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noun
Ordinary  n.  (pl. ordinaries)  
1.
(Law)
(a)
(Roman Law) An officer who has original jurisdiction in his own right, and not by deputation.
(b)
(Eng. Law) One who has immediate jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical; an ecclesiastical judge; also, a deputy of the bishop, or a clergyman appointed to perform divine service for condemned criminals and assist in preparing them for death.
(c)
(Am. Law) A judicial officer, having generally the powers of a judge of probate or a surrogate.
2.
The mass; the common run. (Obs.) "I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of nature's salework."
3.
That which is so common, or continued, as to be considered a settled establishment or institution. (R.) "Spain had no other wars save those which were grown into an ordinary."
4.
Anything which is in ordinary or common use. "Water buckets, wagons, cart wheels, plow socks, and other ordinaries."
5.
A dining room or eating house where a meal is prepared for all comers, at a fixed price for the meal, in distinction from one where each dish is separately charged; a table d'hôte; hence, also, the meal furnished at such a dining room. "All the odd words they have picked up in a coffeehouse, or a gaming ordinary, are produced as flowers of style." "He exacted a tribute for licenses to hawkers and peddlers and to ordinaries."
6.
(Her.) A charge or bearing of simple form, one of nine or ten which are in constant use. The bend, chevron, chief, cross, fesse, pale, and saltire are uniformly admitted as ordinaries. Some authorities include bar, bend sinister, pile, and others. See Subordinary.
In ordinary.
(a)
In actual and constant service; statedly attending and serving; as, a physician or chaplain in ordinary. An ambassador in ordinary is one constantly resident at a foreign court.
(b)
(Naut.) Out of commission and laid up; said of a naval vessel.
Ordinary of the Mass (R. C. Ch.), the part of the Mass which is the same every day; called also the canon of the Mass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ordinary" Quotes from Famous Books



... becomes of all these materials after we have done with them, we must extend our inquiries among the articles of ordinary diet and ascertain from what sources ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... would be such if they were heirs to a baronetcy. Shelley's mind disinherited itself out of allegiance to itself, because it was too sensitive and too highly endowed for the world into which it had descended. It rejected ordinary education, because it was incapable of assimilating it. Education is suitable to those few animals whose faculties are not completely innate, animals that, like most men, may be perfected by experience because they are born with various ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... in this; casual phrases of goodwill, spoken at a moment of conviviality, the outcome of genuine but perhaps not very deep feeling, except for that trifle of the kisses almost an ordinary accompaniment or conclusion of an evening's entertainment. I was a good fellow; the light praise had been lightly won. Yet even now as I write, looking back over the years, I can not, when I accuse myself of mawkishness, be altogether convinced by the self-denunciation. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... Ericson drove home alone. As he drove he was thinking over the Americans. What a perfect type they both were of the regulation American of English fiction and the English stage! If they could only go on to the London stage and speak exactly as they spoke in ordinary life they must make a splendid success as American comic actors. But, no doubt, as soon as either began to act, the naturalness of the accent and the manner and the mode of speech would all vanish and something purely artificial would come up instead. Still, he wondered ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... fragments of the shattered casement lay on the floor; but that opening had been only made when the soldier forced it in, and she saw no other access by which a stranger could have entered an apartment, the ordinary access to which was ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... opera of Tito Manlio, by Cocchi. By a letter from Gray to Mason, of the 22d of January, the Opera appears at this time to have been in a flourishing condition—"The Opera is crowded this year like any ordinary theatre. Elisi is finer than any thing that has been here in your memory; yet, as I suspect, has been finer than he is: he appears to be near forty, a little potbellied and thick-shouldered, otherwise no bad figure; has action ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... his uncomfortable position the company of scouts busy with their supper. The ordinary observer would not have imagined that these men were the pioneers of two hundred and thirty Green Mountain Boys and the Massachusetts and Connecticut troops. But Halpen knew the army of Americans was coming, and the object of their approach. Unwarned, ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... questions and those in ordinary type may be answered from the text itself; the answers to those in italics are to be found in other parts of the book, in a history of the United States, or in a cyclopedia. The questions in italics may of course, like all the rest, be omitted at the discretion of the teacher. The research ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... monsieur, of what consequence to me is that phantom of a king? I have grown old in a war and in a policy which are nowadays so closely linked together, that every man of the sword must fight in virtue of his rights or his ambition with a personal interest, and not blindly behind an officer, as in ordinary wars. For myself, I perhaps desire nothing, but I fear much. In the war of to-day rests the liberty of England, and, perhaps, that of every Englishman. How can you expect that I, free in the position I have made for myself, should ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... some of the many laws relating to the Shemonah-esreh, or the eighteen blessings which form the most devotional part of daily worship, and which are repeated three times on (ordinary) week-days, and four times on Sabbaths, new ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... popped out her head and said: "What has happened is in no way your fault. Your beauty has caused a wicked fox to fall in love with you. It is he who has got into your vagina, and