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Carve out   /kɑrv aʊt/   Listen
Carve out

verb
1.
Establish or create through painstaking effort.
2.
Remove from a larger whole.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Carve out" Quotes from Famous Books



... profitable to lawyers, who must always win, whether their clients do or not. It is no exaggeration to say that, as surely as Spain and Portugal are priest-ridden, so surely is Great Britain lawyer- ridden. No sooner does the science, the industry, and the enterprise of the country carve out some new road to commercial prosperity, than the attorney sets up a turnpike upon it and takes toll; and, if dispute arises as to the right of road, however the contest be decided, it ends in two attornies taking toll. In chancery, in the laws affecting ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... no more. Young man, Destiny is less inexorable than it appears. The resources of the great Ruler of the Universe are not so scanty and so stern as to deny to men the divine privilege of Free Will; all of us can carve out our own way, and God can make our very contradictions harmonise with His solemn ends. You have before you an option. Honourable and generous love may even now work out your happiness, and effect your escape; a frantic and selfish passion will but lead you ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... presently form out of it.—Tell me, King Louis, were it not well, before this vagrant Helen of Troy [the wife of Menelaus. She was carried to Troy by Paris, and thus was the cause of the Trojan War], or of Croye, set more Kings by the ears, were it not well to carve out a ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... sufferings of Jesus Christ? In regard to their virtue and efficacy, No. In regard to their motive—in one aspect, No; in another aspect, Yes. In regard to the spirit that impelled Him we may copy Him. The smallest trickle of water down a city gutter will carve out of the mud at its side little banks and cliffs, and exhibit all the phenomena of erosion on the largest scale, as the Mississippi does over half a continent, and the tiniest little wave in a basin will fall into the same curves as the billows of mid-ocean. You and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... day may scoff at, but such as Evelyn, or Isaak Walton, or Herbert would have delighted to honour." The work is in general too polemical and political for our pages; but we may hereafter be tempted to carve out a few pastoral pictures of the delightful country round Keswick, where Dr. Southey resides. The present Review contains but few extracts to our purpose, and is rather a paper on the spirit of the Colloquies, than analytical of their merits. We take, for example, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various

... out. Seeing that Mazarin and Conde were not heads of a government which would leave to others acting with them any great share of importance, he undertook to overthrow them, the one by the other, to carve out his way between them by them, and to raise upon their ruin the Duke d'Orleans, under whose name he would govern. To effect this he incessantly urged alike the Duke, the parliament, and the people, to demand, as the first condition of any reconciliation ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... stated it will be noticed that it was a matter of necessity and not a spirit of adventure that drove the mass of Highlanders to America; but those who came, nevertheless, were enterprising and anxious to carve out their own fortunes. Before starting on the long and perilous journey across the Atlantic they were first forced to break the mystic spell that bound them to their native hills and glens, that had a charm and an association bound ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... the second stage of my career—that of a soldier of Fortune. At first I was doubtful as to what path to glory and bread-and-butter I could carve out for myself. Hitherto I had been Fortune's darling instead of her mercenary, and she had most politely carved out my paths for me, until she had played her jade's trick and left me in the ditch. Now things were different. I stood alone, ironical, ambitionless, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... ten times a day, he tortured himself in this manner, gazing at that painful and relentless line; and, beyond it, through vistas which his imagination contrived as it were to carve out of the Vosges, he conjured up a vision of the German ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... must not look upon water only as a cutting instrument, for it does more than merely carve out land in one place, it also carries it away and lays it down elsewhere; and in this it is more like a modeller in clay, who smooths off the material from one part of his figure to put it ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... competent to defend herself against a powerful neighbor than Sicily was to maintain her independence against the Romans. We are her neighbor,—with a population abounding in adventurers domestic and imported, and with politicians who carve out states that shall make them senators and representatives and governors, and perhaps even presidents. As we get nearer to Mexico, the population is more lawless, less inclined to observe those rules upon faith in which the weak must depend ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... launch, though I don't think it will aid you much, because the naphtha-tank has exploded, and the screw slipped off and went to the bottom two weeks ago. Still, it is at your service, and I've no doubt that either Phidias or Benvenuto Cellini will carve out a paddle for you if ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... Williamson, thine eyes shall witness it.