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noun
Function  n.  
1.
The act of executing or performing any duty, office, or calling; performance. "In the function of his public calling."
2.
(Physiol.) The appropriate action of any special organ or part of an animal or vegetable organism; as, the function of the heart or the limbs; the function of leaves, sap, roots, etc.; life is the sum of the functions of the various organs and parts of the body.
3.
The natural or assigned action of any power or faculty, as of the soul, or of the intellect; the exertion of an energy of some determinate kind. "As the mind opens, and its functions spread."
4.
The course of action which peculiarly pertains to any public officer in church or state; the activity appropriate to any business or profession. "Tradesmen... going about their functions." "The malady which made him incapable of performing his regal functions."
5.
(Math.) A quantity so connected with another quantity, that if any alteration be made in the latter there will be a consequent alteration in the former. Each quantity is said to be a function of the other. Thus, the circumference of a circle is a function of the diameter. If x be a symbol to which different numerical values can be assigned, such expressions as x^(2), 3^(x), Log. x, and Sin. x, are all functions of x.
6.
(Eccl.) A religious ceremony, esp. one particularly impressive and elaborate. "Every solemn 'function' performed with the requirements of the liturgy."
7.
A public or social ceremony or gathering; a festivity or entertainment, esp. one somewhat formal. "This function, which is our chief social event."
Algebraic function, a quantity whose connection with the variable is expressed by an equation that involves only the algebraic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, raising to a given power, and extracting a given root; opposed to transcendental function.
Arbitrary function. See under Arbitrary.
Calculus of functions. See under Calculus.
Carnot's function (Thermo-dynamics), a relation between the amount of heat given off by a source of heat, and the work which can be done by it. It is approximately equal to the mechanical equivalent of the thermal unit divided by the number expressing the temperature in degrees of the air thermometer, reckoned from its zero of expansion.
Circular functions. See Inverse trigonometrical functions (below). Continuous function, a quantity that has no interruption in the continuity of its real values, as the variable changes between any specified limits.
Discontinuous function. See under Discontinuous.
Elliptic functions, a large and important class of functions, so called because one of the forms expresses the relation of the arc of an ellipse to the straight lines connected therewith.
Explicit function, a quantity directly expressed in terms of the independently varying quantity; thus, in the equations y = 6x^(2), y = 10 -x^(3), the quantity y is an explicit function of x.
Implicit function, a quantity whose relation to the variable is expressed indirectly by an equation; thus, y in the equation x^(2) + y^(2) = 100 is an implicit function of x.
Inverse trigonometrical functions, or Circular functions, the lengths of arcs relative to the sines, tangents, etc. Thus, AB is the arc whose sine is BD, and (if the length of BD is x) is written sin ^(-1)x, and so of the other lines. See Trigonometrical function (below). Other transcendental functions are the exponential functions, the elliptic functions, the gamma functions, the theta functions, etc.
One-valued function, a quantity that has one, and only one, value for each value of the variable. Transcendental functions, a quantity whose connection with the variable cannot be expressed by algebraic operations; thus, y in the equation y = 10^(x) is a transcendental function of x. See Algebraic function (above). Trigonometrical function, a quantity whose relation to the variable is the same as that of a certain straight line drawn in a circle whose radius is unity, to the length of a corresponding are of the circle. Let AB be an arc in a circle, whose radius OA is unity let AC be a quadrant, and let OC, DB, and AF be drawnpependicular to OA, and EB and CG parallel to OA, and let OB be produced to G and F. E Then BD is the sine of the arc AB; OD or EB is the cosine, AF is the tangent, CG is the cotangent, OF is the secant OG is the cosecant, AD is the versed sine, and CE is the coversed sine of the are AB. If the length of AB be represented by x (OA being unity) then the lengths of Functions. these lines (OA being unity) are the trigonometrical functions of x, and are written sin x, cos x, tan x (or tang x), cot x, sec x, cosec x, versin x, coversin x. These quantities are also considered as functions of the angle BOA.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Function" Quotes from Famous Books



... he was a man of education and private means; he belonged to a much higher profession, in fact he was a "jogger" travelling about from place to place—"globetrotting" from capital city to watering-place—all over the world in the exercise of his function. I had wondered if his accent was American (petroleum-American), or German, or Italian, or Russian, or what. Now I wondered no longer, for the jogger is cosmopolitan. When he had exhausted his lozenge he told me how many times ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... fond of assisting at High Mass on Sundays and feast days, and he had a small oratory built between the house and the new church, from which, by passing a few steps from his room, he could hear the music and see the function through a window opening into the sanctuary. This often overpowered him with emotion, which was sometimes so strong as to drive him back to his room and into bed. Once a week and on the more solemn festivals was as often as he could say Mass, or even hear it, on account of his extreme weakness in ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... jurisdiction; and that it is a most hopeless thing to attempt to send it back reinforced, to reclaim and conquer, through all the past, the whole extent of its rightful but never assumed dominion. So feeble and confined in the function of judgment through which it must see and act, it is especially incapable of admitting the monitor's estimate of the measure of guilt involved in omission, and in an irreligious state of the mind, as an exceedingly grave addition to the account of criminal ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... of political suspicion and animosity. The instrument which they created, with all its faults, proved capable of becoming both the organ of an efficient national government and the fundamental law of a potentially democratic state. It has proved capable of flexible development both in function and in purpose, and it has been developed in both these directions ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... damp church, and walking very fast, in order to bring myself into heat, when, on turning a corner, I