who speaks out of it, in order to prevent the approach of any ordinary mortal husband. He, too, it is who has lured you out here, to carry you away altogether. But do not allow yourself to become subject to his influence. I will give you some beautiful clothes, and cause you to reach your house in safety. You ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... gives a man an air of frankness, generosity, and magnanimity by enabling him to estimate the value of truth, money, or success in any particular instance quite independently of convention and moral generalization. He therefore will not, in the ordinary Treasury bench fashion, tell a lie which everybody knows to be a lie (and consequently expects him as a matter of good taste to tell). His lies are not found out: they pass for candors. He understands the paradox ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... not till 1778 that the first Catholic Relief Bill was carried, a Bill that "shook the general prejudice against Catholics to the centre, and restored to them a thousand indescribable charities in the ordinary intercourse of social life ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... "In various parts of the world, such as Auvergne in Central France, and along the flanks of Etna, there are cones of long-extinct or long-slumbering volcanoes, which, though of at least triple the antiquity of the Noachian deluge, and though composed of the ordinary incoherent materials, exhibit no marks of denudation. According to the calculations of Sir Charles Lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over the forest-zone of Etna during the ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton

... to the galleon trade with Mexico, and the prosperity of the Filipino merchants—in large measure the prosperity of the entire Archipelago—depended upon the yearly ventures the hazard of which was not so much the ordinary uncertainty of the sea as the risk of capture by English freebooters. Everybody in the Philippines had heard of these daring English mariners, who were emboldened by an almost unbroken series of successes which had correspondingly discouraged ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... Ulysses to the court one of the common sort of beggars, Irus by name, one that had received alms beforetime of the suitors, and was their ordinary sport, when they were inclined (as that day) to give way to mirth, to see him eat and drink; for he had the appetite of six men; and was of huge stature and proportions of body; yet had in him no spirit nor courage ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... spoke, the captain opened a door that led off the cabin and disclosed a room as large as an ordinary stateroom with two ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... reinstating or manuring his land with economy until he can find no more new land to exhaust, or wear out as he calls it; and, besides, the tobacco which is produced from manured or cow-penned land, is only considered, in ordinary, to be a crop of second quality. It will hence be perceived, (and more particularly when it is known that the earth must be continually worked to make a good crop of tobacco, without even regarding the heat of the sun, or the torrent of sudden showers,) that, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... speak a word.' An instant after Evan found himself seated between Mrs. Evremonde and one of the Conley girls. The dinner had commenced. The first half of the Battle of the Bull-dogs was as peaceful as any ordinary pic-nic, and promised to the general company ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... daughter to learn to jingle on the piano, in order to become musical? or shall she grow more musical by learning to play finely? I am sure the latter is your wish, as it is mine: otherwise, you would be contented with an ordinary teacher. You must consider that, when she has made a beginning, by learning to play one piece thoroughly and quite correctly, the following pieces will be learned more and more quickly; for she will have acquired a dexterity ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... dreadful night. It was like the end of the annual holiday, only infinitely worse. It was like a newly arrived prisoner's backward glance at the trees and heather through the prison gates. He had to go back to harness, and he was as fitted to go in harness as the ordinary domestic cat. All night, Fate, with the quiet complacency, and indeed at times the very face and gestures of Johnson, guided him towards that undesired establishment at the corner near the station. "Oh Lord!" he cried, "I'd rather go back to cribs. I should keep my money ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... place had been occupied by Union troops; the mansion, with all its surroundings, had been destroyed by fire, and, as has been well said by another, there was "not a blade of grass left to mark the culture of more than a hundred years." Had he been an ordinary man he would have sunk with the load of sorrow and trouble which weighed him down. But he had a brave heart, which defeat and affliction and disaster with united effort ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... other beliefs with me with regard to the spiritual world and the measuring of death, which ought, if I had ordinary logic, to rescue me from what people in general suffer in circumstances like these. Only I am weak and foolish; and when the tender past came back to me day by day, I have dropped down before ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... essential details is much the same in all ships, whether naval, merchant, or whaling vessels. But while in the ordinary merchantman there are decidedly "no more cats than can catch mice," hardly, indeed, sufficient for all the mousing that should be done, in men-of-war and whaleships the number of hands carried, being far more than are wanted for everyday work, must needs be ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... with ditto—snuff candles with ditto—make a spit of her arm, or a toasting fork of her thumb! What a saving, too, at the washing season, since she need only hold her hand between the bars till it is red-hot, thrust it into a box iron, and iron you off a dozen children's frocks, while an ordinary laundress would be coddling the irons over the fire, spitting upon them, and holding them to her cheek to ascertain the heat ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... as ordinary letters, without any thought of the