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verb
Possess  v. t.  (past & past part. possessed; pres. part. possessing)  
1.
To occupy in person; to hold or actually have in one's own keeping; to have and to hold. "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." "Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offense returning, to regain Love once possessed."
2.
To have the legal title to; to have a just right to; to be master of; to own; to have; as, to possess property, an estate, a book. "I am yours, and all that I possess."
3.
To obtain occupation or possession of; to accomplish; to gain; to seize. "How... to possess the purpose they desired."
4.
To enter into and influence; to control the will of; to fill; to affect; said especially of evil spirits, passions, etc. "Weakness possesseth me." "Those which were possessed with devils." "For ten inspired, ten thousand are possessed."
5.
To put in possession; to make the owner or holder of property, power, knowledge, etc.; to acquaint; to inform; followed by of or with before the thing possessed, and now commonly used reflexively. "I have possessed your grace of what I purpose." "Record a gift... of all he dies possessed Unto his son." "We possessed our selves of the kingdom of Naples." "To possess our minds with an habitual good intention."
Synonyms: To have; hold; occupy; control; own. Possess, Have. Have is the more general word. To possess denotes to have as a property. It usually implies more permanence or definiteness of control or ownership than is involved in having. A man does not possess his wife and children: they are (so to speak) part of himself. For the same reason, we have the faculties of reason, understanding, will, sound judgment, etc.: they are exercises of the mind, not possessions.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Possess" Quotes from Famous Books



... pixies' dell: how it had once been a noted spot in the forest, and how travellers turned aside to drink the waters, which were not only fresh and clear and cold, even on the most sultry summer's day, but were reported to possess healing properties, especially if taken at certain hours of the night and in certain phases of the moon. Long ago there had been a monastery near the well, and the monks had dispensed the waters to the applicants who came. But the monastery had fallen into ruins and had disappeared, and ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... world's literature. Her advice was always the same, "Work and wait;" and only now and then was a young poet or author found enough in earnest to do both, and thereby prove to themselves and others that either they DID possess power, or did not, and so settle the question forever. "First live, then write," proved a quietus for many, and "Do the duty that lies nearest" satisfied the more sincere that they could be happy without fame. So, thanks to this wise and kindly woman, a large number ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... struck Michael in the face, knocking him down. An ungovernable, almost insane fury seemed to possess the man as he stood over ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... unconscious art, exhibited in many a fine and powerful short story, they are a contribution to the realistic writing of the Negro. Beneath all the surface contradictions and exaggerations, the fantasy and flattery, they possess an essential truth and humanity which surpasses as ...
— Slave Narratives, Administrative Files (A Folk History of - Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves) • Works Projects Administration

... as soon as the term was over, to Oxford, where I have come in the way of a good deal of talk. I find that I become somewhat of a connoisseur in the matter of conversation as I grow older; and I must also confess that such powers as I possess in that direction are of the tete-a-tete order. A candid friend of mine, a gracious lady, who wields some of the arts of a salon, lately took the wind out of my sails, on an occasion when I formed one of a large and rather ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... sort that the presentation shall not be idly made. It will rest then with yourself to play your cards dexterously, and to follow up a winning game. Doubtless, you will have many adversaries, who will trip up your heels if they can, and throw every obstacle in your way; but if you possess the strong arm I fancy you do, and daring to second it, you have nothing to fear. As I am a true gentleman! you shall have good counsel, and a friend in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... households—not merely into single individuals—that lack them. What makes a man rich? Is the term merely comparative? Not merely. To be rich is to have, beyond the demands of our bodily needs, abundant means to supply our spiritual wants. To possess more material resources than we can or will use or bestow to the spiritual advantage of ourselves and others is to be perilously rich, whether we belong to a grinders' union in the cutlery works or to a royal family. Why is it so often right that a rich college, for ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... question: that to exclude whole classes of men entirely from this part of government cannot be considered as absolute slavery. It only implies a lower and degraded state of citizenship: such is (with more or less strictness) the condition of all countries in which an hereditary nobility possess the exclusive rule. This may be no bad mode of government,—provided that the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their cabals and factions are guarded against with a severe