heard a sound of flutes and fiddles in the street, and from the number of lanterns and torches that accompanied it, I conjectured rightly that it was a Function of no small importance—no less, in fact, than a procession in honour of the Virgin. Poor Mangrove at this time was pattering close to my heels, and I could hear him chuckling and laughing ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... The function of these bacteria is to gather the nitrogen of the air and supply it as plant food. Without the bacteria the plant can get only the nitrogen which is supplied from the soil in fertilizers. With the aid of the bacteria the growing ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... carried up to the Lords by Lord John Russell, attended by about a hundred of its staunchest supporters in the lower House. These gentlemen appear to have adopted the unusual mode of exciting the attention of the peers and giving to the function they were performing a striking and theatrical character, by accompanying the delivery of the bill to the Lord Chancellor with their own characteristic "Hear, hear." A cry of "order" recalled them to a sense of the presence in which they stood. In ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... absolutely refused; the former saying, there were more reasons than he could then mention, why he must decline this honour; and the latter declaring (perhaps rightly) that it was not proper for a person of his function to be seen at any ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... in his Principles of General Grammar, calls the relative pronouns "Conjunctive Adjectives." See Fosdick's Translation, p. 57. He also says, "The words who, which, etc. are not the only words which connect the function of a Conjunction with another design. There are Conjunctive Nouns and Adverbs, as well as Adjectives; and a characteristic of these words is, that we can substitute for them another form of expression in which shall be found the words who, which, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... its own light.' As long as this could be kept to, the Protestant theory of belief was whole and sound. At least it was as sound as the Catholic. In both, Reason, aided by spiritual illumination, performs the subordinate function of recognising the supreme authority of the Church, and of the Bible, respectively. Time, learned controversy, and abatement of zeal, drove the Protestants generally from the hardy but irrational assertion of Calvin. Every foot of ground that Scripture lost was gained by one ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... the mature and classical brilliance of the one, nor the limpid melodious beauty of the other; but it approaches Faust itself in its subtle soundings of the mysteries of the intellectual life. It is a young poet's attempt to cope with the problem of the poet's task and the poet's function, the relation of art to life, and of life to art. Neither Goethe nor Tennyson thought more loftily of the possibilities of poetic art. And neither insisted more peremptorily—or rather assumed more unquestioningly—that it only fulfils these possibilities when the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... of the Duke and Duchess in the great avenues which branch out from beneath the vast Dome of the Exhibition-building. We have not in Australia any sense of the historical prestige which attaches itself to a royal opening of the British Parliament. There the stately function is magnificent in its setting and pregnant in its associations, but it is in scarcely any sense of ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... unprecedented, of connection with the government and public business of a great nation, but, above all, of connection with the national victories at an unexampled crisis,—the mail being the privileged organ for publishing and dispersing all news of that kind. From this function of the mail, arises naturally the introduction of Waterloo into the fourth variation of the Fogue; for the mail itself having been carried into the dreams by the incident in the Vision, naturally all ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... needed for the several kinds of perception indicated. Every man, in consequence of them, becomes conscious of three separate things in respect of those perceptions (viz., a material organ, its particular function, and the mind upon which that function acts). There are again (in respect of all perceptions of the mind) three classes, viz., those that appertain to Goodness, those that appertain to Passion, and those that appertain to Darkness. Into them run three kinds of consciousness, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... must have accepted this general view of their function, and many in one way or another have explicitly stated it. "As light to the eye, even such is beauty to the mind," said Coleridge, whose meaning was philosophically definite, but in no way at variance with Shakespeare's too hackneyed but ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... to these. A rolling blind is provided to keep the sun out of their eyes, and they are politely labelled "Ursine Dasyures," for fear of offending them. They ill deserve either attention, and at any rate I should like to see the label changed. The function of the Tasmanian devil in the economy of Nature is to bite, scratch, tear and mangle whatever other work of Nature happens to be within reach. It is touching to observe the preference exhibited by the Tasmanian devil for its keeper, who feeds it; it tries to bite him much oftener and more savagely ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... more or less spontaneous act of play or passion, and achieving some small degree of respectability only when practiced by a respected poet and collected with his more serious verse.[2] Like modern "serial" graffiti, it could function as a form of communication since the first inscriptions often provoked those who followed ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)

