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Improperly   Listen
adverb
Improperly  adv.  In an improper manner; not properly; unsuitably; unbecomingly.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Improperly" Quotes from Famous Books



... whether the law ought to acknowledge and protect such a state of life as minority, nor whether the continuance which is fixed for that state be not improperly prolonged in the law of England. Neither of these in general are questioned. The only question, is, whether matrimony is to be taken out of the general rule, and whether the minors of both sexes, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... year and another year passed. The pretty home was beginning to look old. The bloom of its youth had most improperly faded—for surely a home should never fade—but there was the boy, a growing delight to his father, so why complain? Better this easy-going life ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... the base of the castle, the road at that day opened into a broad patch of verdure, circled on all sides, save that open to the sea, by wood, interspersed with myrtle and orange, and a wilderness of odorous shrubs. In this space, and sheltered by the broad-spreading and classic fagus (so improperly translated into the English "beech"), a gay pavilion was prepared, which commanded the view of the sparkling sea;—shaded from the sun, but open to the gentle breeze. This was poor Adeline's favourite recreation, if recreation it might be called. She rejoiced ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... annual consmnption, and continues, at least, the existence of the stock or capital which maintains and employs it. But, upon this account alone, the denomination of barren or unproductive should seem to be very improperly applied to it. We should not call a marriage barren or unproductive, though it produced only a son and a daughter, to replace the father and mother, and though it did not increase the number of the human species, but only continued it as it was before. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... become affected with the disorder in question during or soon after the time they are thus improperly suckled, they will nevertheless acquire therefrom a predisposition to cephalic disease at some ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton

... attention of so-called philanthropic men in all parts of the country, was directed to the subject. In 1817, and the following years, commenced what has been improperly termed a revival of education. To form public opinion in favor of Public Schools, the following means were employed: Public School societies and organizations were established in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... favored and petted white children of the slaveholder. The slave-boy escapes many troubles which befall and vex his white brother. He seldom has to listen to lectures on propriety of behavior, or on anything else. He is never chided for handling his little knife and fork improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never reprimanded for soiling the table-cloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor. He never has the misfortune, in his games or sports, of soiling or tearing his clothes, for he has almost ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even then, however, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here—nor will I stop for you to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... preparatory command, or, being at a halt, to begin anew a movement improperly begun, the command, AS YOU WERE, is given, at which the movement ceases and ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department

... physically, he shut his eyes, and when again he opened them I saw in them distress. For the moment I believe of my presence he was utterly unconscious. His hands lay idle upon the table; like a man facing a crisis, he stared before him. Quite improperly, I felt sorry for him. In me he thought he had found a victim; and that the loss of the few dollars he might have won should so deeply disturb him showed his need was great. Almost at once he abandoned me and I went on deck. When I returned an hour later to the smoking-room he was ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... Senator from Ohio seems to have done to his, and take it for granted that the Secretary of the Treasury had a purpose to accomplish, and that he would not hesitate to take any means in his power to accomplish it, improperly against the manifest will of Congress, against the interests of the country, and against his own interests as Secretary ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... three miles long, comprising about two thousand acres, it being the excess over complement of the Elias Denny three-league survey on Chiquito River, in one of the middle-western counties. This two-thousand-acre body of land was asserted by them to be vacant land, and improperly considered a part of the Denny survey. They based this assertion and their claim upon the land upon the demonstrated facts that the beginning corner of the Denny survey was plainly identified; that its field notes called to run west 5,760 varas, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... strokes of personal satire on the Reformers. Percy observed that, from the solemnity of the subjects, the summoning of man out of the world by death, and by the gravity of its conduct, not without some attempts, however rude, to excite terror and pity, this Morality may not improperly be referred to the class of Tragedy. Such ancient simplicity is not worthless to the poetical antiquary; although the mere modern reader would soon feel weary at such inartificial productions, yet the invention which may be discovered ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Caroline, "I think I have done wisely in getting away altogether. I have seen little of my aunt Bathurst, since you took me to my father's house; for, although some advances were made towards a reconciliation, as soon as my aunt was told that my father and mother had stated that I had been most improperly brought up by her, she was so angry at the false accusation, that all intercourse is broken off, I fear, for ever. Oh, how I have longed to be with my aunt again! But Valerie, I never heard why you left her. Some one did say that you had gone, but ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... with message of great importance, addressed to Von Dusenberg, The Hague. Is believed to have been in railway accident near Wymondham and to have been taken from inn by young man in motor-car. Suggest that he is being improperly detained." ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... into the water with appropriate prayers. Should the package float, as it generally does, he accepts the fact as an omen that his treatment will be successful. On the other hand, should it sink, he concludes that some part of the preceding ceremony has been improperly carried out and at once sets about procuring a new package, going over the whole performance from the beginning. Herb-gathering by moonlight, so important a feature in European folk medicine, seems to ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... destitute of trees and herbage, scorched by the ardent and reflected rays of the summer's sun, and in winter swept by chilling blasts from the snow-clad mountains. Such is a great part of that vast region extending north and south along the mountains, several hundred miles in width, which has not improperly been termed the Great American Desert. It is a region that almost discourages all hope of cultivation, and can only be traversed with safety by keeping near the streams which intersect it. Extensive plains likewise occur among the higher regions ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... said above, and in the Preface, on this head, the following opinion of an ingenious and candid Foreigner, on this manner of writing, may not be improperly inserted here. ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... the great God who sendeth his sunshine and his rain upon members of Associated Charities as well as upon members of Dissociated Charities, upon the worthy as well as upon the unworthy, upon the properly introduced as well as upon the improperly introduced,—then his beneficence is verily sentimental. Yes, my friends, the great God is the great sentimentalist, for he blesseth men and bestoweth his mercy upon them not because they are deserving, but because he loveth to be merciful. When the flower buddeth forth in the spring ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... its reason to recommend it. On the other hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure that if my proposition were futile or dangerous, if it were weakly conceived or improperly timed, there was nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see it just as it is; and you will treat it ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... districts, are inhabited by the ruffle grouse, which is also often called the pheasant. It ranges to a considerable distance northward, and Dr Richardson found it even on the borders of the Polar regions. There is likewise a small-sized partridge, which is improperly called the quail. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... published, he knocked the foundation from under the subsequent peace-debate. But that did not prevent Mr. LEES SMITH from making a long speech, on the assumption that by promising to help France to recover her ravished provinces we had improperly extended the objects of the war. Mr. MCCURDY, who shares with Mr. LEES SMITH the representation of Northampton, plainly hinted that if his colleague cared to visit his constituents they would be delighted to present him with a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various

