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verb
Practise  v. t. & v. i.  See Practice. Note: The analogy of the English language requires that the noun and verb which are pronounced alike should agree in spelling. Thus we have notice (n. & v.), noticed, noticing, noticer; poultice (n. & v.); apprentice (n. & v.); office (n. & v.), officer (n.); lattice (n.), latticed (a.); benefice (n.), beneficed (a.), etc. Cf. sacrifice (n. & v.), surmise (n. & v.), promise (n. & v.); compromise (n. & v.), etc. Contrast advice (n.), and advise; device, and devise, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Practise" Quotes from Famous Books



... Hebrew as they are for reading, every Psalm must be set through to music, and every Syllable in it must have a particular musical Note belonging to itself, as in Anthems {242} that are sung in Cathedrals: But this would be so exceeding difficult to practise, that it would utterly exclude the greatest part of every Congregation from a Capacity of obeying God's Command to sing. Now, in reducing a Hebrew or a Greek Song to a Form tolerably fit to be sung by an English Congregation, here and there a Word of the Original ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts

... that, they required no theory of morals; and the fuss made by the Chinese about theoretical morals is owing to their laxity, in practice.... To have learned that there is no Way [ethical system] to be learned and practised, is really to have learned to practise the Way of the Gods." At a later day Hirata wrote "Learn to stand in awe of the Unseen, and that will prevent you from doing wrong. Cultivate the conscience implanted in you then you will never wander from ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... twenty years before fell in. He was made secretary to the island of Jamaica; and his whole income amounted to twelve hundred a year, a fortune which, for a single man, was in that age not only easy, but splendid. He continued, however, to practise the frugality which he had learned when he could scarce spare, as Swift tells us, a shilling to pay the chairmen who carried him to Lord Halifax's. Though he had nobody to save for, he laid up at least as much ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Cabbalists still work miracles; and miracles are performed in answer to prayers at his tomb—so it is believed; and his commemoration festival, in the month Iyar (see ante) is attended by Jewish votaries from all parts of the world, many of whom practise the heathen rite of burning precious objects, such as gold lace, Cashmere shawls, etc., upon the tomb, to propitiate his favour. On these occasions scenes of scandalous licence and riot are witnessed, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... contained in the story of Protagoras and Euathlus (Aul. Gell. Noct. Alt. v. 10), Euathlus was a pupil of Protagoras in rhetoric. He paid half the fee demanded by his preceptor before receiving lessons, and agreed to pay the remainder when he won his first case. But as he never proceeded to practise at the bar, it became evident that he meant to bilk his tutor. Accordingly Protagoras himself instituted a law-suit against him, and in the preliminary proceedings before the jurors propounded to him the following dilemma—'Most foolish young man, whatever be the issue of this suit, you must pay ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... as a consequence of the limited time at disposal, the other duties of the fleet, and the cost of demurrage, it became necessary for the Admiralty, when it was wisely decided to have combined manoeuvres of navy and army in the autumn of 1904, in order to practise embarkation and disembarkation, to direct that the landing should be carried out under peace conditions. As a consequence of this the first party landed on a shore, supposed to be hostile, was one of unarmed sailors; and orders, at ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... takes up with an idea such as New Thought, Psychoanalysis or Eating Sawdust, or any "uplift" of the kind becomes desperately lopsided in his seriousness, and as a very large number of us cultivate New Thought, or practise breathing exercises, or eat sawdust, no doubt the English visitors think us a ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... romanticism at the breast of his mother-time. He grew up in the day when the great novelists and poets were romanticists, and what he came to abhor he had first adored. He was that pathetic paradox, a prophet who cannot practise what he preaches, who cannot build his doctrine into the edifice of a living faith. Zola was none the less, but all the more, a poet in this. He conceived of reality poetically and always saw his human documents, as he began early ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to retain much of his old boisterous temper, and though he would bring himself to speak with more decency concerning the great duty of repentance which now alone remained for them to practise, yet in a little time he would fly out into strange and blasphemous expressions, for which being reproved by William Russell, whom we have before mentioned as being under sentence at the same time, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... jurisprudence: I had the right; but I should be unjust did I not distinguish between this pretended science and the men who practise it. Devoted to studies both laborious and severe, entitled in all respects to the esteem of their fellow-citizens by their knowledge and eloquence our legists deserve but one reproach, that of an excessive deference ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... When you're having the sun-dance—I think it's the sun-dance, but I ain't really certain—you have to stick a hook through you, right here"—he grabbed Pony by the muscles on his shoulders—"and let them pull you up on a pole and hang there as long as they please. They'll let you practise gradually so that you won't mind hardly anything. Why, I've practised a good deal by myself, and now I've got so that I believe if you ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells

... days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds and the river, like black motes in the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... behind him opened, and Elly ran in, red-faced and dusty. "Mother, Mother, Reddy has come off her nest. And there are twelve hatched out of the fourteen eggs! Mother, they are such darlings! I wish you'd come and see. Mother, if I practise good, won't you come afterwards ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... dismiss their wives at once, parish priests already married were not interfered with; but marriage was forbidden to clergy in the future, and bishops were warned not to ordain married men. But William's expedition to England had been undertaken with the approval of Hildebrand, he did not practise simony, and he acknowledged the principle of a celibate clergy, while he promised the payment of the tribute of Peter's Pence from England. Moreover, William was not a man to be trifled with: he was a valuable friend and would certainly be a dangerous enemy. ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... in the animals, with the view of receiving money for curing them upon offering their services. The poison is generally administered by powders cast at night into the mangers of the animals. This way is only practised upon the larger cattle, such as horses and cows. By the other, which they practise chiefly on swine, speedy death is almost invariably produced, the drug administered being of a highly intoxicating nature, and affecting the brain. Then they apply at the house or farm where the disaster has occurred for the carcase of the animal, which is generally given them without ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... telephone poles, and other places where I could zag in to take cover beyond front steps and the like. I let my perception run up the block and by the time I got to the end of my range, I knew that block just as well as if I'd made a practise run ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith

... only after five hours of hard walking, and thoroughly beaten with fatigue. I was strong and healthy, but a walk of five hours was more than I could bear, because in my infancy I had never gone a league on foot. Young people cannot practise too much ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... attendant, was considered a most skilful physician. She gathered simples all over the earth to cure both wounds and diseases, and it was her province to teach the science to women, who were the only ones to practise medicine among the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... were in rockers at home. I'd have given a hundred dollars then to be able to stand up there on one foot and lean as easily as the skipper against the stay with the vessel going along as she was. I made up my mind to practise it when ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... feed only when there is but little provender, and that got at with difficulty through the bars of a rack; but refuse to touch it when there is an abundance before them." It is certainly important that all women should understand this; and it is no more than fair that they should practise upon it, since men always treat them with disingenuous untruthfulness in this matter. Men may amuse themselves with a noisy, loud-laughing, loquacious girl; it is the quiet, subdued, modest, and seeming bashful deportment which is the one that stands the fairest ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... propertied classes, as a whole. By 1836, however, many State legislatures had been induced to repeal or modify the provisions of the various debtors' imprisonment acts. In response to a recommendation by President Andrew Jackson that the practise be abolished in the District of Columbia, a House Select Committee reported on January 17, 1832, that "the system originated in cupidity. It is a confirmation of power in the few against the many; the Patrician against the Plebeian." ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... in hot weather to sprinkle frequently for several days. Moisture is absolutely necessary to the perfect hardening of cement work and a surplus is always better than a scarcity. In California the common practise is to cover the cement walk, as soon as it has hardened, with earth which is left on for ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... New Orleans. He began to practise law there in 1880, and afterward served as reporter of the State Supreme ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... has not effected the slightest change in their habits; and even those who have most intermixed with the colonists, have never been prevailed upon to practise one of the arts of civilized life. Disdaining all restraint, their happiness is still centered in their original pursuits; and they seem to consider the superior enjoyments to be derived from civilization, (for they are very far from being insensible to them) ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... and in the afternoon and evening they found a great deal to talk about. Emil, for all his track practice, did not stand up under farmwork very well, and by night he was too tired to talk or even to practise on his cornet. ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... money reduced to thirteen dollars, and with no articles of dress than those I had on—a white jacket, trousers, and striped shirt. A sudden thought crossed my mind: what if I were to remain at Manilla, and practise my profession? Young and inexperienced, I ventured to think myself the cleverest physician in the Philippine Islands. Who has not felt this self-confidence so natural to youth? I turned my back upon the ship, and walked ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... and never to be too strongly insisted on, that Christianity calls on us, as we value our immortal souls, not merely in general, to be religious and moral, but specially to believe the doctrines, and imbibe the principles, and practise the precepts of Christ. It might be to run into too great length to confirm this position beyond dispute by express quotations from Scripture. And (not to anticipate what belongs more properly to a subsequent part of the work) it may be sufficient here to remark in general, that Christianity ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... as evil. The Angels of Heaven, (who are the Angels of Light) love Truth and Righteousness, the Devil will seem to do so too; and does therefore sometimes lay before men excellent good Principles and exhort them (as he did Theodore Maillit) to practise many things, which by the Law of Righteousness they are obliged unto, and hereby he does more effectually deceive. Is it not strange, that he has sometimes intimated to his most devoted servants, that if they would have familiar Conversation ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... was a young barrister but lately called to the bar, who had been at Oxford spending his last year when Bertram and Wilkinson were freshmen; and having been at Bertram's college, he had been intimate with both of them. He was now beginning to practise, and men said that he was to rise in the world. In London he was still a very young man; but at Oxford he was held to be one who, from his three years' life in town, had become well versed in the world's ways. He was much in ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... mother,—"was ever croaking in the ears of her son; and a king the simple, stubborn, affectionate, bigoted man tried to be." "He did his best; he worked according to his lights; what virtues he knew he tried to practise; what knowledge he could master he strove to acquire." If the lectures were to be popular, it was absolutely necessary that they should be written in this strain. A lecture simply laudatory on the life of St. Paul would not draw even the bench of bishops to listen to it; ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... on my table at home, where you left it that time you came to ask for some tobacco. Now, observe, if I did not seriously hold and practise the principle of honesty, I would have made the best of circumstances as I found them, and would have put the knife in my pocket instead of returning it ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... virtuous then,' cried he, 'is Virginia! Virtue made her seek for riches, that she might practise benevolence. Virtue led her to forsake this island, and virtue will bring her back.' The idea of her near return fired his imagination, and his inquietudes suddenly vanished. Virginia, he was persuaded, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... of Heracles, and to prevent His loving any woman in thy stead." Of this love-charm, my friends, bethinking me, As, kept with care, it in my closet lay, I steeped a robe in it, adding whate'er The Centaur bade, and now my work is done. Black arts I know not nor desire to know, And all who practise such abominate; But if so be, we can with this love-charm Win from yon maid the heart of Heracles, The means are found, unless my plan to thee Seems ill-advised; if ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... as that, and you shall cunningly contrive a passage so that I may move from one to the other, and none see me come or go. Also, this shall be my sleeping-place, and this a great room where I will practise powerful magics." ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... a lucky hit to have swept off the judges from the judgment seat, and have carried Winchester and Bedford to Poitiers; the latter was, subsequently, all but taken on his return, between Rouen and Paris. As long as this accursed girl lived, who beyond a doubt continued in prison to practise her sorceries, there was no safety for the English; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... so?" asked the judge, a little quickly, for he distrusted men in general, and thought, from all he had heard, that some attempt might have been made to practise on his brother's simplicity. "I thought you told me that he came ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he did, but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less conspicuously—in the little things that few people see and that no one applauds or writes books about. It is much harder to do brave little acts than ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... that Mellicent added the violin to her accomplishments, and was despatched to her own room to practise exercises, while her elder sister wrestled with ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... from all this is, love Art, and if you choose, practise Art. Purchase Art for itself alone, and in the main for yourself alone. If you so do, you will encourage Art to more purpose than if you spent thousands a year in Art-Unions, and in presenting the public with what pleased you; just as a man does most good by ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... indiscretion, and a diplomat, must have fireproof feelings. As Tess had observed, Samson blenched distinctly, but he recovered in a second and put in practise some of that opportunism that was his secret pride, reflecting how a less finished diplomatist would have betrayed resentment at the snub from an inferior instead of affecting not to notice it at all. As a student of human nature he decided that Tom Tripe's pride was ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... how it is," he continued; "my father says we should do everything on principle. He has made us practise all sorts of athletic exercises, and shown us how we can make the best use of our muscles and bones. The balls of the foot and toes are given us, for instance, as pads from which we may spring, and on which ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... had caught the sound of stealthy movements in the adjoining room. She wove her needle into the seam, a practise so habitual that probably she would have done the same if the lamp had exploded unexpectedly, and crossing to the kitchen door, opened it without warning. A small untidy woman, the shortcoming of her appearance partly concealed by ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... while Nic had leisure to think again of his natural history specimens, and went out with his gun; but he did not feel at all keen about sitting down in a woody place near the river to fish and offer himself as a mark for any black who meant to practise hurling his spear. It was so much more satisfactory to mount Sour Sorrel and ride off, gun in