... this accumulated evidence in his mind that Lord Milner travelled down, on March 2nd, 1898, from Capetown to Graaf Reinet, expecting to take part in a Governor's function of the ordinary sort at the opening of the railway on the following day. The conventional expressions of loyalty to the Queen, and the scarcely veiled hypocrisy and defiance with which the Dutch reiterated them, at the time when the whole weight of their influence ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... especially if the process is performed in the dark. And, as a matter of fact, a man is usually more or less in the dark at the moment in which he changes his mind. An absent-minded friend of mine went upstairs the other day to prepare for a social function. To the consternation of his unhappy wife he came down again wearing his old gardening suit. A man may quite easily make a mistake. Before he enters upon the process of robing he must be sure of three things: (1) He must be quite clear that the clothes he ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... appendix of the social organism. It has served its purpose. The profit idea has served an important function in society, but it is now useless and a menace to the body social. Our troubles are due to a kind of social appendicitis. And the remedy is to remove the useless and ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... would make men the slaves of the violent or rich, the other the slaves of the State official, and the way of sanity runs, perhaps even sinuously, down the intervening valley. Happily the dead past buries its dead, and it is not our function now to adjudicate the preponderance of victory. In the very days when our political and economic order is becoming steadily more Socialistic, our ideals of intercourse turn more and more to a fuller recognition of the claims of individuality. The State is to be progressive, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... One other function performed by Browne's latinisms must be mentioned, because it is closely connected with the most essential and peculiar of the qualities which distinguish his method of writing. Certain classical ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... know he is a man of wit and parts; which if applied properly to the business of his function, instead of poetry, (wherein it must be owned he sometimes excels,) might be of great use ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... expression of thought or emotion was literature or not—a fact which is not without importance in the choice of books for forming the taste of our pupils—yet, for the purpose of discussing the place and function of literature in education, we all know well enough what we mean by the word in the general sense which ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... summer and fall he had looked in vain. Then he noticed that his eyes were beginning to hurt him, and this ailment rapidly increased until, in the dark chambers of the lodgings he frequented, he did not attempt to read. Bad and irregular eating was weakening every function of his body. The one recourse left him was to doze when a place offered and he could get the money ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... greater value of form than that of a single cell. This egg-cell is differentiated, after fecundation, in gradual and imperceptible transitions, farther and farther, higher and higher, until the individual has reached its perfect organization. No organ, no function of the body, no power or function of the soul or of the mind, appears suddenly, but all in gradual development. Since we see all individuals thus originating by means of gradual development, the possibility lies very near ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... beauty. From the moment, of course, that you go into any Italian church for any purpose but to say your prayers or look at the ladies, you rank yourself among the trooping barbarians I just spoke of; you treat the place as an orifice in the peep- show. Still, it is almost a spiritual function—or, at the worst, an amorous one—to feed one's eyes on the molten colour that drops from the hollow vaults and thickens the air with its richness. It is all so quiet and sad and faded and yet all so brilliant and living. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... of his momentary relaxation of vigilance to skid rather alarmingly in a particularly slippery section of clay road. Though Jarvis promptly brought it about and had things in hand again, Josephine forgot to answer while she resumed control over the function of breathing. But when her brother gently repeated ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... the city, on the 16th, a card inviting men "called in many of the papers rioters" to assemble the next day to hear a speech from him. At the appointed hour about 5000 persons met in front of his residence, when the Archbishop, clad in his purple robes and other insignia of his high sacerdotal function, spoke to them from his balcony. He appealed to their patriotism, and counselled obedience to the law as a tenet of their Catholic faith. He told them "no government can stand or protect itself unless it protects its citizens." He appealed ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... that notes his daily doings, The everlasting round of weary function,— The health-returnings, speeches, interviewings. Can grudge him some relief, without compunction, Seems quite to me "another pair of shoes!" Dyspeptic is that cry, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various

... rule in the fore-arm, the surgeon should endeavour to save as much as possible; especially when nearing the middle of the fore-arm, he should try to save the insertion of the pronator teres, so important in its function of pronating ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... show that those organs in animals and plants which at first sight seem to have been designed with a view to the work they have to do—that is to say, with a view to future function—had not, according to Mr. Darwin, in reality any connection with, or inception in, effort; effort involves purpose and design; they had therefore no inception in design, however much they might present the appearance of being designed; ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... no such useful function. Once the rock-portal is passed, it unlearns all its sprightly grace and trickles disconsolately through the sands, expiring, at last, in the dreary Chott ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... I expect they themselves term it, is a function, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward to throughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as the murdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls who came over with the Conqueror, and ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome

... of transparent soaps has recently been fully studied, from a theoretical point of view, by Richardson (J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1908, pp. 414-20), who concludes that the function of substances inducing transparency, is to produce a jelly ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons

... consummate this robbery in the eyes of the people, by telling them that tyranny came from God, and was responsible to God only. The long heirship of throned races had made it believed that there was a right of reigning in the blood of crowned families. Government instead of being a function had become a possession; the king master instead of being chief. This misplaced principle displaced everything. The people became a nation, the king a crowned magistrate. Feudality, subaltern royalty, assumed ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... "in Germany, when a stranger attends any social function and there is no one present to introduce him, it is allowable for him to introduce himself. Permit me to avail myself of this practice. Gentlemen, my name is Juan Crisostomo Ibarra y Magsalin." The others gave their names in turn, of which the most ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... to explain away the air of paradox, for James was never wilfully paradoxical. "Undeniably," he says, "'thoughts' do exist." "I mean only to deny that the word stands for an entity, but to insist most emphatically that it does stand for a function. There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform, ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... did the near and far appear to touch I' the moment's transport,—that an interchange Of function, far with near, seemed ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... and Pine Barren stage coach, profoundly oblivious—after the manner of all human invention—of everything but its regular function, toiled dustily out of the higher plain and began the grateful descent of a wooded canyon, which was, in fact, the culminating point of the depression, just described, along which the shadowy procession ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... better go right home and get supper ready," she said alertly; and there was a note of almost pleased eagerness in her voice that she was included in this function of packing and moving that seemed somehow to have turned into a delightful game in which weariness ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... looking forward with a sense of solemn satisfaction to spending the following day in going down to his diocese in order to preside at a Church fete, make a humorous speech, and meet a number of important county people. There was no question of any religious element entering into the function, and Hugh found himself dimly wondering whether such a development of the energies of Christian elders was seriously contemplated in the Gospel. But the bishop seemed to have no ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... mind of every American of the party of political evasion, there now began a sad, internal conflict. Every one of them had to choose among three courses: to shut his eyes and to continue to wail that the function of government is to do nothing; to make an end of political evasion and to come out frankly in approval of the Southern position; or to break with his own record, to emerge from his evasions on the opposite side, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... this conclusion, I was led to consider whether we might not reasonably consider the true source of the latent element of light to reside, not in the solar orb, but in space itself; and that the grand function and duty of the sun was to act as an agent for bringing forth into vivid existence its due portion of the illuminating or luciferous element, which element I suppose to be diffused throughout the boundless regions of space, and which in ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... his own hand, had gained the bank, the trio fell to their knees, hands and backs burdened with camp equipage, and offered up thanks for their passage through the wilderness and their safe arrival. Hay Stockard looked upon the function with sneering disapproval, the romance and solemnity of it lost to his matter-of-fact soul. Baptiste the Red, still gazing across, recognized the familiar postures, and remembered the girl who had shared his star-roofed couch in the hills and forests, and the woman-child who lay somewhere ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... managed to emphasize its hostile intent. The law of 1893, legalizing the Jewish heder and putting an end to the persecutions, which this traditional Jewish school had suffered at the hands of the police, narrowed at the same time its function to that of an exclusively religious institution and indirectly forbade the teaching in it of general secular subjects. There are cases on record in which the keepers of these heders, the so-called ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... Wallace, has permitted us to embrace an immensely wide range of phenomena in one single generalization, which soon became the very basis of our philosophical, biological, and sociological speculations. An immense variety of facts:—adaptations of function and structure of organic beings to their surroundings; physiological and anatomical evolution; intellectual progress, and moral development itself, which we formerly used to explain by so many different ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... or court butler; not without fairy grace of person and of mind assuredly; not without a due innate sense of the beautiful, as his perfumed name (SWEETFLOWER) at the outset warns you; and, as the proximity of his function to her Majesty's person—for we do not here fall in with any thing like mention of a king—would suggest, independently of the delicately responsible part borne by him in the action, the chief stress of which you will find incumbent upon his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... had been lending additional lamps and candles for the occasion. The original equipment of clothes possessed by the Careys on their arrival in Beulah still held good, and looked well by lamplight, so that the toilettes were fully worthy of so important a function. ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... capture of Troy and the Greek world. Not a mere book of travels or adventure is this; it contains an inner restoration corresponding to the outer Return, and the interpreter of the work, if he be true to his function, will trace the interior line of its movement, not neglecting the external side which has also a ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... this eternall substance of my soule Did liue imprisond in my wanton flesh, Ech in their function seruing others need, I was a courtier in the Spanish court: My name was Don Andrea; my discent, Though not ignoble, yet inferiour far To gratious fortunes of my tender youth, For there, in prime and pride of all my yeeres, By duteous seruice and deseruing loue, In secret I ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd

... do all wars in which navies have engaged, that the function of a navy is not only to defend the coast in the sense of preventing an enemy from landing on it, but also to exert force far distant from the coast. The study of war has taught its students for many centuries that a merely passive defense will finally ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... the late Archduke Charles, but the facts that Madame Duboc had been his Canonical wife, that Mrs. Parflete was the one child of their union, kept the whole aristocratic assembly thrilled with the sense of taking part in something as distinguished as a Court function, as exciting as a Court scandal, and as bewildering as a Court conspiracy. A string orchestra—conducted by Strauss himself—played French melodies of the eighteenth century. Would there be any dancing? would she sing? Henriette Duboc had been compared, as a dancer, to La Guimard, said ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... see that any authority is acquired beyond that which immediately belongs to the particular service to be performed. If we give a man permission to enter our house to look for thieves, it does not follow that, because so admitted, he has a right to exercise any other function. I do believe that the ship in chase of us, as a public cruiser, ought to be allowed to board this vessel; but finding nothing contrary to the laws of nations about her, that she will have no power to detain or otherwise molest her. Even the right I concede ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... engravings, will enable the reader to form a more definite idea of this important function of the system,—the circulation of the blood. The heart, in man, and in all warm-blooded animals, is double, having two auricles and two ventricles. In animals with cold blood, (as fishes,) the heart is single, having but one auricle and one ventricle. Fig. 13, represents the double ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... predict a change that will by and by distinguish him from all other creatures even more widely and more fundamentally than he is distinguished today. Whenever in the course of organic evolution we see any function beginning as incidental to the performance of other functions, and continuing for many ages to increase in importance until it becomes an indispensable strand in the web of life, we may be sure that ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... swept away this institution; but Pestalozzi could never again be overlooked. His special function was recognized at home and abroad. His books were translated into many languages; and the emperors and kings of Europe were eager to apply his wisdom to the education of their people. He was summoned to Paris to join a consultation on the interests of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... only 64 assembled, but over them Talleyrand's influence was supreme. He spake, and they silently registered his suggestions. Thus it was that the august body, taught by ten years of despotism to bend gracefully before every breeze, fulfilled its last function in the Napoleonic regime by overthrowing the very constitution which it had been expressly charged to uphold. The date was the 1st of April. Talleyrand, Dalberg, Beurnonville, Jaucourt, and l'Abbe de Montesquiou at once formed a Provisional Government; ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... of nose, of a third an unaccountable hardness about the jaws. Had man but the benefit of continuity and uniformity of purpose, Nature must have succeeded in elaborating a definite mould for him, enabling him to function simply and naturally, without such strenuous effort. He would not have so complicated a code of behaviour; and he would be less liable to deviate from the normal ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function,—fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and, amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses,—were swept into captivity, in an unknown and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... first-night audience, always the same, that collective brigand from the theatrical columns of the newspapers, who goes everywhere and carries by assault those much-envied places when some claim to favor or the exercise of some public function does not give ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... worship to the natives of Africa; it ought, however, more properly to be considered only as a charm, to which a superstitious and reverential feeling is paid; in which an implicit confidence is reposed. Whether it be intended to exercise a public or a private function, it consists of some body, either animate or inanimate, selected according to fancy, as a dog, cat, tiger, snake, an egg, the bone of a bird, a piece of wood, a feather, or any other substance: this is rendered sacred or endowed with its supposed virtues by peculiar ceremonies, and afterwards ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... Caused by partial or total failure of adrenocortical function; characterized by a bronze-like skin color and mucous membranes, anemia, weakness, and ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... dinner. Everybody was animated, and if there was no conversation, even between persons seated side by side, there was a glorious clatter and roar; and when it was over, everybody was hoarse and exhausted, and conscious that he had done his best in a high social function. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... dispersed; the kitchener to arrange for the meals, and not unfrequently to provide hospitality for distinguished guests and their retinue; the precentor to drill his choir boys, to tune the organ, to look after the music, or to arrange for some procession in the church, or some extraordinary function; the infirmarer to take his rounds in the hospital; the cellarer to inspect the brewhouse and bakeries; and each or all of these officers might find it necessary to go far a-field in looking after some bailiff ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... have been named as candidates are Dr Goodford, Headmaster, and with regard to him it is to be said that the office has generally been given to the Headmaster, and that, as far as the Provost has any function connected with improvements in the arrangement of the school, there is an advantage in his having been conversant with the details of the existing system. Dr Goodford is qualified for the office ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... Jackson; that was Cicero, who destroyed the conspiracy of Cataline and saved Rome. Benton said that Cicero only did for Rome what Jackson did for us when he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved America. We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private individuals the power to ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... Jesus. It sprang out of another religion which had already emerged into the light of world-history. It has been associated for two thousand years with portions of the race which have made achievements in culture and left record of those achievements. It is the function of speculation to interpret this phenomenon. When speculation is tempted to spin by its own processes something which it would set beside this historic magnitude or put in place of it, and still call that Christianity, we must disallow the claim. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... me and already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities. I thought I knew who this must be; I was anxious to learn what he had done and seen; and fortune so far favoured me that the under-gardener singled out to be my guide had already performed the same function for my predecessor. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... cut or destroyed by fire. asbestos - a naturally occurring soft fibrous mineral commonly used in fireproofing materials and considered to be highly carcinogenic in particulate form. biodiversity - also biological diversity; the relative number of species, diverse in form and function, at the genetic, organism, community, and ecosystem level; loss of biodiversity reduces an ecosystem's ability to recover from natural or man-induced disruption. bio-indicators - a plant or animal species whose ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... is an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. An article that is normally a part of a useful article is considered a ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office