old connection with magic. So the great Christian poet, Cynewulf, wrote his name in runes, which is how we know him to be the author of some of the ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... of politics in the ordinary sense of the word,—nay, Igladly leave the groping for the petty causes of the late war to the scrutiny of those foreign statesmen who have eyes only for the infinitesimally small, but cannot, or will not, see the powerful handiwork of Divine justice that reveals itself in the history ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... by setting the victims at liberty. As the police agent is the creature of the general government and is not responsible to the municipality, he can only be brought to book when he makes the mistake of offending some high personage. To the complaint of an ordinary citizen he would probably reply by drawing his cloak ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... proof that he was an able scholar. His temper was very steady and composed; he could reason upon the most subtle points with great solidity, and when every one else was warm his temper was never ruffled. At any time when indecent heats or wranglings happened to fall in when reasoning, it was his ordinary custom to say, "Enough of this, let us go to some other subject; we are warm, and can dispute no longer with advantage." Perhaps he had the greatest mixture of fervent zeal and sweet calmness in his temper, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... said he, "you told me the last time we were together that you thought of opening a school for boys in Stockholm. I am pleased with it, for I have proved that your ability as teacher and guide of youth is of no ordinary kind. I wish to introduce to you a pupil, my little boy. You will confer upon me a real pleasure if you will be able to receive him in two months, at which time I must undertake a journey abroad, which perhaps may detain me long, and would wish ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... that followed Captain Raymond won golden opinions from those with whom he sojourned, showing himself as capable of the courage of endurance as of that more ordinary kind that incites to deeds of daring; he was always patient and cheerful, and sufficiently at leisure from himself and his own troubles to show a keen interest in ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... have care of souls, and dispense spiritual things to the people, are not bound to pay tithes, but they may receive them. Another reason applies to other religious, who though clerics do not dispense spiritual things to the people; for according to the ordinary law they are bound to pay tithes, but they are somewhat exempt by reason of various concessions granted by the Apostolic See [*Cap. Ex multiplici, Ex parte, and Ad audientiam, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... to think what he looked like," she said slowly. "But I feel that I don't know. He was quite unlike any ordinary man." ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... September, and the British army took possession of the citadel, dock-yards, and batteries; engaging to restore them, and to evacuate Zealand, if possible, within six weeks. All the ships laid up in ordinary were rigged out and fitted by the British Admiral; and at the expiration of the term, they, together with the stores, timber, and other articles of naval equipment found in the arsenal, were conveyed to England. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... self-admiration, swearing brutally and bitterly at others, over the relentless energy with which he had been pursued. Deb. Smith listened with eager interest, slapping him upon the back with a force of approval which would have felled an ordinary man, but which Sandy Flash ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... telegraph and telephone station in the Model City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes passin' to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... tenants inhabiting it, than is usual with landlords of his kind; for all that, the present examination brought to light not a few things which were startling even to him. Since Waymark had ceased to act as his collector, the office had been filled by an agent of the ordinary kind, and Mr. Woodstock had, till just now, taken less interest in the property than formerly. Things had got worse on the whole. Whereas Waymark had here and there been successful in suppressing the grosser forms of uncleanliness by threats of expulsion, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... recognized means of fasts, vigils, prolonged prayers, and a constant disregard of the usual rules of health, that he soon could no longer sleep. He fell into despondency, and finally into despair. The ordinary observance of the rules of the monastery, which satisfied most of the monks, failed to give him peace. He felt that even if he outwardly did right he could never purify all his thoughts and desires. His experience led ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... resolute that they seemed to contradict the bland conventionality which overspread all the rest of the man. Eyes with wonderful intelligence and self-dependence in them; perhaps, also, with something a little false in them, which I might have discovered immediately under ordinary circumstances: but I looked at the doctor through the medium of his daughter, and saw nothing of him at the first ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... the pater,—I can talk easily enough to him on ordinary subjects; but when it comes to anything about which I feel very deeply, Nannie is the only person to whom I can bear to speak, now that she is gone. And even to Nannie I can't say much; I wish I could,—it would be a relief sometimes. I envy the others that ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... know, Sheriff," interrupted Steger, blandly, "but this isn't an ordinary case in any way, as you can see for yourself. Mr. Cowperwood is a very important man, and he has a great many things to attend to. Now if it were only a mere matter of seventy-five or a hundred dollars to satisfy some court clerk with, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... perceived the tight fix that I was in my broken head went to throbbing again, and my legs were so shaky under me that I had to sit down on the deck in a hurry in order to save myself from a fall. Indeed, I was in no condition to face even an ordinary trouble, let alone an overwhelming