light. Voices reached him, but he was not able to distinguish any words. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... because quizzing is the fashion, I wish they would devise something new. This locking-up is so stale a jest. To be sure it has lately to boast the authority of high rank in successful practice: but these bungling imitators never distinguish between cases the most dissimilar imaginable. Silly creatures! We have only ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... little past ten o'clock, the Minerve frigate made the signal for twenty sail in the south-west quarter; and, a few minutes after, of eight sail in the south by west. Half an hour afterwards, the Bonne Citoyenne made the signal that she could distinguish sixteen—and, immediately afterwards, twenty-five—of the strange ships, to be of the line. The enemy's fleet were, indeed, now become visible to all ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... creature; but so astonished and fascinated was I by this sudden appearance and matchless beauty, that not till I had caught the last glimpse of him, as he disappeared over a knoll, did I awake to my duty as a sportsman, and realize what an opportunity to distinguish myself I had unconsciously let slip. I clutched my gun, half angrily, as if it was to blame, and went home out of humor with myself and all fox-kind. But I have since thought better of the experience, and concluded that I bagged the game after all, the best part of it, and fleeced ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... Cathedral of Chester. The expense of the ceremony was little less than ten thousand pounds a year, and would have been much greater but for the vigilance of the royal surgeons, whose business it was to examine the applicants, and to distinguish those who came for the cure from those who came ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Corona's rest. But Corona rose and groped her way to the window, which she opened as noiselessly as she could. Heavy iron bars were built into the wall upon the outside, and she grasped the cold iron with a sense of relief as she looked out at the quiet stars, and tried to distinguish the trees which, as she knew, were planted on the other side of the desolate grass-grown square, along the old wall that stood there, at that time, like a fortification between the Termini and the distant city. Below the window the sentry ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... had the honour to preside over a meeting of the Institution which again brings us together, I took occasion to remark upon a certain superabundance of public speaking which seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require very little self-denial on my part to practise now what I preached then; firstly, because I said my little say that night; and secondly, because we have definite and highly interesting action before us to-night. ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... air was clear, it was impossible to distinguish the faces of those wayfarers. They stood in the shadow of two immense statues of the cow-headed divinity which guarded the entrance to the temple and with kindly eyes protected the province of Habu from pestilence, southern winds, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... the ear is of the greatest importance. Endeavor early to distinguish each tone and key. Find out the exact tone sounded by the bell, the glass, ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper

... road which ran parallel with the river, we soon got beyond the sounds of the strife; but on looking round I saw a bright light suddenly appear in the direction of the chateau. It increased in size. Another and another appeared; and I could distinguish the flames bursting out from several windows. Could the mob so soon have broken into the chateau, and set it on fire? I feared the worst, and that my gallant friend and his servants had been overwhelmed, and too probably massacred. I felt thankful, however, that Madame La Touche and Sophie had escaped ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... after, I, with little Arthur and Rachel, went to Staningley, my dear old home, which, as well as my dear old friends its inhabitants, I saw again with mingled feelings of pleasure and pain so intimately blended that I could scarcely distinguish the one from the other, or tell to which to attribute the various tears, and smiles, and sighs awakened by those old familiar ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... distinguish what we were saying," answered Ned, as the two drew back farther between the steel bases ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin

... Washington, and no man ever deserved his fame more. All the success that ever came to him was won by hard work. He succeeded because he was the kind of man that he was, and not in the least because he had "a good chance" to distinguish himself. He never owed anything to "good luck," nor even to a special education in the business of a soldier. Some men are called great because they have succeeded in doing great things; but he succeeded in doing great things because ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... Margaret's slight figure swept ahead with a skill and assurance that the taller one did not show. "I guess," mused the blacksmith's wife, "that life on the Isthmus of Panama don't fit a man much to distinguish himself on those things." Nevertheless, the man tramped laboriously behind the woman until the two were halted by a fence, now visible through the sunken drift. They faced each other, and were evidently discussing mirthfully how the obstacle ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... they distinguish themselves according to their Qualities. They never Marry beneath their rank. In case a Man lyes with a Woman of inferior rank. Their Noble men. How distinguished from others. The distinction by Caps. Of the Hondrews or Noble men two forts. An Honour like Unto Knighthood. Goldsmiths, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... head for nearly half an hour, rubbing the dust from my eyes; and waiting until the simoom might settle away. At length the atmosphere grew clearer, and I could see the sky; but the sand still drifted along the ridges, and I could not distinguish the surface of the plain. There were ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... long lines running parallel as far as he could distinguish on either hand. He found that they were of iron or steel and rested on wooden supporters, half buried in ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... and crisp lay the path, chequered by the dark defined shadows of the trees; above was the sky, pearly with moonlight, allowing only a few larger stars to appear, and one glorious planet. Fascinated by the silent beauty, she stood gazing, wishing she could distinguish Jupiter's moons, observing on the difference between his steady reflected brilliance and the sun-like glories of Arcturus and Aldebaran, and passing on to the moral Miss Charlecote loved, of the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... place in the world of philology are well defined. In Slang, however, we have a veritable Proteus, ever shifting, and for the most part defying exact definition and orderly derivation. Few, save scholars and such-like folk, even distinguish between the two, though the line of demarcation is ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... after the Ladybrig murder, our fancies and the wind together played Eleanor and me sad tricks. When once we began to listen we seemed to hear a whole tragedy going on close outside. We could distinguish footsteps and voices through the bluster, and then a struggle in the shrubbery, and a thud, and a groan, and then a roar of wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps—and then an awful pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded body falling ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... queen, all beautiful in woe. 'Twas where Maeonia spreads her wide domain Niobe dwelt, and held her potent reign: See in her hand the regal sceptre shine, The wealthy heir of Tantalus divine, He most distinguish'd by Dodonean Jove, To approach the tables of the gods above: Her grandsire Atlas, who with mighty pains Th' ethereal axis on his neck sustains: Her other grandsire on the throne on high Rolls the loud-pealing thunder thro' the sky. Her spouse, Amphion, who from Jove too springs, Divinely ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... the regions of my brain, Where my soul sits, doth spread such beams of grace, As now, methinks, I do distinguish plain Each subtle line of her ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... bell Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell. But when its sound was mingled With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian, The Baptist and the Congregational, I could no longer distinguish it, Nor any one from the others, or either of them. And as many voices called to me in life Marvel not that I could not tell The true from the false, Nor even, at last, the voice that I should ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... being made of an abode and that which abides, and on account of the co-ordination expressed in the passage, 'Brahman is all' (Mu. Up. II, 2, 11), a suspicion might arise that Brahman is of a manifold variegated nature, just as in the case of a tree consisting of different parts we distinguish branches, stem, and root. In order to remove this suspicion the text declares (in the passage under discussion), 'Know him alone as the Self.' The sense of which is: The Self is not to be known as ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... opportunity of showing his abilities. These favourable accidents happen to many men who are not able to make use of them, and thus the general complaint is preferred of want of good fortune, or of opportunity for talents to distinguish themselves. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... barn, and preparing it for market, the first step toward which is to strip the leaves from the stalk and then carefully separate those of an inferior from those of a superior quality. Although there are many grades, the negroes are able to distinguish them at a glance and assort them accordingly. They are not engaged in this work of selection continuously from day to day, but at intervals, for they can handle the tobacco only when the weather is damp enough to moisten the leaf, otherwise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... Administration of Justice, the Politicks of the Rulers, and the Circumstances of the People. Those who imagine, that the Heathens were encouraged and led to criminal Pleasures by the bad Examples of the Deities they worship'd, seem not to distinguish between the Appetites themselves, the strong Passions in our Nature, that prompt Men to Vices, and the Excuses they make for committing them. If the Laws and Government, the Administration of Justice, and the Care of the Magistrates ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville

... replied, "if I could satisfy myself that there was no fact in the jest; but, indeed, in this world, Miss Goodwin, it is very difficult to distinguish jest from earnest." ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... phrase formerly used to distinguish those States in which slavery was not allowed, as distinguished from Slave States, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... full of terror. Never before had such screams been heard at Camp Wau-Wau. Off in the camp a bell was being frantically rung. A general alarm was being sounded. Guardians clad in kimonos and bathrobes were running toward Tommy and the tree that was holding her prisoner. Camp Girls eager to distinguish themselves and earn a bead for their bravery were not far behind the guardians, with promise of outdistancing the latter if the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... this first to catch a person when he passes a window. This shows that they are susceptible to the amount of light, as well as that a thick wall is a greater obstacle than a pane of glass. They thus too may partly distinguish environment, though this is perhaps learned ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris

... mine. The musicians, dressed in long-haired Usoga goat-skins, were now ordered to strike up, which they did, with their bodies swaying or dancing like bears in a fair. Different drums were then beat, and I was asked if I could distinguish their ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... his long black dressing-gown, and with his old silk cap in his hand. The servant then withdrew. The day was just closing. Hardy rose to meet Rodin, whose features he did not at first distinguish. But as the reverend father approached the window, Hardy looked narrowly at him for an instant, and then uttered an exclamation, wrung from him by surprise and painful remembrance. But, recovering himself from this first ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... of essays in The Spectator (Nos. 58-61; May, 1711), Addison had earlier, of course, been at pains to distinguish between "true wit" and "false wit." Particularly abhorrent to him was the rebus. The first part of The Merry-Thought alone contains seven rebuses from "Drinking-Glasses, at a private Club of Gentlemen" (pp. 12-13), as ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]



Words linked to "Distinguish" :   individualize, discriminate, describe, assort, discover, recognise, singularize, contrast, decouple, dissociate, singularise, characterize, sort, differentiate, pick out, spot, distinction, demarcate, key out, name, severalise, single out, secernate, label, signalize, perceive, recognize, make out, characterise, secern, discern, place, sort out, signalise, tell apart, mark, stratify



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com