hand, through the open woodland with the soft breeze sweeping by his cheek, and pick up a beautifully feathered bird from time ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... included that prime feature of English domestic scenery, a lawn. It had been levelled, carefully shorn, and converted into a bowling-green, on which we sometimes essayed to practise the time-honored game of bowls, most unskilfully, yet not without a perception that it involves a very pleasant mixture of exercise and ease, as is the case with most of the old English pastimes. Our little domain was shut in by the house on one side, and in other directions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... will make the Toys less afraid of us," thought the Officer to himself with some alarm. "I shall make the men practise sword-drill in the most open fashion for several hours. This will remind the world that we are ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall

... 'I must practise with them, or we shall not understand one another; besides, they have such a horrid set of tunes, Mr. Scudamour gave me leave to change them. He is going to have hymnals, and get rid of Tate ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... early that day [7]to practise[7] his feats [8]of valour and prowess.[8] These are the names of them all: the Apple-feat, and the Edge-feat, and the Level Shield-feat, and the Little Dart-feat, and the Rope-feat, and the Body-feat, and the Feat of Catt, and the Hero's Salmon-leap,[a] and the Pole-cast, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... possibly deny. To recount them all would be a formidable task, for their whole lives were darkened by injustice. There was not a wrong which had driven the Boer from Cape Colony which he did not now practise himself upon others—and a wrong may be excusable in 1885 which is monstrous in 1895. The primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the Pretoria ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... want to propose to you," said Eldrick, when they had finished the immediate business. "You're going to practise, ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... in a city since he was twelve years of age," I replied, evasively, "and in cities there is not much chance to practise." ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... he said cheerfully, "there you are. Have you any objection to prayers? It is a rule of this camp to have prayers night and morning, especially if any strangers happen along. I like to practise on ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... to take lessons from the bears and practise hibernating. But, like them, he would no doubt be very ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... each case by its merits, regardless of law and precedent. Then other judges construed his decisions as law, and the lesser courts cited the upper ones, until Gibbon says, "There grew up such a mass of judge-made laws that a skilful lawyer could prove anything, and legal practise swung on the ability to cite similar cases and call attention to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... done, and Morris told his servant to call also at the house where Mr. Mills's flat was situated, and ask the porter if he had come home. The note dispatched his mother went to bed, and Morris went down to the billiard room to practise spot-strokes, a form of hazard at which he was singularly inefficient, and wait for news. Little as he knew Mills, and little cause as he had for liking him, he too, like Mr. Taynton, felt vaguely anxious and perturbed, since "disappearances" are necessarily hedged ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... laugh of exultation sprang from the heart. "Maybe I am—and maybe you were right about me, too. A fellow changes. A month ago, I was wondering what use there could ever be in my studying law—trying to practise, mixing with men—when I couldn't hold my own with a handful of boys. For some reason, I don't feel that way any longer.—Well, that's about all I wanted to say to you, Westby." ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... independent, and we must obtain positive proof that Kasker issued those circulars. Then we can put an end to his mischief-making. I don't know how to undertake such a job, Josie, but you do; I'm busy at the Liberty Shop, and we can spare you from there better than any one else; so, if you want to 'practise,' here's an opportunity to ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... his habit very rigidly to obey his own orders, however little disposed he might be to obey those of other people. He had received, as he owned, more than he could reasonably have expected, good measure pressed down and running over. The limit was now reached. He should practise restraint—leave the whole, affair where it stood. But the effect of this darkness, and of drifting, drifting, over the black water in the fine soundless rain, with its illusion of permanence, and of the extinction of to-morrow—and the retributions and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... of all ages and aspects, some of whom played, others looked on and betted, a good many drank brandy and water, and nearly all smoked. It was a bright scene of dissipation, where many young men, deceiving themselves with the idea that they went merely to practise or to enjoy a noble game of skill, were taking their first steps on ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... Faculty credentials entitling him, was examined, as the Statutes, Rules and Ordinances of the College direct, touching his Classical knowledge and then got a general examination on all the branches of Medical and Surgical Science. The Medical Faculty found him well qualified to practise Medicine and Surgery and accordingly have announced to him that they will forward his name to the Governors to obtain the Degree of ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... decided to make a wide track through the yard and around the barn to practise on. Suitable space for the, automobile had already been set aside in the barn and safely fenced in beyond the reach of canine interference. Romeo had not seen the necessity of the fence until Juliet had pointed out that some of the dogs ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... suggested subject and a passage of Scripture for each day during Lent. May God the Holy Ghost, without Whom man's best labours are in vain, bless this little book to its purpose. Please say a prayer for the writer, who, as much as any, needs grace that he may try to practise ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter

... hospitals." Lindsay got up from his chair at the sound of an electric bell. "And our very best professional men practise there, give their time and money and strength. You will have to excuse me, as Mr. Carson has an appointment, and I have already kept him waiting. Will you see Mrs. Winter and young Long at eleven ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... shown the hell of those who are from that earth. Those who appeared from there inspired great terror. I dare not describe their monstrous faces. Sorceresses also appeared there, who practise nefarious arts. They appeared clad in green, ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg

... firm like the Standard Oil Trust may to some limited extent practise a cheap philanthropy of profit-sharing in order to deceive the public into supposing that its huge profits enrich many instead of few. But there is no evidence that the employees of a Trust have gained in any way from the economies of industrial monopoly, nor, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... did not lead to idleness. He kept up the practise all his life of recording his musical thoughts in sketch-books, which latter are an object lesson to those engaged in creative work as showing the extraordinary industry of the man and his absorption ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... appearance of Coristine; and, when that gentleman came out to taste the morning air, greeted him with clumsy effusion, endeavouring, at the same time, to press a two-dollar bill upon his acceptance. The lawyer declined the money, saying that he had no license to practise, and would, consequently, be liable to a heavy fine should he receive remuneration for his services. He enquired after Ben's health, and was pleased to learn that, while his heroic remedies had left the patient "as rayd as a biled lobister," externally, he was otherwise all right, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... they are sometimes subject to consumptions and to fevers. Since the foundation of that town no epidemical distempers have appeared, which at times cause such depopulations in other countries; many of them are extremely well acquainted with the Indian methods of curing simple diseases, and practise them with success. You will hardly find anywhere a community, composed of the same number of individuals, possessing such uninterrupted health, and exhibiting so many green old men, who show their advanced age ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... perfected at all unless the process be begun, and, within limits, the sooner the beginning is made, the earlier will be the ripening. To know the grounds of right conduct is, we admit, a different thing from feeling a disposition to practise it. But nobody will deny the expediency of an intelligent acquaintance with the reasons why one sort of conduct is bad, and its opposite good, even if such an acquaintance can never become a substitute for the spontaneous action of thoroughly formed habit. For ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... did not practise this amateur surgery himself, but had the arms and devices of Francis I. restored by one of those famous binders who only work for dukes, ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... the Conciergerie, informed of the Spanish priest's weak state, came himself to the prison-yard to observe him; he made him sit down on a chair in the sun, studying him with the keen acumen which increases day by day in the practise of such functions, though hidden under an appearance ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... the persuasions of teachers bound with them in the bonds of celibacy, penance, and deeds of merit. And those teachers are quick to meet them half-way, happily recommending themselves by the alacrity with which they adopt, and make their own, usages which they may with propriety practise in common, whereby the Buddhist is flattered while the Christian is not offended. Such, for example, is the monastic custom of the uncovered head. As it is deemed sacrilege to touch the head of royalty, so the head of the priest may not without dishonor pass under anything ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... wrested from him the remnants of his mortgaged property. He had been forced to move into a mere cottage and was a man without a future. For the only profession at which he had skill enough to make a living was the one from which he had been cast as unfit to practise it. The ready sympathy of the cattleman had gone out to the politician who was down and out. He had heard the situation discussed enough to guess pretty close to the facts, and he could not let himself rest until he had made some effort ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... maufe, and that whenever he saw it he was so overcome with fear that he could hardly look at it without fear and trembling."[147] All who confessed declared that they had been ordered to spit on the crucifix, and very many that they had received the injunction to commit obscenities and to practise unnatural vice. Some said that on their refusal to carry out these orders they had been threatened with imprisonment, even perpetual imprisonment; a few said they had actually been incarcerated[148]; one declared ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... house. My aunts themselves were nice and orderly, and went on from day to day in the same manner, and, as far as they knew, they were good women; but they knew very little about religion, and what people do not understand they cannot practise. ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... love to set out in a tikka-gharry and practise our Hindustani. Starting early when it is fairly cool—Indian cold weather mornings are the most wonderful things, so fresh and so bright and so blue—G. starts us off at a mad gallop by shouting Juldi jao, which I have to calm down with Asti asti ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... an undertaking the author, who ranges at will among theoretical systems, utters many fine precepts impossible to practise, and even when he says what is practicable it remains undone for want of details and examples ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... objected to the antiphonal element in the Prayer-Book services, and desired to have nothing of a responsive character allowed beyond the single word Amen. "But," rejoin the bishops, "they directly practise the contrary in one of their principal parts of worship, singing of psalms, where the people bear as great a part as the minister. If this way be done in Hopkin's why not in David's Psalms; if in metre, why ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... many beasts in a plough.} Thus I haue giuen you the perfect portraiture of a well yoakt Plough, together with his Implements, and the vse of them, being the best which hath yet beene found out by any of our skilfullest English Husbandmen, whose practise hath beene vpon these deepe, stiffe, blacke clayes. Now you shall vnderstand, that for the number of Cattell to be vsed in these ploughes, that in fallowing your land, and plowing your Pease-earth, eight good Cattell are the best number, as being the strongest, ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... was a concise and definite formulation of the chief Christian truths. For "canon, rule," was the term employed by the ancient Church to designate such brief sentences as were adopted by synods for the practise of the Church. And this "rule of truth" is declared by Irenaeus to be "the old tradition," "the old tradition of the apostles": he te apo ton apostolon en te ekklesia paradosis. (Zahn, l.c., 379f.) Irenaeus was the pupil ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... object is to sustain their own opinions by argument. Then, each party claimed to itself an exclusive love of country, and stigmatized the other as aliens and the natural enemies of the state: now, they both practise great forbearance, love, and charity, towards political opponents. Then, men obtained place through intrigue and corruption, and a universal scramble for the loaves and fishes of office on the one side, and a universal political proscription on the other, were regarded ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... compatriot so coldly, and made things so unpleasant for him, that he soon went back discouraged, to resume his career at home. There he encountered the hostility of the local corporation of St. Luke, that guild of painters refusing to allow him to practise his art without regularly passing through his apprenticeship, and taking his 'master's degree.' Pater resisted, and the case went before the magistracy of Valenciennes, before the Provincial Council of Hainault, and finally before the Parliament of Flanders. It was contested ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... began. Europe, by a back-handed slap on Contenson's cheek, sent him sprawling to measure his length on the carpet, and with all the more effect because at the same time she caught his leg with the sharp kick known to those who practise the art as ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... reigning with righteousness that none come for judgment; the bustle has ceased, and the Hall of Justice will have to be closed. I must, therefore, now examine into my own faults; and if I find that anything is wrong in me, put that away, and practise only virtue." ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... he wrote for his instrument contained so many difficulties that he had to practise unremittingly to overcome them, often working ten or twelve hours a day and ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... acquired that expression," said he, letting out the car another notch, although it was already in swift flight. "It's been a lot of trouble. I've had to practise before a mirror a good deal. It was the chin bothered me most. It sticks out pretty well, but not as far as my grandfather's. Could you advise ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... she was full of ambition—and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a 'vulgar young ruffian,' and 'worse than a brute,' she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... of consuming vengeance seethed in her heart; the patience she was forced to practise, much against her will, petrified in time into a ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... have, B.? The poor gurl's got a gathering in her eye, or somethink in it—I was lookin at it just now as you came in." And she squeezed her daughter's hand as a signal of prudence and secrecy; and Fanny's tears were dried up likewise; and by that wondrous hypocrisy and power of disguise which women practise, and with which weapons of defence nature endows them, the traces of her emotion disappeared; and she went and took her work, and sate in the corner so demure and quiet, that the careless male parent never ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... results of her own or some neighbor's experiments in a household matter of general interest, or reminiscences of matters of local history that happen to be of current interest. Thus when a new church is erected, the history of the old one may be properly told. Here the amateur journalist may practise herself ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... communion or society could not subsist? and yet these laws were promulgated by Jehovah God upon Mount Sinai with a stupendous miracle: but the cause of their being so promulgated was, that they might be also laws of religion, and thus that the people might practise them not only for the sake of the good of society, but also for the sake of God, and that when they practised them from a religious notion for the sake of God, they might be saved. From these considerations ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... play. Suppose he did this with the view of exciting my suspicions on one subject in order to divert my attention from another more