... not only did the French governor of Mauritius imprison the English navigator despite his passport, detaining him years after the other members of the Cumberland's company had been liberated, but that Flinders' charts and papers were improperly used in the preparation of the history of Baudin's expedition. Indeed, the accusation is equivalent to one of garrotting: that General Decaen seized and bound his victim, robbed him, and enabled Freycinet and Peron to use his ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... Their children were brought up in sinful, evil ways, whilst the parents did not know the Lord. Now the parents reap as they sowed. They suffer from having set an evil example before their children, for their children are unruly and behave most improperly. What is now to be done? Need such parents despair? No. The first thing they have to do is, to make confession of their sins to God, with regard to neglecting their children whilst they were themselves living ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... in consequence of all this, men had forgotten their duties to the other sex, and that even at the time at which he lived woman was still in great social bondage, improperly educated, tied down by restrictions, and refused participation in the higher positions of labor. He called not in vain, against the inequality of the sexes, and asserted that woman's position must and should be altered by forgetting ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... Nobody can suppose that I am not come to years of discretion; and you very well know I have always been a good and tender mother to you; and so I always shall be; and I am sure you will not think hardly and improperly of my conduct in any way, for that would be very unkind and unbecoming; and, if I have done all for the best, to be hardly thought of afterwards would be very improper indeed. Mr. Thornby [the lawyer] is a very prudent man, and so I have acted by his advice, which you may well think cannot ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free; and every man ought to restore himself to the full exercise of his judgment, before he does that which he cannot do improperly, without injuring ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... I countenance dissipation, intemperance, boisterous or unseemly conduct. It may be a comfort for you men to know, however, that I am personally acquainted with every police magistrate in the City of New York. While I do not claim to have any influence with them, nor would I try to exercise it improperly, nevertheless if the team wins and any man should unintentionally and weakly yield to the strain consequent upon such a victory, I can be found that night at my residence. Any delinquent will have my sympathetic and best efforts ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... that, far from minding, she adored lobsters! And then after she had been served, Timmy's fears were set at rest, for his mother, very improperly the rest of the family thought, served him next, and ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... bore the pork merchant's name as an eternal memorial to him—was as impressive inside as out. The stained-glass windows had been made by a famous New York firm; the altar had been designed by an even more famous sculptor. The walls, quite improperly, were adorned with paintings of former presidents, but the largest painting of all—it was fairly Gargantuan—was of the pork merchant, a large, ruddy gentleman, whom the artist, a keen observer, had painted truly—complacently porcine, ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... evidence produced against some at least of these unhappy gentlemen, was slight and inconclusive. Lord Rochford is universally believed to have fallen a victim to the atrocious perjuries of his wife, who was very improperly admitted as a witness against him, and whose infamous conduct was afterwards fully brought to light. No absolute criminality appears to have been proved against Weston and Brereton; but Smeton confessed the fact. Norris died much more ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... the indefinable quality which it adds to the lowest as to the highest of these is (as Lamb says of passion) "the all in all in poetry." Turning again for illustration to one of the highest names in imaginative literature—a name sometimes most improperly and absurdly inscribed on the register of the realistic school, {137} we may say that the difference on this point is not the difference between Balzac and Dumas, but the distinction between Balzac and M. Zola. Let us take by way of example ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... not so important as the impairing of your character which I see going on. You are becoming permanently distrustful, suspicious. You think one friend will fail us here, that that friend is untrue, that the other one may be influenced improperly. Very soon you will begin to suspect me, then you will suspect yourself, and then—then, you are utterly lost. Stop it. I would rather lose the fight than ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... previously proved in the lower and less abstruse of these provinces, Comte allowed his inferences to outrun their legitimate basis. Being necessarily ignorant of the one generating cause of orderly processes in nature, he improperly allowed himself to found conclusions on the basis of these processes alone, which could only be properly founded on the basis of their cause. But freely granting this much to Professor Flint, and the rest of his remarks in this connection will be found, in view of the altered standing ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... "Improperly, but none the less, insistently, he said that his government will not tolerate her reception here. He charges her with machinations in Europe, under cover of President Taylor's embassy of investigation into Hungarian affairs. He declares ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... say that he brought to you such and such an order, the order, in effect, which, even so, you improperly construed and improperly acted upon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who was by testifies that it was that ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... the great business of education to apply such motives to the imagination as may stimulate it to laudable exertions. For thus the same activity of mind, the same impetuosity of temper, which, by being improperly applied, would only form a wild, ungovernable character, may produce the steadiest virtues, and prove a blessing both to the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... topics in this field. In other words, he has added to the unscientific history of the Negro, which has hitherto appeared in the so-called text books on Negro history, facts culled from various sources but so improperly used as not ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... is, moreover, an elaborate portrait of the Princess, evidently intended to "pick up" that vaguer one of Madame de Longueville in the Preface, but with the blue of the eyes here fearlessly specified. Here also does the celebrated Philidaspes (most improperly, if it had not been for the justification to be given later, transmogrified in the above-mentioned passage by Major Bellenden into "Philip Dastus? Philip Devil") make his appearance. The worst of it is that most, if not the whole, is done by the recit delivered, as ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... abolition of slavery and the use of arbitrary methods. A few days later, in vetoing a measure authorising soldiers to vote while absent in the army, he again showed his personal antipathy, charging the President with rewarding officers of high rank for improperly interfering in State elections, while subordinate officers were degraded "for the fair exercise of their political rights at their own homes."[893] John Hay did not err in saying "there could be no intimate understanding ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... poor color and the dichroscope shows that the table was laid improperly, there is some possibility of improving the color by recutting to the above indicated position. However, one must use much judgment in such a case, as sapphires, like other corundum gems, frequently have their color irregularly distributed, and the ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... distressed at this curse. We sought to propitiate that Brahmana of ascetic wealth that departed not from his vow. Addressing him, we said, 'Inflated with a sense of our beauty and youth, and urged by the god of desire, we have acted very improperly. It behoveth thee, O Brahmana, to pardon us! Truly, O Brahmana, it was death to us that we had at all come hither to tempt thee of rigid vows and ascetic wealth. The virtuous, however, have said that women should never be slain. Therefore grow thou in virtue. It behoveth thee not to slay us so. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... closely connected with the food supply that it is astonishing that more attention has not been given to this side of it. We often ascribe the intemperance of the poor man to poor food; but are not the excesses of the rich also due to food, poor because it is too highly seasoned and improperly cooked? ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various