disaster; for what with my loss of blood from the cut on my head, and the little food I had eaten since I got it, I was ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... acts imposing port duties to which the Americans had submitted. British historians sometimes speak of the American Revolution as an affair which grew out of a mere dispute about money; and even among Americans, in ordinary conversation and sometimes in current literature, the unwillingness of our forefathers to pay a tax of threepence a pound on tea is mentioned without due reference to the attendant circumstances which ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... and not by the external objects (svata@h-prama@nya and svata@h-aprama@nya). The prama@na however can lead to a prama or right knowledge only when it is intelligized by the puru@sa. The puru@sa comes in touch with buddhi not by the ordinary means of physical contact but by what may be called an inexplicable transcendental contact. It is the transcendental influence of puru@sa that sets in motion the original prak@rti in Sa@mkhya metaphysics, and it is the same ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... falls to my share, Sun Child," the Red Heron made answer, with a meekness strange in one of his build and general appearance, that of a king among ordinary warriors. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... could have wished, he had the boldness to ask me of him. Whatever punishment his insolence deserved, my father was satisfied with telling him he had other thoughts in relation to me. The youth was incensed at this refusal; he resented the contempt, as if he had asked some maid of ordinary extraction, or as if his birth had been equal to mine. Nor did he stop here, but resolved to be revenged on the sultan, and with unparalleled ingratitude conspired against him. In short, he murdered him, and caused himself to be proclaimed sovereign of Deryabar. The grand vizier, however, while ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... alliance with Rome it held the rank of a free confederate city; but, having sought arbitration on some of its domestic disputes, it was subjected to the imperial jurisdiction, and gradually stripped of its privileges, until reduced to the status of an ordinary Roman colony. In recollection of its former services, the emperor Claudius remitted the heavy tribute which had been imposed on it; but the last remnant of its independence was taken away by Vespasian, who, in answer to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... strenuous labour, in the dangerous isolation, the ordinary things of life lost their importance. With death facing them their love and companionship were all that were left to them and neither counted the cost. But on the sixth day the sun shone, the flood was past, and with safety and the sure coming of Jim White at hand, they sat confronting ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... moderate oven. As we have stated before, no one flavour should predominate greatly, and the forcemeat should be of sufficient body to cut with a knife, and yet not dry and heavy. For very delicate forcemeat, it is advisable to pound the ingredients together before binding with the egg; but for ordinary cooking, mincing very ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the stuccoed front of our house was demolished, to show the oaken pattern (but it had to be re-roughcast to keep out the weather), there were pailsful of honey carried off by the labourers, of course not without wounds and strife: but in ordinary times it is a strange fact that our bees never sting their hosts; be careful only to remain quiet, and there is no war between man and bee. Two years ago a great comb was built outside an eaveboard, probably because there ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... and in a couple of minutes the boat was driving into the gloom at her ordinary speed. Something came into view a moment later, and it ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... gay shake of the head. "Oh, no, I don't. You know, I don't believe it's in me to fall in love in the ordinary way. I was quite angry with Rupert only this evening for jeering at me, as if I were. Oh, no, Hilda, I'm ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... warmly; her words meant so much more now. She told him what had especially stirred her; it was that wonderful "Song to Life"; never had she read anything so beautiful. Then, as if she feared she had spoken too warmly and laid herself open to misunderstanding, she added in an ordinary tone of voice that Ole had been just as enchanted as she; he had read most of ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun

... beset by constituents and others to favor legislative measures for their own special benefit, or that of their association, or of their locality. One result is that during every legislative session the ordinary citizen is dreading oppressive legislation and feels relieved when the ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... instantly fell asleep. In the morning the gale still blew violently, but with somewhat less fury than on the preceding evening. He joined the monks at their morning meal in the refectory, and after their repast they gathered round him to listen to his news of what was doing in Scotland; for although at ordinary times pilgrims came not unfrequently to visit the holy isle of Colonsay, in the present stormy times men stirred but little from home, and it was seldom that the monks obtained news of what was passing on the mainland. Presently ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... confidently of their ability to find means to discharge a debt, for the truth is that the profits of tobacco culture were by no means so large as has often been supposed. A recent writer speaks of huge incomes of twenty thousand to eighty thousand pounds a year and asserts that "the ordinary planter could count on an income of from L3,000 to L6,000." The first figures are altogether fabulous, "paper profits" of the same sort that can be obtained by calculating profits upon the geometrical increase of geese as illustrated in a well ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... dead. Even in other hands, adequate justice could not be performed, within the limits of this occasion. Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of their merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labors and services. It is not my voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, this arresting of all attention, these solemn ceremonies, and this crowded house, which speak their eulogy. Their fame, indeed, is safe. That is now treasured up beyond the reach of accident. Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... gives us not only of the fruit of an orderly and well-stored mind on the great subject before us, but— and this is the more important—he tells us of the actual work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of ordinary men and women, as he has witnessed the results of that work amidst his many labours for the Salvation and Holiness of the people. It is for them he writes. It is to them, living the common life, bound to others by the obligations of ordinary ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... thus employed in England, but is chiefly distinguished by his fondness for horses, and as being the frequent attendant on the carriages of the wealthy. To that its office seems to be confined; for it rarely develops sufficient sense or sagacity to be useful in any of the ordinary offices ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... when his friend T. Hayward was collecting, for his "British Muse," the most exquisite commonplaces of our old English dramatists, a compilation which must not be confounded with ordinary ones, Oldys not only assisted in the labour, but drew up a curious introduction with a knowledge and love of the subject which none but himself possessed. But so little were these researches then ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... thing was to put up the wire itself, and this was done in rather a bungling manner, if this wire were compared with that of ordinary telegraph lines. ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton

... we can be sure of, right at the start," he remarked, seriously; and it was wonderful how eagerly the others listened to what he was about to say, as if they had more than ordinary confidence in Fred ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... Penn was of no particular consequence to anybody present, least of all to him,—"I don't know anything about it. Of course, I would never go near a popular demonstration of the kind. I don't say I approve of it, and I don't say I disapprove of it. These are no ordinary times, Mr. Villars. The south is already plunged into ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... Napoleon, turning at the question, met the glance of his uncle fastened upon him. The Canon Lucien Bonaparte was a funny looking, fat little man, as bald as he was good-natured,—and that was very bald,—and with a smooth, ordinary-appearing face, only remarkable for the same sharp, eagle-like look that marked his nephew Napoleon when he, too, ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... intelligence, and submorons living in institutions; the most highly educated of scientists, and men who didn't finish grammar school; you'll find saints, and gangsters; infant prodigies and juvenile delinquents; and millions upon millions of just plain ordinary people much like the people of Argentina, or England, or France or whatever. True enough, among all our two hundred million there are some mighty prejudiced people, some mighty backward ones, and some downright foolish ones. But if you think the United States got to the position she's in today ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... ever known to us after the moment of its occurrence. In voluntary muscular action, every distinct movement requires a distinct volition. And how innumerable are the movements necessary to the accomplishment of any one of the ordinary purposes of life! We sit down for example to write a letter to a friend. The nimble pen dances from point to point over the darkening page, and when we reach the bottom, we have not the least recollection of having willed any one of those countless muscular movements which have been necessary ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart

... a man's first wife.... If so, why did I go to bed feeling I had been privileged beyond the ordinary? Wives die every day; worn out, most of them. There came into my mind's eye with these thoughts a picture of the open sea; yet hardly a picture, for I was there in the midst of it. On the waves and low-lying clouds, and through the murk, was the glimmer ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... the present, methinks it behoves every man to apply the improvements of scientific research as much as possible to the ordinary concerns of life. Science and society may thus be called at par, and philosophical theory will hence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various

... a slow, thin smile, and put away his papers. Easterly continued to stare at his subordinate with a sort of fascination, with the awe that one feels when genius unexpectedly reveals itself from a source hitherto regarded as entirely ordinary. At last he drew a long breath, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... shibboleths, he appealed to the hearts and consciences of the people of the state. His homely illustrations evoked expressions of delight, until it seemed as if this newcomer in the politics of our state had a better knowledge of the psychology of the ordinary crowd than the old stagers who had spent their lives in politics. His ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... in the American man is his pursuit of the dollar. That he secures it is manifest from the miles of beautiful residences, the show of costly equipages and plate, the unlimited range of "stores" or shops one sees in large cities. The millionaire is a very ordinary individual in America; it is only the billionaire who now really attracts attention. The wealth and splendors of the homes, the magnificent tout ensemble of these establishments, suggests the possibility of degeneracy, an appearance ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... is a story so far out of the ordinary that it will not be inappropriate to speak a few words regarding the tale and its unusually successful author, Mr. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... everything in this room and the drawing-room as well. There's rather a snap in the air; I think perhaps you might have the fire lighted in the dining-room. And tell one of the gardeners to pick me plenty of daffodils—not common ones—not those ordinary double ones, but the best he's got. White petals with the yellow trumpets—you know the ones I mean. Also some narcissi and a few tulips—pink ones for the drawing-room. They must all be on the dining-room table when I come downstairs. I'll arrange them myself. And get my trunks ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... a sociable disposition, Mr Sudberry was about to address this ill-favoured beggar—for such he evidently was—when the coach came round a distant bend in the road at full gallop. It was the ordinary tall, top-heavy mail of the first part of the nineteenth century. Being a poor district, there were only two horses, a white and a black; but the driver wore a stylish red coat, and cracked his ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... Banjo should indeed sound. Here I sidled vaguely about for a long time, hoping that I looked like a man preparing for some vast culminating feat, a side-step or a buzz or a double-Jazz-spin or an ordinary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various