vigilance, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... The few letters by Fielding already known to exist have been doubled in number; and a reason for the extraordinary rarity of these letters has been found in the unfortunate destruction, many years ago, of much of his correspondence. The charm of the one intimate letter that we possess from the pen of the 'Father of the English Novel,' that written to his brother John, during the voyage to Lisbon, enhances regret at the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,—Aylmer discovered that this was the ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... sublime greatness of conception which is often revealed You grasp the deepest secrets of Nature: you comprehend the mysterious hieroglyphics of her rocks, of her trees, and of her waterfalls, you hear her sacred voice, you understand her language, and possess the power to write down what she has said to you. Verily I can call your bold free style of painting nothing else than writing down. Man alone and his doings does not suffice you; you behold him only in the midst of Nature, and in so far as his essential character is conditioned by natural ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... school of brewers, where one may learn all the mysteries of beer brewing. Certain breweries, however, pretend to possess secrets pertaining to the art known exclusively to them. For example, one family near Leipsic is said to have possessed for a century the secret which chemistry has tried in vain to discover, of making the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... to the blind and the vident. Both can be taught and are taught the same geometry. Both understand one another in the description of spatial conditions. The common element cannot possibly be supplied either by the data of visual sensation which the blind do not possess, or by the data of passive tactual sensation which the vident hardly ever employ. Une etendue commune se retrouverait a la fois dans les donnees de la vue et dans celles du toucher. The common element is ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... hunt which was to slay the game trampled down what the latter had not devoured. The war about the forest violently forced upon the peasant the question as to whether or not the ancient privileges of the aristocracy could be justified before God and man. We possess a poem by G.A. Buerger which contrasts the naked rights of labor with the historic rights of rank in so sharp a fashion that, if it should be published today, it would undoubtedly be confiscated as communist literature. This ancient specimen of modern social-democratic poetry, characteristically, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... very reckless. You are playing with edge tools, if you did but know it. Ah, well! I have only to give you proof of the power that I possess over your daughter Odalite to bring you to your ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... to the Indian friends who have helped me, I desire especially to express my obligation to Edward S. Curtis, whose wonderful volumes of The North American Indian have been an inspiration, and whose Indian pictures for this book of mine possess a solid value in art and ethnology far beyond the mere ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... Century, a cardinal of the House of Barberini visited France and, on viewing in the royal residences a superb display of tapestries, his envy and ambition were aroused to the extent of emulation. He could not, with all his power, possess himself of the hangings that he saw, but he could, and did, arrange to supply himself generously from another source. He was the powerful Francesco Barberini, the son of the pope's brother (Pope Urban VIII, 1623-1644), and it was he who ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... had drawn back. The sandwich-board man stood in the centre of the road alone looking sharply round him. Suddenly a wave of rage seemed to possess him. He shook his fist in the air, and even as he shook it, his eyes caught the blue sheen of the tense skin over the knuckles. He stopped, staring stupidly, and the rage passed from his face, leaving ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... one. He was most frequently regarded as idle and shiftless, and as a breeder of mischief; but if he showed unusual thrift he might even be forced to leave his home and go elsewhere. Liberty, the boon of every citizen, the free Negro did not possess. For all the finer things of life—the things that make life worth living—the lot that was his was only less hard than that ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... tendered. This means mischief. How many will rush forward a year hence to volunteer their services on the plains of the South? Full many ensanguined plains will greet the horrific vision before this time next year; and many a venal wretch coming to possess our land, will occupy till the day of final doom a tract of six feet by two in some desolate and unfrequented swamp. The toad will croak his requiem, and the viper will coil beneath the thistle growing over ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... the prospectus with eager eyes, and Nevitt poured forth strange music as he read, music like the murmur of the stream of Pactolus. It was an inspiring strain; the violin seemed to possess the true Midas touch; gold flowed like water in liquid rills from its catgut. Guy finished, and rose, and dipped a pen in the ink-pot. "All right," he said low, half hesitating still. "I'll give you an order ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... but fragmentary papers, entitled "The True Story of Punch." So