... they're miles away," said his interrogator, who had been with Dennis in the same training corps. "Pretty good raid, what? What price Romford after this? Bet you a lemon squash your C.O. will reprimand you for appearing on parade improperly dressed." ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... memorial to the Legislature, but am told it is an abstract from the 'Pamphlet of Sketches.' From the statements in that I take the burthen of his complaint to be, that the Trustees have not given him a due and proper share of power and influence in the concerns of the college, and that they have improperly used their own power and influence in patronizing and propagating in the college particular theological opinions. The alleged misapplication of funds [paid for preaching] is stated as an instance of such misconduct. These opinions, it would seem, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... people, every city, and, so to speak, every man, thought to obtain some distinct privilege, and win the favor of an especial patron at the foot of the Throne of Grace. Unable to subdivide the Deity, they multiplied and improperly enhanced the importance of the divine agents. The homage due to saints and angels became an almost idolatrous worship amongst the majority of the Christian world; and apprehensions might be entertained for a moment lest the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... and, in answer to her maid's inquiry as to how she had passed the night, had begun talking about her weary, miserable life in an unusually fretful and desperate way. Josephine, in trying to cheer her spirits, had ventured, most improperly, on making a light, jesting reference to Mr. Meeke, which had so enraged my mistress that she turned round sharp on the half-breed and gave her—to use the common phrase—a smart box on the ear. Josephine confessed that, the moment after she had done ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... baboon, and a mouth so much accustomed to that contraction which produces grinning, that he could not pronounce a syllable without discovering the remains of his teeth, which consisted of four yellow fangs, not improperly, by anatomists, called canine. This person, I say, after having eyed me some time, said, "Oho, 'tis ver well, Monsieur Concordance; young man, you are ver welcome, take one coup of bierre—and come to mine house ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... suppressed. There are not more than a hundred paid soldiers in camp, and six captains of infantry and their officers draw salaries. The forts are without garrisons; but for more than a year the wardens thereof have been improperly drawing salaries. Your Majesty has no galleys whatever, and there is one commander, who, though unemployed, draws a yearly salary of eight hundred pesos; and there are many officers who get a salary in the same manner. There are many garrisons of soldiers, sailors, artillerymen, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... afternoon I found him looking very sad about something which you had said to him, and in which you had very improperly mixed my name. While trying: to dissipate his sorrow, we went and walked about in the harbour. There, among other things, was to be seen a Turkish galley. A young Turk, with a gentlemanly look about him, invited us to go in, and held out his hand to us. We went in. He was most ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere

... There he finds mention of seven chief angels, with some kind of pre-eminence enjoyed by Michael. In the poem he finds employment for only four, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, with a few Seraphim and Cherubim, to whom he invariably, and very improperly, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... Commissary appointed to Execute the Contents hereof) and absolutely None shall be Suffered to Stay a Single Night; And the Said Commissary is hereby Directed to take the Necessary Precautions for Executing this Our Will and Pleasure, and due Care that None of his Certificates be Improperly made use of by Enabling them to Enter the City too frequently excepting such as he shall grant thro' favour to the Principal Merchants who will stand in Greater Need than others of entring ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf

... its support. A baronet, so thought Roger Carbury, should be a rich man, rich enough to grace the rank which he assumed to wear. A title, according to Roger's doctrine on such subjects, could make no man a gentleman, but, if improperly worn, might degrade a man who would otherwise be a gentleman. He thought that a gentleman, born and bred, acknowledged as such without doubt, could not be made more than a gentleman by all the titles which the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... and other Trusts endeavor improperly and illegitimately to obtain what does not belong to ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... to keep things from being lost or improperly used she fell into the habit of storing them in her bedroom, so that in time it became a veritable junk-shop. "Among my dresses," she writes, "hang bridle straps and horse robes. On the camphor-wood ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... dear Mary; it is an indisposition caused by her own selfish appetite, and probably the relief may be obtained by her stomach rejecting what she so improperly forced upon it. We will wait a short time, and if not, I will give her something less palatable, perhaps, than plum-cake, but ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury

... the oldest operations known to surgery, yet strange to say, it is probably more often improperly performed today, and more often followed by needless mortality, than any other operation. The two chief preventable sequelae are death from improper routine surgical care and wrongly fitted tube, and stenosis from ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... quite early times, when the Australian heiress, as she was improperly styled, was taking London more or less by storm, she chanced to overhear a brief colloquy not intended ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... long as the words themselves are intelligible, but in singing and public speaking every misuse of the resonator is magnified and does not pass unnoticed. Increased loudness of the voice will not improve its carrying power if the resonator is improperly used; it will often lead to a rise of pitch and the production of a harsh, shrill tone associated with a sense of strain and effort. Aikin claims that by studying the whispering voice we can find for ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott

... difficult to reconcile the character of trading nations with the qualities that are improperly called great, than that of any other. A commercial nation naturally will be just; it may be generous; but it never can become extravagant and wasteful; neither can it be incumbered with the lazy and the idle; for the moment that either of these takes ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... embroidery of conversation, but it should not be the web. 2. It is called so, but it is improperly called so. 3. Was Cabot the discoverer of America, or was he not the discoverer of America? 4. William the Silent has been likened to Washington, and he has justly been likened to him. 5. It was his address that pleased me, and it was not ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... instruct the children in a kind of catechism. They are obliged to abstain from swearing, and all abusive language, and dare not wear any article of gold or silk in their dress. Many of them make it a rule never to eat of any food, nor to receive any money, which they suspect to have been improperly acquired. For this reason, whenever they have to receive considerable sums of money, they take care that it shall be first exchanged for other coin. The Sheikh El Nedjem, who generally accompanies the Sheikh Beshir, in his visits ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... certain Down of a Plant, brought from the East-Indies, call'd commonly, though very improperly, Cow-itch, the reason of which mistake is manifest enough from the description of it, which Mr. Parkinson sets down in his Herbal, Tribe XI. Chap. 2. Phasiolus siliqua hirsuta; The hairy Kidney-bean, called in Zurratte where it grows, Couhage: We have had (says he) another of this ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... Terms.—Legend is a thing "to be read" (legendum), but it is often improperly applied to traditions and oral communications. Of this there have been some instances in "N. & Q." One has just turned up, Vol. v., p. 196.: "I send you these legends as I have heard them from the lips of my nurse, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various

... the Insects, as in the Table, except the Eel-Snake, (so call'd, though very improperly, because he is nothing but a Loach, that sucks, and cannot bite, as the Snakes do.) He is very large, commonly sixteen Inches, or a Foot and half long; having all the Properties that other Loaches have, and dwells in Pools and Waters, as they do. Notwithstanding, we have the ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... one who is fit to reason with regard to abstract general propositions; I will now, therefore, state a particular case, in illustration of that proposition which has been here so improperly answered. The strata of Derbyshire marbles were originally immense collections at the bottom of the sea, of calcareous bodies consisting almost wholly of various fragments of the entrochi; and they were then covered with an indefinite number of other strata under which these ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... such and such cognitions may or may not be thought, and are, therefore, as contingent, factitious generalizations. To this process of experiment, analysis, and classification, through which we attain to a scientific knowledge of principles, it might be shown that Aristotle, not improperly, applies the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... the unhappy Carte drew up a faint appeal, rendered still more weak by a long and improbable tale, that the objectionable illustration had been merely a private note which by mistake had been printed, and only designed to show that the person who had been healed improperly attributed his cure to the sanative virtue of the regal unction; since the prince in question had never been anointed. But this was plunging from Scylla into Charybdis, for it inferred that the Stuarts ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... saw us at the chapel, the Earl of Errol was informed of our arrival, and we had the honour of an invitation to his seat, called Slanes Castle, as I am told, improperly, from the castle of that name, which once stood at a place ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... poet, Audley Egerton that of a parliamentary debater; but Harley had the rarer gift of eloquence in itself, apart from the matter it conveys or adorns,—that gift which Demosthenes meant by his triple requisite of an orator, which has been improperly translated "action," but means in reality "the acting," "the stage-play." Both Leonard and Audley spoke well, from the good sense which their speeches contained; but Harley could have talked nonsense, and made it more effective than sense,—even ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that an obscure and prolix author may not improperly be compared to a Cuttle-fish, since he may be said to hide ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various