important to his design. Lastly, suppose he wishes to have some indirect methods of information, which he had himself occasion to practise, imputed to the sorcerer, in order to divert suspicion from the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... she was fairly proficient—and found Miss Drake a most interesting and inspiring teacher. She loved the interest which she excited, the flattering remarks of other girls, the quiet devotion of Susan; but she hated the rules of "early to bed and early to rise"; found it a penance to be obliged to practise scales, with icy fingers, for forty minutes before breakfast; was fretted and humiliated by her ignorance on many important subjects, and at the end of the long day often ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... prey and have missed it, they seldom chase the frightened animal. They are accustomed to make one spring on a deer or an ox, and to settle the matter there and then. So, after a failure to do this, they go to the place from which they have made the spring and practise the jump over and over until they feel that they can make it the next ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... 186. They shall diligently practise all observances stipulated for[283] [in the endowment] which do not interfere with their personal duties, also whatever other ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... quite abandoned hope of exchanging my vine leaves for the laurels. I would rise an hour earlier in the morning to practise throwing at broomsticks set up in waste places. At another time, the sport coming into temporary fashion, I wearied body and mind for weeks in vain attempts to acquire skill on stilts. That even fat Tubby could out-distance me upon them saddened my ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... woman to dream of plates, denotes that she will practise economy and win a worthy husband. If already married, she will retain her husband's love and respect by the wise ordering ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... at their brother's birthday festivity (held this year on the 7th, as the 6th was a Sunday); and in the middle of the previous night as he lay in bed, the fear had fallen on him suddenly that the step was forgotten, and then and there, in that wintry dark cold night, he got out of bed to practise it. Anything more characteristic could certainly not be told; unless I could have shown him dancing it afterwards, and far excelling the youngest performer in untiring vigour and vivacity. There was no one who approached him on these occasions excepting only our attached ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... This is proved by the Athenian reception of the Chalcidian invitation: an ally who has never given them any assistance whatever, at once receives from them almost more than the treaty entitles him to. That the Athenians should cherish this ambition and practise this policy is very excusable; and I do not blame those who wish to rule, but those who are over-ready to serve. It is just as much in men's nature to rule those who submit to them, as it is to resist those who molest them; one is not less invariable than the other. Meanwhile all who see ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... do all. His will, and who have not even zeal enough to search for Him in the Holy Book; who do not know that religion is, above all things, action and life. Teach such as these who pray abundantly, often idolatrously, to practise, besides the prayers which are prescribed, the mystic prayer as well, in which is the purest faith, the most perfect hope, the most perfect charity, which in itself purifies the soul and purifies life. Do I tell you to take, publicly, the place of the pastors? No; let each one work ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... till our lump be leaven— The better! What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven: Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto! Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) "O!" Thy great ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... trout and conveyed it carefully to his gold plate. He was a man of simple tastes, but when you have an aunt with the newly acquired gift of turning anything she touches to gold, you must let her practise sometimes. In another age it ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne

... obvious how small a matter serves to raise the spirits and hopes of the Dissenters and their high-flying advocates, what lengths they run, what conclusions they form, and what hopes they entertain. Do they hear of a new friend in office? That is encouragement enough to practise the city, against the opinion of a majority into an address to the Queen for repealing the sacramental test; or issue out their orders to the next fanatic parson to furbish up his old sermons, and preach and print new ones directly ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... the mind, it puts down to justice even a cruel deed. Therefore it is written: 'The wrath of man worketh not the justice of God'; and again: 'Let everyone be swift to hear but slow to speak'. I do not doubt but that by God's help you practise all this. But as opportunity offers, I creep behind your good works, that when an adviser adds himself to what you do without advice, you may not be alone in your doing. May Almighty God stretch forth His heavenly hand to protect you in all your acts, granting you prosperity in the present ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... ere I forge to feede his braine-sicke fits, Do you vphold, and maintaine in your speeches, For now he firmely takes me for Reuenge, And being Credulous in this mad thought, Ile make him send for Lucius his Sonne, And whil'st I at a Banquet hold him sure, Ile find some cunning practise out of hand To scatter and disperse the giddie Gothes, Or at the least make them his Enemies: See heere he comes, and I must play ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... has been all that is hospitable," said Beatrice. "It is like old days at Chelsea. I love word-fencing; and there are so few who practise it." ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... of the retina is so short, that they are not visible. This is proved by our not perceiving the motions of cannon and musket balls, and many other kinds of motion. On this principle depends the art of conjuration, or legerdemain; the fundamental maxim of those who practise them, is, that the motion ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... was running around the corner of the carriage-shed. "Oh, Carl, I had to come out and see you again, but I can't go seek-our-fortunes with you, 'cause they've got the piano moved in now and I got to practise, else I'll grow up just an ignorant common person, and, besides, there's going to be tea-biscuits and honey for supper. I ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... his profound patriotism, and the calm heights from which he surveys the future. For those who think with him, the Serbs, in uniting with the Croats, have already surmounted a more serious obstacle. They believe that for three reasons their union with the Bulgars is a more natural one: they practise the same religion, they use the same Cyrillic alphabet and their civilization, springing from Byzantium, has been identical. The two people are bound to each other by the great Serbian, Saint Sava, who strove ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... man for entertaining an opinion of his own,' said the elderly individual. 'I hold certain opinions; but I should not respect an individual the more for adopting them. All I wish for is tolerance, which I myself endeavour to practise. I have always loved the truth, and sought it; if I have not found it, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... is a conventicle of young matrimonial victims to practise cookery in seclusion, upon which I ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... be established, has, however, been the means, I regret to state, of a sad perversion of the system in these respects. The time allowed for amusement and exercise has been in some cases, very much abridged that the children might learn and practise sewing, knitting, plaiting, &c. Now, no one can be more disposed to the encouragement of industrious habits than myself, but I would say not at the expense of health; which I am certain, in these cases it must be. Deprive the children of their amusement, and they will soon cease to be ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... prayer to God that he would bless them in the manufacture or sale of ardent spirit, involuntarily shrinks back and says, "That is too bad." He can see that it is an abomination. And if it is too bad for a professed Christian to pray about it, is it not too bad for him to practise it? If you continue, under all the light which God in his providence has furnished with regard to its hurtful nature and destructive effects, to furnish ardent spirit as a drink for your fellow-men, you will run the fearful hazard ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... I trust, when Christian churches in the United States shall return to follow the sublime examples of the founders of Christianity; shall practise and diffuse that spirit of love in which is all freedom, all toleration and co-operation; shall welcome science and philosophy, and become the centre of all cooperative efforts for ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various

... treats "Mistress Jocasta-Beatrix," to what, in the parlance of the time, was decidedly a "bite."[71] Here Thackeray has borrowed not only Steele's voice, but his very trick of speech. It is, however, a fresh instance of the "tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive," that although this pseudo-Spectator is stated to have been printed "exactly as those famous journals were printed" for eighteenth-century breakfast-tables, it could hardly, owing to one microscopic detail, have deceived the contemporary elect. For ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... in defiance. 'I will not go till you drive me forth at the point of the bayonet. Your friend, the King of Prussia, can teach you bayonet drill, and you can practise ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... the law, but it implied the reception of Cornelius and his company into the household of God, and so destroyed the whole fabric of Jewish exclusiveness. We condemn such narrowness, but do many of us not practise it in other forms? Wherever Christians demand adoption of external usages, over and above exercise of penitent faith, as a condition of brotherly recognition, they are walking in the steps of them 'of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... hard as cleaning house or washing, as some of the poor women do. And it is tiresome to practise on the spinet, hour after hour—counting time and all that. If I was a girl of twenty years ago I'm afraid I should be chasing up and down some old garret, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... from essentially injuring his character in the way it almost never fails to injure that of the farm-servant. As he has to calculate on being part of every winter, and almost every spring, unemployed, he is compelled to practise a self-denying economy, the effect of which, when not carried to the extreme of a miserly narrowness, is always good; and Hallow-day returns him every season to the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... to talk about Bob yet; I have to talk to you," she said. "Percival, why did you practise that ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... that great slaughter he and his men put out to sea, and sailed to the cave where dwelt an old woman, Fionn's nurse. And he told her his story from the beginning. 'I will go with you,' said she, 'and will practise magic against him.' ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... idea came to me. Here was another one of them. Now that I had achieved my concept, I might as well practise it thoroughly. "Come on," I said, "up to Johnny's and have ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London



Words linked to "Practise" :   work, walk through, study, shamanize, scrimmage, exercise, shamanise, rehearse, read, performing arts, take, drill, perform, execute, practice, learn, do work



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