— Then to all you that come to view mine end I must confess, I had no ill intent, But against such as wronged us over much: And now I can perceive it was not fit That private men should carve out their redress, Which way they list; no, learn it now by me,— Obedience is the best in each degree: And asking mercy meekly of my king, I patiently submit me to the law; But God forgive them that were cause of it! And, as a Christian, ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... flags and the guns captured from the Turks; the strange weapons of all devices; the famous suits of armor. I came back half-crazed; I wept that I must leave the place. But I set to work the best I could to carve out in wood an invention which the model of one of the antique galleys had suggested to me. They found it,—nothing can be concealed outside of your own breast in such a school,—and they carried me with my contrivance before the superior. He looked kindly but gravely at me: 'My ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... your country, and must have been greatly envied by your friends. How does it come that you are willing to throw away the precedence which you formerly enjoyed on account of your rank and station to become a plain citizen of another country where you have to carve out your place single handed? Don't you really ever have any regrets ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... live, these Waring people have no claim upon the estate in any way. You've given them as much as they've any right to expect. Let them wait for the rest till, in the course of nature, they come into possession. As for me, I will go to carve out for myself a place in the world elsewhere by my own exertions. Perhaps, before my mother need know her son was left a beggar by the father who brought him up like the heir to a large estate, I may have been able to carve ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... present conditions, I wish all success to the man who undertakes to make that commodity, but to tax me to give the man a bonus to do so is to rob me of my honest earnings. We have been told we want more population. Yes, if it be of the right kind, of people who will go, as I did, into the bush and carve out farms. These will add to our strength, but hordes drawn from cities who cannot and will not take to the plow, will prove in the long run a weakness. If you knew the poverty and misery that exists among the ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... receive this you will know that (with the exception of some definite bequests) I have left to you, under certain conditions, the entire bulk of my fortune—a fortune so great that by its aid as a help, a man of courage and ability may carve out for himself a name and place in history. The specific conditions contained in Clause 10 of my Will have to be observed, for such I deem to be of service to your own fortune; but herein I give my advice, which you are at ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... the thing he would carve out of a four-inch section of the plastic. When it was carved, he'd paint it. While he worked, he'd think of Sattell, because that was the way to get back the missing portions of his life—the parts ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... himself of the great resolution to which he had come on that famous morning when he awoke to find himself whiskerless. Barodia had no more use for him now as a King, and he on his side was eager to carve out for himself a new life as ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne

... not more desperate than himself, and not better qualified for the career. Young, courageous, a warrior by profession, with a name of traditionary glory throughout the courts of Christendom, perhaps even remembered in Asia, he seemed just the individual to carve out a glorious heritage with his sword. And as for his parents, they were not in the vale of years; let them dream on in easy obscurity, and maintain themselves at Armine until he returned to redeem his hereditary domain. All that was requisite was the concurrence of his adored mistress. ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... reason, were moved by the desire to see the Holy Places and secure them as the common property of Christendom. But the most pertinacious and successful of the commanders went eastward, as their kinsmen went across the Elbe or the Alps or the Pyrenees, to carve out for themselves new principalities at the expense of Byzantine or Saracen, it did not matter which. Naturally the sovereign princes who took the Cross do not fall into this category. For them an expedition might be either an adventure, or the grudging fulfilment of a penance, or a bid for ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... so-" He broke off. "Yes, thus I can bear it better. The estate is almost an oppression to me. The Bohemian nature is in me, I suppose. I had rather carve out life for myself than have the landlord business loaded on my shoulders. Clement and Lance will make the model parson and squire far better than I. 