... to set a trap for students so that they may learn through the consequences of error. For this reason students may be permitted to leap to a conclusion, to generalize from insufficient data, to neglect controls, to overlook disturbing factors, etc. An improperly planned and poorly graded laboratory course repeats exercises that involve the same problems and omits situations that give training in attacking and ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... chords of that instrument." J—— N.]. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony[Footnote: From this circumstance, I conceive our author's catch was improperly so called.], is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet: their love ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... comprehend it than women do, as may evidently appear by the manner and method we shall give. Wherefore the judgments which we shall pass in every chapter do properly concern a man, as comprehending the whole species, and but improperly the woman, as being but a part thereof, and derived from the man, and therefore, whoever is called to give judgment on such a face, ought to be wary about all the lines and marks that belong to it, respect ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... or a number, however, without being sure it should be spelled out. It is much easier for a copy-reader to ring a number that needs to be spelled out than to erase an unnecessary circle. If it is necessary to have the printer set up slangy, misspelled, or improperly capitalized words, or ungrammatical or poorly punctuated sentences, put in the margin, Follow Copy. For illustrations of these corrections, the reader may examine the specimen proof sheet on ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... make perfect specimens. The usual way of sending horned heads home from abroad is to leave the skins attached to the skull, and the consequence is, that at the various points of attachment the skin is improperly cured (often with the—worse than—useless arsenic), and if they escape the inevitable knocking about they receive in travelling, and get to England in fair condition, the hair, when the skin is relaxed, sweats off, particularly ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... chestnut and black walnut were planted in sand and watered at intervals with a 1 to 10,000 solution of potassium permanganate. In the course of time the majority of cuttings came out in leaf, but none formed roots, and hence soon died. It is admitted that this experiment may have been improperly planned and conducted, but it showed at any rate that it is not an easy matter to propagate most nut plants by root or ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... an excellent letter, and faultlessly addressed the envelope, all may be easily stamped as unbusiness-like, and spoiled, by improperly performing so simple a part as the folding. Remember that excellent rule that, whatever is worth ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... of religion or duty. It arises from the principles of self preservation in the human frame; but is a corruption, or at least a partial result, of those principles, and is upon many accounts very improperly termed self-love. ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... said something: And 'tis worth noting, that though if that Metall be dissolv'd in oyl of Vitriol diluted with water, it affords a Salt or Magistery so like in colour, as well as some other Qualities, to other green Vitriol, that Chymists do not improperly call it Vitriolum Martis; yet I have purposely try'd, that, by changing the Menstruum, and pouring upon the filings of Steel, instead of oyl of Vitriol, Aqua Fortis, (whereof as I remember, I us'd 4 parts to one of the Metall) I obtain'd not a Green, but a Saffron Colour ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... according to the Bible, he had as much a right to my mother's property as she had; that all things should be in common; and when all things were in common, what became of charity? No, he could not eat my uncle's arrowroot and drink his wine while my uncle was improperly withholding from him and his fellow-creatures so many unprofitable acres: the land belonged to the people." It was now the turn of Pisistratus to go. He went once, and he went often. Miles Square and Pisistratus ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Owing to improperly cooked food, change of climate and of water, and neglect of proper sanitation measures in the camps, camp diarrhea became epidemic at Pittsburg Landing, especially among the "green" regiments like ours. And for about six weeks everybody suffered, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... other things comprised in this knowledge, conceives the Word; so that thus the whole Trinity is "spoken" in the Word; and likewise also all creatures: as the intellect of a man by the word he conceives in the act of understanding a stone, speaks a stone. Anselm took the term "speak" improperly for the act of understanding; whereas they really differ from each other; for "to understand" means only the habitude of the intelligent agent to the thing understood, in which habitude no trace of origin is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... acceleration from hell—well, that was debatable. But no thrust from the hellmaker was not a debatable point. The Cow wasn't likely to be wrong, though her appalling literalness was such that an improperly phrased question might make ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... lived long enough to witness the establishment of an entirely new school of poets, in the persons of Dryden and his contemporaries. But, roughly speaking, the dates above given mark the limits of one literary epoch, which may not improperly be called the Elisabethan. In strictness the Elisabethan age ended with the queen's death, in 1603. But the poets of the succeeding reigns inherited much of the glow and splendor which marked the diction of their forerunners; and "the spacious times of great Elisabeth" have been, by courtesy, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... had been made against either of them. At one time, the Recorder said the witness must be white; at another, that one respectable witness was insufficient; at another, that a person who had been (improperly) confined and released, was not a competent witness, &c. &c. Lonnon has been employed in the South Sea fishery from Nantucket and New Bedford, nearly all his life; has sailed on those voyages in the ships ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... our richest dividends: we can take the tremendous profits which we are receiving with the gratifying knowledge that every dollar we get is clean, and represents an equal sum saved to the people. No one of us has made an unfair penny out of the promotion; no one of us has improperly used the information which has come to him while negotiating our consolidations; there is no act of ours, individually or officially, which will not stand the fullest publicity. What other corporation can make that boast, Covington? The most baneful influence which corporate power conveys ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... themselves? Suarez will have Imagines esse occasiones vel signa excitantia hominem ad adorandum prototype.(700) Friar Pedro de Cabrera,(701) a Spaniard, taketh the opinion of Durand and his followers to be this: That images are adored only improperly, because they put men in mind of the persons represented by them; and he reasoneth against them thus: "If images were only to be worshipped by way of rememoration and recordation, because they make us remember the samplers which we do so worship as if they had been ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... discouraged with Worcester, they removed, with what they had left, to Boston. Again for weary days, stretching into weeks, went on the disheartening search for work. Mr. Simmons says in those days the very iron entered into his soul. To see his refined, cultivated wife sick and wasting away, his children improperly clothed and hungry, and compelled, day by day, to return to the tenement house on the filthy street whither his condition had forced him, with a feeling of utter helplessness, he declares that nothing but the religious convictions of his youth, and the ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... 'such a dreadful effect.' Giddy and unreliable young women are wandering about the lanes and fields with stranger sweethearts at all hours. Even girls who have been good Sunday-school scholars are becoming insubordinate. She did not in the least mean to be improperly humorous—in fact she was quite tragic when she said that the rector felt that he ought to marry, on the spot, every rambling couple he met. He had already performed the ceremony in a number of cases when he felt it was almost criminally rash and idiotic, or would ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... have already observed that what Aharlow was to the southern insurgents, the deep, secluded valley of Glenmalure was to the oppressed of Leinster. It afforded, at this period, refuge to a nobleman whose memory has been most improperly allowed to fall into oblivion. This was James Eustace, Viscount Baltinglass, who had suffered imprisonment in the Castle for refusing to pay an illegal tax of a few pounds, who was afterwards made the object of a special, vindictive enactment, known as "the Statute of Baltinglass," ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... most certain proof to bleachers of cotton and linen goods as to whether the bleaching has burned or weakened the goods. The same test will quickly determine whether a fabric has been improperly treated ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... groom had left the ancestral door Mrs. Wilson had hung her own ermine victorine (the envy of all Edgewood) around Patty's neck and put her ermine willow muff into her new daughter's hands; thus she was as dazzling a personage, and as improperly dressed for the journey, as she ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... listen to dictation. But Sir Thomas insisted. "It's as well that we should understand each other at once," said Sir Thomas. "I should throw up the contest in the middle of it,—even if I were winning,—if I suspected that money was being spent improperly." How often has the same thing been said by a candidate, and what candidate ever has thrown up the sponge when he was winning? Mr. Trigger was at first disposed to tell Sir Thomas that he was interfering in things beyond his province. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... they contend that the effete matter which has served its purpose and done for the body all that it can do is retained in the body to its loss and damage. "The question comes to be," says Professor Miller, "whether shall we take alcohol, eat less, and be improperly nourished, or take no alcohol, eat more, and be nourished well? Whether shall we thrive better on a small quantity of new nutritive material with a great deal of what is old and mouldy, or on a constant and fresh supply of new material? ... The most perfect health and strength depend ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... that cover them are watched and noted in this way, in order that the various companies over whose lines they pass may get their due, and that the companies owning them may get their demurrage if they be improperly detained on the way. For this purpose, at every point where separate railways join, there are stationed men in the pay of the Clearing-House, whose duty it is to take the numbers of all passenger carriages and goods, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... he said, "that we have not agreed on these things improperly, as it appears to me; for if one class of things were not constantly given back in the place of another, revolving, as it were, in a circle, but generation were direct from one thing alone into its opposite, and did not turn round again to the other, or ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... he combines with pride a contempt for others, that he claims for himself greater attention, consideration, or respect than he is entitled to. To say that he is presumptuous makes him an inferior (or at least not a superior) who claims privileges or takes liberties improperly. To say that he is haughty means that he assumes a disdainful superiority to others, especially through fancied or actual advantage over them in birth or social position. To say that he is supercilious means that he maintains toward others an attitude of lofty indifference ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... and proper. Ye foremost of men, it hath been said that hunting, drinking, gambling, and too much enjoyment of women, are the four vices of kings. The man, that is addicted to these, liveth forsaking virtue. And people do not regard the acts done by a person who is thus improperly engaged, as of any authority. This son of Pandu, while deeply engaged in one of these vicious acts, urged thereto by deceitful gamblers, made Draupadi a stake. The innocent Draupadi is, besides, the common wife of all the sons of Pandu. And the king, having first lost himself offered her as a stake. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... of the privilege I have already frequently taken of making abrupt transitions from one subject to another, according as the recollection of past circumstances occurs to my mind, I shall here note down a few details, which may not improperly be called domestic, and afterwards describe a conspiracy which was protected by the very man ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... both by the solemn preparations made for eating them and by the danger supposed to be incurred by persons who venture to partake of them without observing the prescribed ritual. In all such cases, accordingly, we may not improperly describe the eating of the new fruits as a sacrament or communion with a deity, or at all events with ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... even more essential part of the harness is the collar. More mules are maimed and even ruined altogether by improperly fitting collars, than is generally believed by quartermasters. It requires more judgment to fit a collar properly on a mule than it does to fit any other part of the harness. Get your collar long enough to buckle the strap ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... up the character of the great Lord Bacon, as he is generally but improperly called; and this verdict, in the main, has been confirmed by Lords Macaulay and Campbell, who seem to delight in keeping him in that niche of the temple of fame where the poet has placed him,—contemptible as a man, but venerable as the philosopher, radiant with all the wisdom of his age and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... should be so tight as not to admit more than one finger freely between it and the chin; these rules are simple, and should be attended to by all riders; a horseman should no more mount with his bit improperly placed, than a seaman should set sail with his ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood

... who, not being addressed by a tradesman in a little town in his bill by a factitious title, to which she imagined that she had a right, sent back his letter open to the post-office, with an intimation to the postmaster that letters so improperly addressed would ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... peculiarly open to suggestion of all kinds—it can readily be seen that its employment may be exceedingly dangerous, save in the hands of a skilled operator. It may be the very cause of a splitting of the mind—if improperly administered—if the patient is not thoroughly awakened, the effects of suggestion completely removed, etc. In this lies the great danger—of which we hear so much, usually with so little foundation! The real danger in the process is thus apparent; but, properly applied, hypnotism ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... upright, with long nodes and small fruit clusters well scattered over the vine. They are usually very productive through a long season but generally late in maturing. Stocks of this type are sometimes sold, I think improperly, as giant climbing, or Tree tomato. The Buckeye State is a good type of ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... happen in canoes—not because they are unsafe when properly handled, but because they are unsafe when improperly handled—and many people do not take the trouble even to find out the proper way of managing a canoe. Many canoes have seats almost on a level with the gunwale, whereas, properly speaking, the only ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... and that they should be altogether taken out of the hands of the Government, as the only way to take them out of the reach of agitation. He thought the rectories were vested rights, and should not be disturbed, unless by due process of law, if, as was pretended, they were improperly obtained. If there were any claims in the Act of 1791 which seemed to connect the Church of England to the State, though he did not think they did, they might be repealed, and the Bishop of Toronto seemed to be of opinion ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... fine, then, and a marvel; not the marvel which it replaced, but still a marvel, and fine enough. I am a careless reader, I suppose—an impressionist reader; an impressionist reader of what is not an impressionist picture; a reader who overlooks the informing details or masses their sum improperly, and gets only a large splashy, general effect—an effect which is not correct, and which is not warranted by the particulars placed before me particulars which I did not examine, and whose meanings I did not cautiously and carefully estimate. It is an effect which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... by the most candid admission of the fact, accompanied by a store of other knowledge unfortunately quite foreign to the pursuits of the Society; and I will add, that I regretted to see him insulted by one President in a situation improperly given to him by ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... that a gentleman accosted so improperly is to be greatly blamed if he uses strong ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... here very improperly calls the Nayres, or Malabar soldiers of the zamorin, Moors; though in all probability there might be some Mahometans among ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... was formerly the precious Honeywood bequest, improperly sold to Dibdin for 500 guineas; but the library still contains about 5000 volumes, to which the Dean and Chapter make additions from time to time; and there is a paid custodian, who is one of the minor canons. York Minster ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... maturely he came to the conclusion that there must have been something wrong on both sides. If he had presented the truth properly the young man could not have acted so improperly. After recalling the whole affair, he became satisfied that he had relied far too much on his own strong logic, and it had seemed to him that it must convince. He had forgotten for the moment that those who would do good should be very humble, and that, in a certain sense, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... been described as new, which were before known—and that in the haste of composition some verbal errors may have escaped the author, yet these slight defects do not detract essentially from the merit of the work, or prove that it has improperly been denominated a scientific, valuable, and interesting volume. Our sage critics are not aware how many and whom they include in the denunciation of 'a few men who pretend to all the knowledge, all the wisdom of the country;' if by a few they mean all who have spoken in the most favorable ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... proper Greek word would be [Greek: hypomnemata]. Kaltwasser accordingly concludes that Plutarah appears to have confounded the Ephemerides and the Commentarii, or at least to have used the word [Greek: ephemerides] improperly instead of [Greek: hypomnemata] . There is no proof that Caesar kept a diary. That kind of labour is suited to men of a different stamp from him. Plutarch means the Commentarii. It is true that Servius (Ad AEneid. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... given his sanction to the imposition of menial offices upon the sons of freedom who are now serving in the militia, as was the case with young Matlack, which you will remember. And he has of late improperly granted a pass for a vessel to clear for the port of the enemy. I desire to make these charges publicly in order that you may know that my criticisms are not without foundation. I have ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... move during the day in a manner, which has improperly been called diurnal sleep; for when the sun shines brightly on them, they direct their edges towards it. To such cases we shall recur in the following chapter on Heliotropism. It has been shown that the ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... always with the reservation that strenuous eccentricity such as Beethoven's is hardly admissible; whereas, vapid emptiness (das gleichgiltig Nichtssagende) is right and proper: a point at which Schumann properly played, and Beethoven improperly rendered, are perhaps comparable without much fear of misunderstanding! Thus these singular defenders of musical chastity stand towards our great classical music in the position of eunuchs in the Grand-Turk's Harem; and by the same token German Philistinism ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)