far as the last-named is based upon the others, it is untrustworthy in its details; but the statements founded on the writer's own knowledge and on the documentary matter in his hands, as well as upon his intimacy with Mark Lemon, possess a distinct and individual value, and I have not failed to avail myself in the following pages of Mr. Hatton's courteous permission to make such use of them as might ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... possession! What charm is inherent in ownership! What a foundation for vanity, even for the greater quality of self-respect, lies in a little property! I fell to thinking of the excellent wording of the old books in which land is called "real property," or "real estate." Money we may possess, or goods or chattels, but they give no such impression of mineness as the feeling that one's feet rest upon soil that is his: that part of the deep earth is his with all the water upon it, all small animals that creep or crawl in the holes of it, all birds or insects that fly in the air above ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... sweeping to her responsive nature. It was almost as though he had taken her in his two strong hands and made her yield obedience to his dominating will. It gave her a strange and wonderful confidence. It made her feel as if this power of his must possess the same convincing strength for the rest of the world. That he must sway all who came into contact with him. Her gladness at his visit increased. It was good to feel that ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... Unfortunately, we possess too few documents to write in detail the history of this dreadful episode; but everything becomes clear enough if one sees in the ruin of Julia a kind of terrible political and judicial blackmailing, tried by the friends of Tiberius to remove ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... in Rome were passing,—lovely in nature as only spring days in Italy can be; days filled to overflowing with delightful and unique interest. For cities, as well as people, possess their own characteristic individualities, and Rome is distinctively ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... restricted or abolished on the side affected, any apparent rotation taking place at the lumbo-sacral junction. These tests reveal the presence of rigidity resulting from the involuntary contraction of muscles, which is the most reliable sign of hip disease during the initial stage, and they possess the advantage of being universally applicable, even in ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... rural spot its sweets discloses, Each streamlet is the dew of roses; And damsels, idols of the heart, Sustain a more bewitching part. And mark me, that untravelled man Who never saw Mazinderan, And all the charms its bowers possess, Has ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... of plates, designs, diagrams, and illustrations to learn all kinds of needlework. A work every Lady should possess. Price 50 cents in paper cover; or bound in crimson cloth, gilt, for ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... 'All that I possess I have gained through contracting for the French armies,' said he. 'Your Emperor has been a good friend to me. But I beg that you will ride on now, for we have talked long enough. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... mind—a project full of romance and imagination, one that might make me wealthy—in a position wherein I could laugh at Garcia's pretensions and boldly ask my uncle's consent, for I was hopeful of obtaining Lilla's. I was poor now, but need not remain so. Suppose by one grand stroke I could possess myself of the riches of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... offence, without any distinction on account of race, color, or sex. Every argument that ever has been or ever can be adduced to prove that males should have the right to vote, applies with equal if not greater force to prove that females should possess the same right; and were I a citizen of your State I should labor with whatever of ability I possess to ingraft those principles in its constitution. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the material for the invention of which she was so famous. She had for her scientific adviser a certain Dr Forman—a man who was believed to be deep in all kinds of dangerous chemical lore, and at the same time to possess a connection with the Evil One, which gave him powers greater than those capable of being obtained through mere scientific agency. Had he been alive, he would have undoubtedly been tried with the other poisoners. His widow gave some account of his habits, and of his wonderful ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... profoundly interesting. Certain Christian ideas are being assimilated in India. Certain cardinal aspects of Christianity are proving themselves possessed of inherent force and attractiveness. They are showing that they possess force not from authority, or tradition, or as part of a system of doctrine, or as racially fitting, but when presented in new and often very unfavourable surroundings. Borrowing an expression from physical ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... the cooper, seriously. "We ought to be grateful for God's blessings, even if he suffers us to possess them but a short time. And Ida has been a blessing to us, I am sure. How many hours have been made happy by her childish prattle! how our hearts have been filled with cheerful happiness and affection when we have gazed upon her! That can't be taken from us, even if she is, Mary. There's some lines ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... "Peuple," "For