... lay down in the sloppy snow. Victor flew into a passion, and, running forward, dealt the poor brute a kick that would have been sufficient to break an ordinary dog's ribs. With a wicked snarl the beast rose solemnly to its feet. Suddenly its wolf-ears pricked and it stared out keenly ahead. The man looked too. It seemed to him that he had heard the sound of ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... philosophy of the Magi; and Egypt seems to have been as much its native soil as India. The name of Gnostic, says Weber, was generally given to those who distinguished between belief on authority and gnosis, i.e., between the ordinary comprehension and a higher knowledge only granted to a few gifted or chosen ones. They were split up into different sects, according as they approached more nearly the Eastern theosophy or the platonic philosophy; but in general the Eastern ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... it, boss?" he asked, scarcely raising his voice above the ordinary conversational tone, though a hard fifteen-minutes' climb up and down separated the two; "they never came up the arroyo, if you ask ME. My side don't show a hoof track from where we ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must have been no ordinary woman. Some scholars would place her on a level with the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus, Eusebius and others, and whose name, (signifying the victorious Neith) has been found on the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... mediocrity; but they are not the less serviceable as channels, by means of which the achievements of genius may be incorporated into the language itself, or become the common property of the nation. Henceforth, the most ordinary composer, the very student in the lecture-room, is able to write with a precision, a grace, or a copiousness, as the case may be unknown before the date of the authors whom he imitates, and he wonders at, if he does not rather ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... a wood may be a very ordinary subject at three in the afternoon, but at eight in the evening, seen in palpitating outline against the forest blackness or the low toned sky, it becomes an element in a scheme of far larger dimensions. The difference between the definite and indefinite article, ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... chapter are, as was before observed, the nominal electors of a bishop. The bishop is their ordinary and immediate superior; and has, generally speaking, the power of visiting them, and correcting their excesses and enormities. They had also a check on the bishop at common law: for till the statute 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28. his grant or lease ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... appeared fixed in all that countryside at forty pounds a vault, which in ordinary buildings means a room, since every ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... must put up with the less noble. One Wedell, Lieutenant-General, had lately recommended himself to the royal mind by actions of a prompt daring. The royal mind, disgusted with these Dohna hagglings, and in absolute necessity of finding somebody that had resolution, and at least ordinary Prussian skill, hoped Wedell was the man. And determined, the crisis being so urgent, to send Wedell in the character of ALTER-EGO, or "with the powers of a Roman Dictator," as the Order expressed it. [Given in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Accordingly, knowing that the mother was less stern than the father, he was sometimes, when he met them on their way to church, bold enough to accost them as though by chance, and with a familiar and ordinary greeting; all, however, being done expressly so that he might the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... visited the Academy of Fine Arts, the conservatory of music, Museums of Arts and Industries, the new Parliament and University buildings. The University building has one hundred and sixty thousand volumes and engravings and drawing enough to fill up an ordinary building, the collection of manuscripts is called the ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... Probably a few hours before, the cry would have only provoked a roar of frantic mockery; but now the lookers-on were reduced by awe to a readier humanity. Near the cross there lay on the ground the large earthen vessel containing the posca, which was the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. The mouth of it was filled with a piece of sponge, which served as a cork. Instantly some one—we know not whether he was friend or enemy, or merely one who was there out of idle curiosity—took out the sponge and dipped it in the posca to give it to Jesus. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... was a woman of quick decision. Had it been proposed to receive an ordinary pupil in the house for any pecuniary consideration, her pride would have revolted on the instant. But here was a child of an old friend of the Doctor, a little Christian waif, as it were, floating toward them from that unbelieving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... "the literature of this country has been fostered beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man; and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London, because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... neckerchief, pointed him out as a minister. The rough featured, dark countenance of a stout looking man, with a white hat on one side of his head, told that he was from the sunny South. There was nothing remarkable about the other two, who might pass for ordinary American gentlemen. It was on the eve of a presidential election, when every man is thought to be a politician. Clay, Van Buren, and Harrison were the men who expected the indorsement of the Baltimore Convention. "Who does ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... back from the street, with a great elm before the porch: where by a table sat two men, with tankards beside them, and a small company of grooms and soldiers standing round. Both men were more than ordinary tall and soldier like: only the bigger wore a scarlet cloak very richly lac'd, and was shouting orders to his men; while the other, dress'd in plain buff suit and jack boots, had a map spread before him, which he studied very attentively, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... is so in ordinary cases, how much more would it be so when the pulling up of stakes meant a move to the antipodes and the change of home included the purchase of uncleared land in Samoa, the building of a house and the laying out of an estate, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... maintenance of class distinctions, even in New England, where students in Harvard College were seated according to social rank and John Adams was but fourteenth in a class of twenty-four, made it presumptuous for the ordinary man to dispute the opinion of his betters or contest their right to leadership: to look up to his superiors and take his cue from them was regarded as the sufficient exercise of political liberty. The times were thought to be out of joint when effective control of colonial politics rested ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... put on at Drury Lane in 1697, is quite different from Mrs. Behn's farce. Settle has written a comedy which deals with the rehearsal of a new opera, The New World in the Moon. Tom Dawkins, a country lout just arrived in London, is taken to the theatre to see the rehearsal, and ordinary comic scenes intermingled with provision for elaborate sets, as the opera proceeds, form the strangest jumble. The piece takes its name from the first operatic scene, which represents a huge silver ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... month, at the very moment when he most needed money to fee counsel and procure evidence, he was beggared and sold up, and because of his confinement in prison the sale was conducted under such conditions that, whereas in ordinary times his effects would have covered the claims against him three times over, all his belongings went for nothing, and the man who was making L4,000 or L5,000 a year by his plays was adjudicated a bankrupt for a little ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... with one voice, promised to obey all the commands of the Deity, and to acknowledge no right that He did not proclaim as such by prophetic revelation. (45) This promise, or transference of right to God, was effected in the same manner as we have conceived it to have been in ordinary societies, when men agree to divest themselves of their natural rights. (46) It is, in fact, in virtue of a set covenant, and an oath (see Exod. xxxiv:10), that the Jews freely, and not under compulsion or threats, surrendered their rights and transferred them ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... own moral and material betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better the condition of things in other nations. We have plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions about wrongdoing elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... sat down, and I began to hope that pride was glutted with persecution, when Prospero desired that I would give the servant leave to adjust the cover of my chair, which was slipt a little aside, to shew the damask; he informed me that he had bespoke ordinary chairs for common use, but had been disappointed by his tradesman. I put the chair aside with my foot, and drew another so hastily, that I was entreated not to rumple ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... one comes down to us from the old French trappers and traders, and a coup is, of course, a blow. As commonly used, the expression is almost a direct translation of the Indian phrase to strike the enemy, which is in ordinary use among all tribes. This striking is the literal inflicting a blow on an individual, and does not mean merely the attack on a ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... is the Sun, the Mother the Moon: the Wind is the Womb, the Earth is the Nurse of it, and Mother of all Perfection. All this must be received with Modesty and Wisdom. The Chymical People carry in all their Jargon a whimsical sort of Piety, which is ordinary with great Lovers of Money, and is no more but deceiving themselves, that their Regularity and Strictness of Manners for the Ends of this World, has some Affinity to the Innocence of Heart which must recommend them to the next. Renatus wondered to hear his Father talk so like an Adept, and with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... She had displayed a levelness of mind which had almost excluded feeling and which had enabled him to deal with her as with another man, confident of her understanding and the unlikelihood of her succumbing unexpectedly to ordinary womanly weaknesses. He had thought that he knew her thoroughly, that no circumstance that might arise could alter characteristics so set and inherent. But to-day her present emotion which had come perilously near hysteria, showed her in a new light that made her almost a stranger. He was a little ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... may be sure of having ten thousand quarters in a bad year, he must sow such a quantity of land that he will have much more than ten thousand in a good year. It is evident that, if our island does not in ordinary years produce many more quarters than we want, it will in bad years produce fewer quarters than we want. And it is equally evident that our cultivators will not produce more quarters of corn than we want, unless they can export the surplus at a profit. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of the yeere, February, March, Aprill and May, there are plentie of 'Sturgeons': And also in the same monethes of 'Herrings', some of the ordinary bignesse as ours in England, but the most part farre greater, of eighteene, twentie inches, and some two foote in length and better; both these kindes of fishe in those monethes are most plentifull, and in best season, which wee founde to bee ...