... process takes place only very slowly on account of the destruction of the skin glands. As a result, deep puckered scars are formed, which show great tendency to contract, and where these are situated on face, neck or joints the resulting deformity and loss of function may be extremely serious. In burns of the fifth degree the underlying muscles are more or less destroyed, and in those of the sixth the bones are also charred. Examples of the last two classes are mainly provided by epileptics who fall into a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... rude pioneer experiments, for the conditions which surrounded them were rude; their importance lay in the fact that they gave education a first place in public interest and accustomed people to think of education as a function of the community." [Footnote: American Ideals, ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... hurry back to England. The girl's pure conscience was tortured already by the thought of the excuses she would have to invent. And not a word, till Mr. Manisty was safely started on his way to that function at the Vatican which he was already grumbling over, which he would certainly shirk if he could. But, thank Heaven, it was not possible for him to ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... different on wool from what it is on cotton, being generally redder and much stronger. (See the chapter on Union Dyeing.) While the shades are somewhat faster to light on wool than they are on cotton, they are no faster to soaping and in some cases not so fast. What may be the function of the salt, or other such added substance, is not very clear, probably it plays the same part as to similar bodies in dyeing the basic dye-stuffs. The dye-stuffs which are referred to above are all derived from coal-tar, and in the recipes ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... no old maids in that polygamous country. Old maids naturally were not allowed! And there being none, there were of course no cats to kill the mice that eat the bumble-bees' nests; thus, no bumble-bees to fertilize it, therefore no clover. Old maids have found their function. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... despatch of a French army across the Alps. But he aimed at turning the Pope's situation to the profit of the divorce. Clement was virtually a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo; and as it was impossible for him to fulfil freely the function of a Pope, Wolsey proposed, in conjunction with Francis, to call a meeting of the college of cardinals at Avignon which should exercise the papal powers till Clement's liberation. As Wolsey was to preside over this assembly, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... thoroughly tested, to circumvent this rising revolt. In order not to compromise the influence of his family in the arrondissement of Arcis, that old statesman would doubtless propose for candidate some young man who could be induced to accept an official function and then yield his place to Charles Keller,—a parliamentary arrangement which renders the elect of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... friends! let us remember that the inviolableness of the ambassador depends on his function, and not on his person; and that if we want to be kept from all evil, we must do the work for which we have been sent here. So let us understand the meaning of our difficulties and sorrows. Let us set ourselves to our tasks, live ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... oh! the start they gave! 'What hole function am I interrupting, M. l'Abbe? The lady is in the attitude of a penitent, but I was not aware that it was one of the customs of your order ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of data from the practical operation of various roads. Subsequent engagements in an entirely different direction caused this to be laid aside until the present time. The results are given in Table 1, from which it will be seen that the percentage of driver weight utilized in draft is a function of the length as well as the rate of grade encountered in the practical ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Beverly S. Randolph

... got? Why, the simplest matter conceivable. The forces inside our atom—itself, mind you, the function of ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... condition. He said, however, that wounds from fragments of shrapnel were of quite a different character; that they were ragged, unclean and usually gave much concern. He said, also, as a matter of fact, that the gun or rifle was performing a less and less important function in warfare. That many were even in favor of abandoning the rifle entirely as a weapon. That the war, as carried on today, is carried on in personal assaults mainly through the effectiveness of the grenades, handknives, revolvers ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... triumphant armies. His work in the field, as a commanding general, had practically ceased with his removal from the Ninth Army after little more than a month of such command. From the time he took up his headquarters on the hill at Cassel, he became "a desk man"; it was no longer his function to execute orders; thenceforth he had the far more trying duty of issuing orders—a truly awful responsibility and one which demands much solitude, much soul-searching as well as map-pondering and other weighing of ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... eyes away from Moses and his Law; he cannot help you; you apply at the wrong office when you come to him for rest for your soul here and hereafter. He gives you no comfort, and he cannot, because it is not his function to do so. It is Another's business to do that. Him you grossly dishonor and traduce when you refuse to come to Him for what He alone can give, and when you go to some one who does not give you what you need, though you pretend ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... Kenyon, but quickly rejected each time; first by Kenyon, and then by Hilda; so that, while it is suggested, it is also shown to be one which human nature cannot trust itself to dwell upon. But the real function of the author is that of a profound religious teacher. The "Romance of Monte Beni" is, as Miriam plainly says, the story of the fall of man repeated. It takes us with fearless originality to the