... observed that the line between the Northn. & Southern interest had been improperly drawn: that Pa. was the dividing State, there being six on ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... beeve, and therefore agrees so far with the description of Herodotus. It is also a sullen, spiteful animal, being often know to pursue the unwary, especially if clad in scarlet. For these reasons, the buffalo may not improperly be taken for the thau or oryx, whereof we have had hitherto ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... strictly orthodox. Yet if she could be examined by a commission to the ghosts, she would probably have some palliating circumstances to allege in mitigation of judgment. There were perhaps peculiarities in Milton's character which a young lady might not improperly dislike. The austere and ascetic character is of course far less agreeable to women than the sensuous and susceptible. The self-occupation, the pride, the abstraction of the former are to the female mind disagreeable; studious habits and unusual self-denial seem to it purposeless; lofty enthusiasm, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... observes (Contra Julian. iv, 3) just as prudence is sometimes improperly taken in a bad sense, so is craftiness sometimes taken in a good sense, and this on account of their mutual resemblance. Properly speaking, however, craftiness is taken in a bad sense, as the Philosopher states in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... guns which belonged to the Army of the Valley before it became part of the Army of Northern Virginia, after the battle of Cedar Run, will be taken from it. If since that time any artillery has improperly come into my command, I trust that it will be taken away, and the person in whose possession it may be found punished, if his conduct requires it. So careful was I to prevent an improper distribution of the artillery and other public property captured at Harper's Ferry, that ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... duly undertaken or carried out, and that not only was no heavenly manifestation vouchsafed to him, but he and his house were struck by lightning and burned to ashes, through theanger of Jupiter, who was exasperated at the ceremony having been improperly performed.[32] Tullus reigned two-and-thirty years ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... Epicurus. Improperly; for the epic has much more in it of what is prosaic. Its magnitude is no argument. An Egyptian pyramid contains more materials than an Ionic temple, but requires less contrivance, and exhibits less beauty of design. My simile is yet ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... is in the state of excess, called one of Vulgar Profusion, is in excess because he spends improperly, as has been said. I mean in cases requiring small expenditure he lavishes much and shows off out of taste; giving his club a feast fit for a wedding-party, or if he has to furnish a chorus for a comedy, giving the actors purple to ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... are surrounded by a dense network of nerves and blood vessels, making them very liable to congestion. Tight clothing or improperly fitted clothing causes pressure and interferes with the circulation. I believe that a large percentage of the objections to the corset originated from women wearing improperly fitted corsets which ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... their Reputations, venture upon the Embraces of a Man, though they are never so strongly enclin'd. The unnatural Pleasures of this kind are finely illustrated in the following Song, written by Mr. ROWE, which I take it will not be improperly inserted in ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob

... duties. Thus, 1.) The Councilmen were to have the oversight of the preservation and improvement of the church and parsonage. 2.) That each in his turn should look after the life of the people, and if any one should conduct himself improperly, give timely notice of it to the pastor, so that with his concurrence and advice, and according to the circumstances of the persons and their deeds, they might be brought before the Church Council (Kyrkoraedet), and either admonished, placed on trial, or excluded ...
— The Organization of the Congregation in the Early Lutheran Churches in America • Beale M. Schmucker