— A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land Of Virginia • Thomas Hariot

... inserting. When Ford and John Murray's reader asked him for his life they probably meant a plain statement of a few "important facts," such facts as there could hardly be two opinions about, such facts as fill the ordinary biography or "Who's Who." Borrow knew well enough that these facts either produce no effect in the reader's mind or they produce one effect here and a different one there, since the dullest mind cannot blankly receive a dead statement ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... his gentleness and guided by his prudence, was crowned by a marvellous modesty. His robust, somewhat uncouth body showed the great strength of the hunter, while it concealed his quickness. His manner was dignified, almost cold, so silent and quiet was he under ordinary circumstances. His face, however, homely though it was, was at times lighted by an expression that was exceedingly kind and tender. He seldom spoke, and almost never of himself, except ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson

... place which not only has brought to light the long-forgotten treasures of the past, but has shown the large part the Jews have in the general progress of mankind. The ecclesia triumphant has no victory to record in this section of her battlefields, and it is not in ordinary human nature frankly to admit a defeat in such an unequal struggle. Only one had a right to expect that a Church that claims to have regenerated the human race and to have lifted the slave of his blind instincts into "the ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau

... good-humoured. This is too well-known a truth for me to endeavor to conceal it, especially from you. She must therefore, I doubt, have appeared to great disadvantages when she aimed to be worse tempered than ordinary. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... low and earnest tones which betoken confidence, while the lofty expression on the countenance of the one, and the moist eyes and flushed cheeks of the other, showed that their topic was one of no ordinary interest. ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... the real Dorsenne, who was often incomprehensible even to his best friends. The young man with the large, black eyes, the face with delicate features, the olive complexion of a Spanish monk, had never had but one passion, too exceptional not to baffle the ordinary observer, and developed in a sense so singular that to the most charitable it assumed either an attitude almost outrageous or else that of an abominable egotism and ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... a time since," said Harriet Martineau, referring to her father's failure in business, "have we said that, but for that loss of money, we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies with small means, sewing and economizing and growing narrower every year; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our own resources, we have worked hard and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... consists of House of Lords (1,200 seats; four-fifths of the members are hereditary peers, two archbishops, 24 other senior bishops, serving and retired Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, other life peers, Scottish peers) and House of Commons (659 seats; members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms) elections: House of Lords-no elections; House of Commons-last held 1 May 1997 (next to be held by NA May 2002) election results: House of Commons-percent ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... punishments was directed against that Protestant church which was said to be defunct. The same contradiction was seen in the conduct of the ecclesiastics: Protestants could not be admitted to any position, or even accomplish the ordinary duties of civil life, without externally conforming to Catholicism; and, to so conform, there was required of them not only an explicit abjuration, but even an anathema against their deceased parents. "It is necessary," said ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... is, a rational education, founded upon instruction in the language of the land, the ordinary branches ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... on deck in time to see a large ship pass close to the bow of the Gull. Jack had cast loose the tiller, because, although in ordinary circumstances the helm of a light-vessel is of no use, this was one of the few occasions in which it could be of service. The rush of the tide past a ship at anchor confers upon it at all times, except during "slack water" (i.e., ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... carriage, and invited Atwood and Carl to accompany him on a drive. Mr. Atwood was in an ecstasy, and anticipated with proud satisfaction telling his family of his intimate friend, Lord Bedford, of England. The peer, though rather an ordinary-looking man, seemed to him a model of aristocratic beauty. It was a weakness on the part of Mr. Atwood, but an amiable one, and is shared by many who ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... not exactly the right word. There are certain plants—some kinds of aloe, for instance—which continue for an indefinite number of years in a slow routine of ordinary life close to the ground, and then suddenly, when they have stored enough vital force, grow ten feet high and burst into flower, after which, no doubt, they die or show signs of exhaustion. Apart from the dying, it seems as if something ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... exercise. It was this constitution that enabled him to accomplish so much in so short a time. He could almost wholly discard sleep for weeks, with apparent impunity; he could eat or starve; do anything that would kill ordinary men, yet never feel a twinge of pain. I saw him once amidst a tremendous political excitement; he had been talking, arguing, dining, visiting, and traveling, without rest for three whole days. His companions would steal away at times for sleep, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... be permitted to remark that it seems a pity that Racine is so constantly used as a school-book, instead of some of the moderns who are nearer to ourselves in ideas and manners. Racine is a great and admirable writer; but what you want for ordinary readers who have not much time, and whose faculties of attention are already largely exhausted by the more important industry of the day, is a book which brings literature more close to actual life than such a poet as Racine does. This ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley

... at a certain part of that box in a certain definite way. Popularly speaking, it has learned to open a door by pressing a button. To the uninitiated observer the behavior of the six kittens that thus freed themselves from such a box would seem wonderful and quite unlike their ordinary accomplishments of finding their way to their food or beds.... A certain situation arouses, by virtue of accident or more often instinctive equipment, certain responses. One of these happens to be an act appropriate to secure freedom. It is stamped ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... if masts they can be called c which were great moveable triangles. If in an ordinary ship you replace the shrouds and backstay by strong timbers, and take away the mast altogether, you have the arrangement adopted on board a prau. Above my cabin, and resting on cross-beams attached to the masts, was a wilderness of yards and spars, mostly formed of bamboo. The mainyard, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... inaccessible to English readers till within the last sixty years. In 1853, Nicholas O'Kearney published the Irish text and an English translation of "The Battle of Gabra," and since that date the volume of printed texts and English versions has steadily increased, until now there lies open to the ordinary reader a very considerable mass of material illustrating the imaginative life of ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various



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