source of all religious problems, affirming,—as one interpreter [Footnote: See an unsigned article, "The ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... entertained great jealousy against this scheme. They remembered that, by such gradual steps, King James had endeavored to introduce Episcopacy. Should the ears and eyes of men be once reconciled to the name and habit of bishops, the whole power of the function, they dreaded, would soon follow: the least communication with unlawful and anti-Christian institutions they esteemed dangerous and criminal. "Touch not, taste not, handle not;" this cry went out amongst them: and the king's ministers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... to comprehend the exact function and importance of the pedal. Many will be surprised to hear that the word "touch," which they suppose refers to the way the keys are struck by the fingers, has quite as much to do with the feet—that is, the use of the pedal—as with the fingers. No matter how thoroughly a ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... them, nor, when they somewhat pointedly referred to Harris and his part in the affair, was it Willett's policy to say aught in deprecation. As "the representative of the commanding general" temporarily at the post, and observing the condition of affairs, it was his proper function to give all men his ear and none his tongue, to hear everything and say nothing. But the adjutant knew, and had not been able to keep entirely to himself, the fact that Sanchez was the bearer of a report adverse to Lieutenant Harris—that no modification thereof ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... system, which circulates notes in competition with those issued by the government, seems to me indispensably necessary. It is impossible to prevent the depreciation of the currency unless Congress will assume its constitutional function and control it; and it is idle to try to make loans unless Congress will give the necessary support to the public credit. I am now compelled to advertise for a loan of fifty millions, and, to avoid as far as practicable ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... the cab-driver. "Not only that we should be waiting for the same train, and at the same station—that would be curious enough—but actually on the same day, and the same hour of the day! That's what strikes me so forcibly!" She glanced at the fatter and more silent sister, whose chief function in life seemed to be to support the family ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll

... got to the subject of these remarks. The German Emperor is a poet, and although, as far as I know, every line he ever wrote may be nonsense, he is a poet in this real sense, that he has realised the meaning of every function he has performed. Why should we jeer at him because he has a great many uniforms, for instance? The very essence of the really imaginative man is that he realises the various types or capacities in which he can appear. Every one of us, or almost every one of ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... this region the ancient Brotherhood of Saint John Beheaded have had their church and place of meeting for centuries. It was their chief function to help and comfort condemned criminals from the midnight preceding their death until the end. To this confraternity belonged Michelangelo, among other famous men whose names stand on the rolls to this day; and doubtless the great master, hooded in black and unrecognizable among the rest, and chanting ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... also been "presented" at the proper moment. However Constance probably enjoyed the evening of the Court ball more than any other in the week, since she went to the Italian Embassy after dinner to help her girl friend, the daughter of Italy's new Prime Minister, Elisa Bardinelli, to dress for the function; and the two girls were so enchanted to see each other, and had so much Roman gossip to get through, that Donna Elisa was scandalously late, and the Ambassador almost missed the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... schools in which the vernacular is taught, especially in remote places, are the most effective, and in many cases the only modes by which the people can be reached by the Gospel. The pupils are taught to read the Bible and it is carried by them to their homes. Now we ask, is it the function of the Government of the United {121} States to dictate in matters so purely religious and to override the Christian churches in the choice of their most approved ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various

... long standing affection for the Duke of Bourbon. On September 21st, 1824, he conferred on him at the same time as on the Duke of Orleans, the title of Royal Highness. The last of the Condes was, besides, Grand Master of France. This court function was honorary rather than real, and the Prince appeared at the Tuileries only on rare occasions. Charles X. loved him as a friend of his childhood, a companion of youth and exile, but he had a lively regret to see him entangled in such relations with the Baroness ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... building proper. To paraphrase his own words: "I do not add buttresses, but I build up the wall so high as by the addition of this extra weight, I establish it as firmly as if I had added buttresses."[79] Thus this wall performs a double function: it is a substitute for buttresses in respect to the aisle walls, and a screen for the actual buttresses of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... baptising just to come and see us?" It occurred to her that from his point of view two stray disciples such as herself and Halsey could be of little importance compared with his appearance at the solemn function. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... of no use. This Germanic horde, which I saw pouring down across Belgium, bound for France, does not in retrospect seem to me a man-made, man-managed thing. It seems more like a great, orderly function of Nature; as ordained and cosmic as the tides of the sea or the sweep of a mighty wind. It is hard to believe that it was ever fashioned of thousands of separate atoms, so perfectly is it welded into a whole. It is harder still to accept it as a mutable and a mortal organism, subject to the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... of cows is continued through the whole period, from the time when they begin to bear calves till they cease to breed. This secretion of milk has become a constant function in the animal economy of the tribe; it has been rendered such by the practice, continued through long series of generations, of continuing to draw milk long after the period when it would be wanted for the calf; the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... Vienna. Up to eleven o'clock certain attire was proper. If your watch stopped you were sure to break a social law. I once saw a distinguished diplomat in distress because he found himself at an official function at eleven-thirty with a black tie—or without one, I have ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown

... opprobrium, insults, and hostile demonstrations. For the king's subjects, so far from being charmed by his resolution to marry a woman out of their midst, are scandalized. They riot, sing mocking songs, circulate base slanders, and threaten to mob the royal bride on her way to her first public function. She is herself terribly wrought up, particularly by the curse of her father, who hates the king with the deep hatred of a fanatical Republican. A royal princess, who had come to insult her, is conquered by her candor and truth, and stays ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... of engraving; but they would all possess, in common, the property of being projections, by parallel lines, of the objects represented, and the intensity of the shade of the ink would either vary according to some function of the distance of the point represented from some given plane, or it would be a little modified by the distances from the same plane of a few of the immediately ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... excessive, rather than a deficient, appetite for power on the part of his Excellency. The States, while conferring what they called the "absolute" government, by which it afterwards appeared that they meant absolute, in regard to time, not to function—were very properly desirous of retaining a wholesome control over that government by means of the state-council. They wished not only to establish such a council, as a check upon the authority of the new governor, but to share with him ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... effectually exercised by the consul, than by the territorial judge. To this part of the tenth article, therefore, as well as to that which requires the territorial judge to assist the consul in the exercise of this function, we can accede. But the extension of the like power to passengers, seems not necessary for the purposes either of navigation or commerce. It does not come, therefore, within the functions of the consul, whose institution is for those ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... J. H. Kellogg, Battle Creek, Mich.: "Every organ feels the effect of the abuse through indulgence in alcohol, and no function is left undisturbed. By degrees, disordered function, through long continuance of the disturbance, induces tissue change. The most common form of organic or structural disease due to alcohol is fatty degeneration, which may effect almost every organ in the body. ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... been making an Indian head-dress for herself. Just poke that history under my head, will you, Jack? or I'll certainly get rush of blood to the brain. There, that's better! Why so silent, most noble Felix?" with a sidelong glance at me after settling himself. "Art filled with fears for Thursday's function?" ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... and, while she walked swiftly from the door to the window, she had a sensation of lightness and ease as if she had just awakened from a refreshing sleep. For seven years all the strength of her character had been drained by the supreme function of motherhood; but now her children had ceased to need the whole of her life, and she was free to belong at least in part to herself—free to enter unrestricted into the broader human activities. And, above ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... tendency, nevertheless we are recurrently tempted, and we must exercise continuous effort to keep a particular object at the focus. The power to exert effort and to regulate the arrangement of our states of mind is the peculiar gift of man, and is a prime function of education. Viewed in this light, then, we see that the voluntary focusing of our attention consists in the selecting of certain objects to be attended to, and the ignoring of other objects which act as distractions. We may conveniently classify the ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... to the character of a regular drama, with the stage directions written into verse, than any other of his works, and it is composed consecutively throughout on the basis of one idea. It exhibits an effort to amalgamate the place and function of woman with that of man, and the failure of that effort, which duly winds up with the surrender and marriage of the fairest and chief enthusiast. It may be doubted whether the idea is one well suited to exhibition in a quasi-dramatic form. Certainly the mode of embodying it, so far as it is ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... excellent result of her general apathy was the long-delayed installation of Oak as bailiff; but he having virtually exercised that function for a long time already, the change, beyond the substantial increase of wages it brought, was little more than a nominal one addressed to the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... had performed he had had opportunities of seeing how a ship was managed—opportunities of which, no doubt, with his great activity of mind, he had availed himself most thoroughly. The facility with which he could assume a new function, and do its duties as if he had been accustomed to it all his life, was one of the most remarkable things about him. His chief regret in taking the new burden was, that it would limit his intercourse with ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... the heading "Isolation and Personal Individuality" bring out the point that the function of isolation in personal development lies not so much in sheer physical separation from other persons as in freedom from the control of external social contacts. Thus Rousseau constructs an ideal society in the solitude of his forest retreat. The lonely child enjoys the companionship of his imaginary ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... the revolution of September, 1868, materially affected the disgraceful condition of affairs in the island. Only those who paid twenty-five pesos direct contribution had the right of suffrage. The press remained subject to previous censorship, its principal function being to swing the incense-burner; the right of public reunion was unknown, and if known would have been impracticable; the majority of the respectable citizens lived under constant apprehension lest they should be secretly accused of disloyalty and prosecuted. ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... from England to do something at a foreign Court that the British ambassador or Minister there either has not done, or cannot do, possibly ought never to do, had invested Atlee in Brammell's eyes with the character of one of those semi-accredited inscrutable people whose function it would seem to be to make us out the most meddlesome people ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever



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