the very reason that men and things exist, there always will be men who will possess things; nothing, therefore, can ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... the transference of spirit force—to the gods, to the victor who suspended the head from his house, and to all who drank from the skull. Represented in bas-relief on houses or carved on dagger-handles, the head may still have been thought to possess talismanic properties, giving power to house or weapon. Possibly this cult of human heads may have given rise to the idea of a divine head like those figured on Gaulish images, or described, e.g., in the story of Bran. His head preserved the ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... streets as far as I can see. I've got a fire for cheerfulness, and the windows open to keep cool. But it is vain, it is useless: nothing comes in but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mocking odors from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is low, and flaunt their gaudy splendors in his face while his soul is clothed in sackcloth and ashes and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... recreation period of an hour or two. If a patient has hypotension and a systolic pressure of 110, and is given nitroglycerin, the very unpleasant results from its administration will be immediately noticed. Hence nitroglycerin is one of the most valuable drugs that we possess for the treatment of hypertension, and some patients are even benefited by as small a dose as l/500 grain. Lawrence [Footnote: Lawrence, C. H.: The Effect of Pressure-Lowering Drugs and Therapeutic Measures on ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... of his wounded English soldiers to be burned alive. He would have seen that the unalterable affection which he felt from his boyhood to his death for three or four of the bravest and most trusty friends that ever prince had the happiness to possess was made a ground for imputing to him abominations as foul as those which are buried under the waters of the Dead Sea. He might therefore naturally be slow to believe frightful imputations thrown by writers whom he knew to be habitual liars on a statesman whose ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... child's mind, before he can really be an active member of human society. Emile sees that to get tools for his own use, other people must have theirs, and that he can get in exchange what he needs and they possess. I easily bring him to feel the need of such exchange and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... from themselves, and endowing other beings with it. The Lords of Motion are now as far advanced as were the Lords of Wisdom on Saturn. Then the lowest principle of their being was the astral body; they now possess an etheric, or vital body; and in a corresponding degree the other spiritual beings have reached a further stage of evolution. All these spiritual beings are therefore able to work at the further evolution of the human germ in a ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... recognised at once by anyone familiar with the American Society of to-day—a fact which should make the book interesting to American women in London. The volume is well and prettily bound, and its "get-up" is admirable. It is quite a book to possess.'—World. ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... with distinctness even clearer and harder, "she must possess indisputable documentary evidence of marriage before the child is born—as ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... she can do as she likes with her money. Just now her income is too big for her needs, and the best thing you can do for her is to teach her economy—a virtue you seem to possess, whether by nature or training, in a high degree. But I didn't come here to argue. ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... eager desire now prompted him to possess her again, to find in her his mistress once more, to restrain her from leaving until she had become ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... man has been derived, we must undoubtedly look for it in the Miocene (p. 36). I am pleased at finding the same opinion lately expressed by one of the highest living authorities. The case is thus stated by Alfred Russel Wallace: "The evidence we now possess of the exact nature of the resemblance of man to the various species of anthropoid apes, shows us that he has little special affinity for any one rather than another species, while he differs from them all in several important characters in which they agree with each other. The conclusion ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... evening was, to the woman, a mirage except the brutal threat of the attorney, uttered before she had gone down into the street. This threat, with that power of reality which evil things seem always to possess, now materialized. After the court had opened, but before the trial could proceed, the attorney for the defendant rose and addressed ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... inhabitants of the Lozere, like those of the Aveyron, are not only believing, they are zealous, and in their homes they surround themselves with the emblems of their faith. These are the only works of art which the villagers possess—almost their only books. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... these documents do possess a high value, and are of an exceptional interest, in that they exhibit the sworn testimony of six eye-witnesses to the fact as to the circumstances of Hudson's out-casting. Five of these witnesses now are ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier

... right to make a proper choice. If your flood is going to cause a general destruction of mankind, of course you are bound to select the best, the most advanced, those who have pushed to the front, those who have means, those with the strongest resources. The masses, who possess none of ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... judgments and inferences in particular cases; but for general notions, judgments and inferences, not merely about this or that man, or thing, but about all men or all kinds of things, we need something besides the few images we can form of them from observation. Even if we possess generic images, say, of 'horse' or 'cat' (that is, images formed, like composite photographs, by a coalescence of the images of all the horses or cats we have seen, so that their common properties stand out and their differences ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... dyed from the palest sky blue to black. The very palest shade of sky blue is never very fast. The virtue which indigo alone seems to possess is that, though it may become lighter with continual use, it also becomes a clearer and more lovely blue. This is especially so on cotton and linen, for which it is a superb dye. The varying shades of indigo of butchers' coats, sailors' collars, and ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... without recompense, not even for the hire of love. And yet more noble, it seems to pass from itself, and to enter the memory, and to hover in a silvery transformation there, until the outward book is but a body and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memory ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... existing in our language, which the pure logic of grammar is quite incapable of explaining; which nothing but a knowledge of its historic evolutions, and of the disturbing forces which have made themselves felt therein, will ever enable us to understand. Even as, again, unless we possess some knowledge of the past, it is impossible that we can ourselves advance a single step in the unfolding of the latent capabilities of the language, without the danger of committing some barbarous violation of its ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... right and proper for a man in his position to possess, he possessed; and everything that it was not right and proper for a man in his position to possess, he did ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... ignorant how to condite it, with the applause of those who are unaware of the secret. The Silphium, or laserpitium of the Romans, yielded what was a famous restorative, the "Cyrenaic juice." Pareira tells us he was assured by a noted gourmet that the finest relish which a beef steak can possess, may be communicated to it by rubbing the gridiron on which the steak is to ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... position a little quietly, my dear governor," said Aramis, with his imperturbable self-possession, "and you will see how very simple the whole affair is. You no longer possess any order justifying ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... find such another? She is a moral genius, and acts well, no matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint well. Why, sir, what do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title? family? But you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have wived. For my part, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... minds. Most of the Catholics absolve, and among Protestants there is an equal number for and against. The greater names are on the hostile side. They do not carry weight with us, because they decided upon evidence less complete than that which we possess. Four of the greatest, Robertson, Ranke, Burton, Froude, were all misled by the same damaging mistake. The equal division of the Protestants shows how little any religious bias has had to do with the inquiry; so that the overwhelming majority on ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... makes a general waste. Maids, widows, wives without distinction fall; The sweeping deluge, love, comes on and covers all. If then the laws of friendship I transgress, I keep the greater, while I break the less; And both are mad alike, since neither can possess. Both hopeless to be ransomed, never more To see the sun, but as he passes o'er. Like sop's hounds contending for the bone, Each pleaded right, and would be lord alone; The fruitless fight continued all the day, A cur came by and snatched the prize away. ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... strong sentiment among the people in favor of Russia. Russian political intrigues during the past thirty years have done a great deal, however, in undermining this kindly feeling among the more intelligent Bulgarians. And then Russia's ambition to possess herself of the Bosphorus as an outlet into the Mediterranean is directly contrary to the ambitions of the governing clique of Bulgaria, which also ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... to how and where animals take this disease is one concerning which we are still in the stage of conjecture, because so far we possess very little information concerning the life history of the actinomyces itself. The quite unanimous view of all observers is that animals become infected from the feed. The fungus is lodged upon the plants and in some way ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... existence," said he, taking a handful of Louis from his pocket, "is contained in these little pieces of metal, which will convey you commodiously from one end of the world to the other. All men obey those who possess this powder, and