... under the direction of their teacher. For Filipino children they were rather noisy, since at the table and in the presence of other persons their sins are generally more of omission than of commission. Perhaps one who was using the tableware improperly would be corrected by his neighbor and from this there would arise a noisy discussion in which each would have his partisans. Some would say the spoon, others the knife or the fork, and as no one was considered an authority ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... at the lack of knowledge of how to properly load barreled apples into cars. Over half the cars going to market are improperly loaded. The best way is to place all the barrels crosswise of the cars with lower tier to the right side of the car, and the second tier the left of the car with the bilge lying in the hollows of the lower tier. The third tier should be at the right side again ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... to find her. She has written to tell me. The last time I saw you, you expressed yourself very improperly about Mrs. Farnaby; you spoke as if you meant ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... and the story of how I had come by them taxed my ingenuity somewhat, although not improperly. I had to be careful not to let them know that I had been ashamed of the home-made suit. They, somehow, felt the truth about it and a little silence followed the story. Then Aunt Deel drew her chair near me and touched my hair very ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... exaggeration of the emoluments of a place, which, after all was not improperly bestowed on a person ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... objected. They unblushingly declared themselves unfit;—asserted that they could not depend upon themselves to give a true verdict, and assured the judge that their minds would be improperly biassed by circumstances on one side or the other. What atrocious characters!—what self-condemned miscreants! Why does not the judge instantly, with that stern look he knows so well how to assume, turn them out of court, bid them make ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... country. He had the whole Scriptures in his memory, but seemed to have been at more pains to retain them than understand them; as he talked much he often took occasion to quote them, and did it almost always improperly. Having invited him to sup and pass the night with me, I set before him some excellent mead, which he liked so well as to drink somewhat beyond the bounds of exact temperance. Next day, to make some return for his entertainment, he took upon him to divert me with some of those stories ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... increases or disorders the general circulation, and especially all causes that increase the action of the cerebral arteries, or, as it is usually though improperly expressed, which occasion a determination of blood to the head. Of the former kind are violent exercise, and external heat applied to the surface generally, as by a heated atmosphere or the hot bath; of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... On the contrary it is often stimulating and may actually increase the vigor of a weak or declining tree. All practical experience teaches us that pruning is a reasonable, necessary, and advantageous process. True, it is often overdone, and improperly done. As in many other things, certain fundamental principles underlie and should govern practice. When these are known and observed, pruning becomes a more ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt

... usual in the actual practice of the courts. Thus the pecuniary compensation awarded for an outrage rises and falls in amount according to the rank and character of the plaintiff, and this principle is not improperly followed even where it is a slave who is outraged; the penalty where the slave is a steward being different from what it is when he is an ordinary menial, and different again when he is condemned ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... twine the ship as necessity shall require; so these officers called Governments, have a power of governing and steering the spiritual vessel of the Church; thus, Beza on this place, says he declares the order of Presbyters, who are keepers of discipline and church polity. For how improperly should these, or any officers be styled Governments in the Church, if they had not a power of government in the Church settled upon them? Nor can this be interpreted of the civil magistrate; for, when the Apostle wrote this, the Church had her government, when yet she had no civil magistrate ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... and then apt to draw too unfavourable conclusions from unpleasant appearances, which may perhaps be chiefly or altogether owing to gross or confused conceptions, or to a disgusting formality of demeanor, or to indeterminate, low, or improperly familiar expressions. The mode and language, in which a vulgar man will express himself on the subject of Religion, will probably be vulgar, and it is difficult for people of literature and refinement not to be unreasonably shocked by such vulgarities. But ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... regret for this maltreatment of "a distinguished foreigner." Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Minister in Lord John Russell's Ministry, sent the Note, but added a paragraph which indicated that, in his personal opinion, the brewery men were justified in their action, and that Haynau had acted improperly in coming to this country at all, knowing the feeling ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... your kindness most improperly, Monsieur Dalibard," said Sir Miles, with that politeness so displeasing to Ardworth, "but will you do me the favour to move aside that fold of the screen? I wish for a better view of our young people. Thank ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... progress within the pale of the Church; while the most influential of her clergy, and the great majority of her well educated laity, embraced the doctrines of a more generous and scriptural theology. Without falling into Pelagianism, a charge made by Calvinists on all who reject the system improperly called "the doctrines of grace," they held the great evangelic truth that Christ "died for all," and its correspondent views of the benevolence of God, and the moral dignity of human nature, impaired, but not ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull

... Committee as one item in the reconstitution of the office as a whole and when my section of the old Intelligence Division had been absorbed into it, I had insisted that this composite branch was an overburdened and improperly constituted one. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... obtained, and should be bestowed only upon full proof of a compliance with the law; and yet frequent instances are brought to the attention of the Government of illegal and fraudulent naturalization and of the unauthorized use of certificates thus improperly obtained. In some cases the fraudulent character of the naturalization has appeared upon the face of the certificate itself; in others examination discloses that the holder had not complied with the law, and in others certificates have been obtained where the persons holding them ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... fishes, derelicts, and deodands, ejectamenta maris, and the goods of pirates, traitors, felons, suicides, and fugitives within the admiralty jurisdiction; and the prize droits, or those accruing in the course of war, comprehending all ships and goods taken without commission, all vessels improperly captured before hostilities have been formally declared, or found or by accident brought within the admiralty, salvage for all ships rescued, and all ships seized, in any of the ports, creeks, or roads of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... bid us heartily welcome, desiring that what had formerly taken place with Sir Henry Middleton might be forgotten for that quarrel had originated between two drunken men, and had been improperly followed up by the former aga, for which he had now been five months displaced. In regard to trade, he could not permit any great matter till he received directions from his master, Jaffar Pacha, to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... me full of copybook maxims, easier recited than applied. As what I wrote preceded the debates and events of the last six months, I may not improperly make the following quotation from a screed of mine appearing in The Courier-Journal of the 5th ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... In general usage, 'The antique' is a phrase limited to the expression of art; but improperly so. It is quite as legitimately used to denote the literature of ancient times, in contradistinction to the modern. As to the term classical, though generally employed as equivalent to Greek and Roman, the reader must not forget this ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... possesses 82 degrees of heat. Is improperly called a warm bath. A chill at immersion, and then a sensation of warmth, like the eye in an obscure room owing to increased sensibility of the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... of 1839 is not improperly so designated, but nothing is more erroneous than to infer that it was waged by England for the purpose of forcing the product of her Indian poppy fields on the markets of China. Opium was the occasion, not the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... conversation was on the chief topic of the day: the illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count Bezukhov, and about his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved so improperly at Anna Pavlovna's reception. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... due to weak feet are manifold, just as are those due to eye-strain. Pain in the feet, legs and back, often mistaken for rheumatism, and improperly treated with drugs and liniment, chronic general fatigue and nervous depression are often due ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk



Words linked to "Improperly" :   properly, improper



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