eagerly tender them their services. To despise money, is to despise happiness, liberty, in short, enjoyments of every kind." A cordon bleu passed under the window. "That nobleman," ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... repine That your transports are not mine, That I do not wholly fare Even as ye do, thoughtless pair! [11] 110 And I will have my careless season Spite of melancholy reason, [12] Will walk through life in such a way That, when time brings on decay, Now and then I may possess 115 Hours of perfect gladsomeness. [13] —Pleased by any random toy; By a kitten's busy joy, Or an infant's laughing eye Sharing in the ecstasy; 120 I would fare like that or this, Find my wisdom in my bliss; Keep the sprightly soul awake, And have faculties to take, Even from things [14] by sorrow ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... see wuz where Moses stood after his forty years journey, castin' wishful eyes onto the Promised Land, not bein' able to enter in because of some past error and ignorance. And I thought, as I stood there, how many happy restin' places we plan and toil for and then can't enter in and possess through some past error and mistake caused by ignorance as dense as Moseses ignorance. What a lot of emotions I had thinkin' this, and how on top of another mount the great prophet and law-giver wuz not, for God ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... opinions, and good-natured almost to a fault; yet eager and impetuous in the pursuit of a favorite object, he staid not to reflect on the consequence which might follow the attainment of his wishes; with a mind ever open to conviction, had he been so fortunate as to possess a friend who would have pointed out the cruelty of endeavouring to gain the heart of an innocent artless girl, when he knew it was utterly impossible for him to marry her, and when the gratification of his passion would be unavoidable infamy and misery to her, and a ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... full measured paces The unbeliever pulled his trigger first; And fearing, from the braggart's ugly faces, The whizzing lead had whizz'd its very worst, Ran up, and with a duelistic fear (His ire evanishing like morning vapors), Found him possess'd of one remaining ear, Who in a manner sudden and uncouth, Had given, not lent, the other ear to truth; For while the surgeon was applying lint, He, wriggling, cried—"The deuce is ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... other grounds of alarm (particularly this, that Mrs. Williamson was reported to possess a considerable quantity of plate), the journeyman was musing painfully, and the time might be within twenty-eight or twenty-five minutes of twelve, when all at once, with a crash, proclaiming some hand of hideous violence, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... possess the speed of the canine race; and at length—seeing that they were being distanced—one after another gave up the chase, and commenced returning towards the lake, slowly, and with ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs) and Nora Archibald Smith possess these qualities and this experience. Their efforts, as pioneers of kindergarten work, the love and admiration in which their works are held by all young people, prove them to be in full sympathy with this unique ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... with a full heart, while her thought ran suddenly—'You possess the secret of life and of creation, for suffering has taught it to you, and you have really known it always. But Daddy has put it into words for everybody.' She felt ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... clown, the rope-walker, the sword-swallower, the reciter of long poems, the clever manipulator who defies imitation—all possess prestige: but on the other hand, prestige surrounds demoniacal spells, wizardry, and all effectiveness ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... parents entered a house of mourning. My mother at that time had only the slight mastery of German acquired during hours of industrious study for her future husband's sake. She did not possess in all Berlin a single friend or relative of her own family, yet she soon felt at home in the capital. She loved my father. Heaven gave her children, and her rare beauty, her winning charm, and the receptivity of her mind quickly opened all hearts to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... am no capitalist seeking investment for my money, but I saw that the mine contained possibilities of producing a great deal of money for those who possess it. It is very much more valuable, in my opinion, than the owners themselves suspect; so I secured an option upon it for three months, and hope when I reach England to form a company to ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... me forgetfulness"? No, I would still possess Past away smiles, though present fronts be stern. "Give me again my kindred?" Nay; not so, Not idle prayers. We know They that have crossed ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... hung, they knew not how long, in rapture on the sight; and then, looking back from the shore to the spot where they had stood, they felt relieved that unreality should possess itself of all, and that the bridge should swing there in mid-air like a filmy web, scarce more passable than the rainbow that flings its arch ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... dining room. Horror piled on horror—those bare drab walls and oil-cloth-covered tables with tin cups and plates and wooden benches, and, by way of decoration, that one illuminated text, "The Lord Will Provide"! The trustee who added that last touch must possess a ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... which I might fully show the secret feelings of my heart. It is not, Sostratus, that merit fails to have for me all the value which it should have, and because, in my inmost soul, I do not prefer the virtues which you possess to all the magnificent titles which adorn others. The princess my mother has also, it is true, left me free in my choice, and I have no doubt that I could have obtained her consent according to my wish. But, ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere

... senses, which seeks the things of sense, and the other the self-will of the spirit, which, under aspect and colour of virtue, holds firm to its own way. And this is clear when it wants to choose places and seasons and consolations to suit itself, and says: "Thus I wish in order to possess God more fully." This is a great cheat, and an illusion of the devil; for not being able to deceive the servants of God through their first will—since the servants of God have already mortified it so far as the things of sense go—the devil catches their second will on the sly with things ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... had disappeared behind the shrubbery in the garden Charmian exclaimed, "However dark the sky may be, so long as you possess these little ones you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with a Vaisya woman, the son begotten upon her comes to be called Ayogava. The duty assigned to such a person are those of a Takshan (carpenter). They that are Brahmanas should never accept gifts from such a person. They are not entitled to possess any kind of wealth. Persons belonging to the mixed castes beget upon spouses taken from their own castes children invested with the status that is their own. When they beget children in women taken from castes that are inferior to theirs, such children become inferior to their fathers, for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... very strange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we know nothing about chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook anything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we don't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and let us ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... researches, it has become evident that, so far as our present knowledge extends, the history of the horse-type is exactly and precisely that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. And the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation, that when the still lower Eocene deposits, and those which belong to the cretaceous epoch, have yielded up their remains of ancestral equine animals, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... it—though to be glad that the world does not possess what I thought I only was deprived of, is selfishness, cover it over as one may with the ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... engaged in a struggle with countless stones. Without the aid of the energetic Ohio farmers they had well-nigh been driven from the field. The rows of pale thin corn (the stunted reward of necessitous husbandry) "showed that these people possess that spirit of labor, which, however undervalued by some unthinking mortals, is the germ from which all good mast spring." One cannot but notice with what patient industry these sturdy sons of the soil ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... to see how much strength such a party, if formed, would possess. According to the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission there were in the immediate employ of the railways of the United States a year and a half ago 749,301 men, all or nearly all voters, which number has now, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... the definite article for the possess. pronoun), {in sein Gesicht.}—The meaning is: The cares of official life had gradually taken from him all his individuality, so that he looked now as grim as the lions which support the shield of arms of Bavaria, and his face, wrinkled and furrowed, resembled the center-shield with its many ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel

... our friend Goldsmith had said to me, that he had come too late into the world, for that Pope and other poets had taken up the places in the Temple of Fame; so that, as but a few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it. JOHNSON. 'That is one of the most sensible things I have ever heard of Goldsmith[1070]. It is difficult to get literary fame, and it is every day growing more difficult. Ah, Sir, that should make a man think of securing happiness ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... from her Heart, whose Tyranny was worse than that of a Fiend; and he did not know what his pious Advice might do. But still she writes in vain, in vain she varies her Style, by a Cunning, peculiar to a Maid possess'd with such a sort ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... one as excommunicated persons that they were induced to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them: after which they continued to possess, without molestation, their honours and fortunes, and seemed even to have recovered the countenance and good opinion of the public. But as the king, by the constitutions of Clarendon, which he endeavoured ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... O'Connor drove the murderer out of the province. But this prince soon after ruined himself by his wickedness. He married Burke's widow, and put away his own lawful wife; from which it may be concluded that he had avenged the crime either from love of this woman, or from a desire to possess himself of her husband's property. His immoral conduct alienated the other chieftains, and after three years' ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... and Mary's heart bruised, broken and empty for life. Her strong nature, filled to the brim with latent passion, was the stuff of which love makes a conflagration that burns to destruction; and should she learn to love Brandon, she would move heaven and earth to possess him. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... surely be." A third pause ensued. They gazed at one another, and, without uttering another word, they distinctly read one another's hearts. The martyrdom they suffered was so similar, they both knew it to be so like, that they felt the same pity possess them at the same moment. Forced to condemn with the most irrevocable condemnation, the one her father, the other, her mother, each felt attracted toward the friend, like her, unhappy, and, falling into one another's ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... prohibits all invasion of the kind on his territories; but I am told that a lamentable havoc takes place in the colony about the old church. Upon this devoted commonwealth the village charges "with all its chivalry." Every idle wight that is lucky enough to possess an old gun or blunderbuss, together with all the archery of Slingsby's school, take the field on the occasion. In vain does the little parson interfere, or remonstrate, in angry tones from his study window that looks into the churchyard; there is a continual popping, from morning till night. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... of the Embankment, which he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in motion, concealed the bag as completely as he could under the vantage of the apron, and once more drew out his watch. So he rode for five interminable minutes, his heart in his mouth at every jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing to wake the attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... taxes, and so they did not like the tax-gatherers, and despised them. And thus the pharisee thanked God that he was not like that publican. 'I fast twice in the week. I pay tithes of all that I possess.' ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott

... witchery scenes are in general but poorly executed, and possess little novelty to those who have read the Arabian Nights Entertainments, there is, occasionally, some fine description, and striking combination. We do not remember any poem, indeed, that presents, throughout, a greater number of lively images, or ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... individuals or small communities who have chosen to live out in the harbor. But one cannot help wondering how such beauty spots have escaped being more loved and lived upon by men and women who recognize the romantic lure which only an island can possess. ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... training or aptitude in the collecting of birds' eggs, that a detailed description of localities where to seek and how to find, eggs, is hardly necessary, in the pages of this work, further than to remark that a pair of "climbing irons" are requisite for those individuals who do not possess the agility of a cat ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... properly selected stimulus words will lead him to recall the scene of the crime, and thus to make responses that betray him, unless he checks them and so arouses suspicion by his hesitation. Another use of the test is for unearthing a person's emotional "complexes", which of course possess a high intensity value. If the subject shows hesitation and embarrassment in responding to words referring to money, the indication is that he is emotionally disturbed over the state of his finances. One person who consulted a doctor for nervousness ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... that, instead of carrying our loads, and thereby earning a cow per man, it might save them much trouble should they possess themselves of our cattle without the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... returned Pausanias. "Greece may be won, but by the arts of her sons, not by the arms of the stranger. A Greek only can subdue Greece. By such profound knowledge of the factions, the interests, the envies and the jealousies of each, state as a Greek alone can possess, the mistaken chain that binds them might be easily severed; some bought, some intimidated, and the few that hold out subdued amidst the apathy of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... possess of the ancient Maya peoples of Central America, the Dresden (Dr.), the Madrid (Tro.-Cort.) and the Paris (Per.) manuscripts, all contain a series of pictorial representations of human figures, which, beyond question, should be regarded as figures of gods. Together with these are ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas

... his new career. I do not mean to set too high a value on gentle birth, or to limit nobility of character by that of blood; I believe my tailor to be one of nature's gentlemen, (he never duns,) and I know my next neighbour, Sir John, thirteenth baronet as he is, to possess the soul of a huckster, because he sells his fruit and game: still these are the exceptions, not the rule; and there are few cases of men rising from low origin—rising, that is, from circumstances, not from ability—not the architects, but the creations of their own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Possess" :   own, dominate, have, possessor, prepossess, possession, feature



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