'The Inspector's Tour' was a success-between that and the Underwood music there's no fear but I ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... over his big one-bladed outdoor knife, and Puck began to carve out a piece of turf from ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... fully carried out the promise made to his father, on his death bed, whether on the completion of his education his benefactor would continue to assist him by using his interest to procure him some suitable position in which he could carve out for himself, a road to name and fame, he knew not, but nevertheless he felt a deep sense of gratitude for what had already been done for him, by his father's old friend. He was becoming restless when the friend expected ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... spectacle. The missing of deadlines and the nightmare of monstrous continuing resolutions packing hundreds of billions of dollars of spending into one bill must be stopped. We ask the Congress once again: Give us the same tool that 43 Governors have—a lineitem veto so we can carve out the boondoggles and pork, those items that would never survive on their own. I will send the Congress broad recommendations on the budget, but first I'd like to see yours. Let's go to work and get ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... water mile upon mile from the mountain canons, to make the sterile breast of the mother earth fertile, to drive back the horned toad and the coyote, to make green things spring up and flourish, to carve out homes, to cause trees and flowers and vines to give shade and disseminate fragrance, even as time went on to wring moisture from the lead-gray sky above—it was like being granted the might of a magician to touch the desert ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... was obliged to carve out his own fate. He left the old home, moved to the town where I was born, and by untiring industry built up a law practice which for those days was astonishingly lucrative. Then, as I have said, the war broke out and, enlisting as a matter of course, he met death on ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... but watches on the tower of foreknowledge to espy what they will do, whether men will believe on his Son or not, whether they will persevere in faith or not, and according to his observation of their doings, so he applies his own will to carve out their reward or portion of life or death. These are even the thoughts which are inbred in your breasts by nature. That which the learned call Arminianism is nothing else but the carnal reason of men's hearts, which is enmity to God. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... radiance; but her recent association with Madame Tallien and that giddy cohue had accentuated her habits of feline complaisance to all and sundry. Her facile fondnesses certainly welled forth far too widely to carve out a single channel of love and mingle with the deep torrent of Bonaparte's early passion. In time, therefore, his affections strayed into many other courses; and it would seen that even in the later part of this Italian epoch his conduct was irregular. For ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... that I was not the child of my parents at all, but an adopted one—perhaps of rank and kept out of my inheritance by those who had selfish motives. But now I knew that I had no rank or Inheritance, save what I should carve out for myself. There ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... down the Yukon to Dawson with them on his way to the Fairbanks mining district, where he proposed to carve out what he termed a new "stake," acted as box office man and ticket taker. There were nearly two thousand persons on the grounds when the boys brought out from its canvas hanger the neat double plane with its bright motor and varnished propeller. The skids had been replaced with ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... other side like it. Do not make the head lopsided; make both sides of the same proportions. Flatten the sides of the end of the log enough to give you a smooth surface, then sketch the profile on each side of the log with charcoal or chalk, carve out the head with a chisel, drawing-knife, and jack-knife, and gouge until you have fashioned it into the shape desired. In order to do this the end of the log should be free from the ground and a convenient distance above it. The carving is best done after the house is practically finished; ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... of a nation is not to be learnt from its fine folks, its fine gentlemen and ladies; such you meet everywhere, and they are everywhere the same." While statesmen, philosophers, and divines represent the thinking power of society, the men who found industries and carve out new careers, as well as the common body of working-people, from whom the national strength and spirit are from time to time recruited, must necessarily furnish the vital force and constitute the real backbone of ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... they have done with him as they did with Bras-Rouge; they did not dare leave Jobert here; they locked him up at the Conciergerie. Well, this must be put a stop to: we must have an example. Our traitor brothers carve out work for the police. They think they are sure of their necks because they are put in a different prison from those they ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... for peace and reunion were rejected; when the seceding States defied the Constitution and every clause and principle of it; when they persisted in staying out of the Union from which they had seceded, and proceeded to carve out of its territory a new and hostile empire based on slavery; when they flew at the throat of the nation and plunged it into the bloodiest war of the nineteenth century the tables were turned, and the belief gradually came to the mind of the President that if the Rebellion was not soon subdued ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... evil world, and stood up so bravely in the cause of truth and right. He never forgot the soft, tender voice or the warm pressure of the hand as she reasoned with him; but thinking it all over in the still night-hush, he determined to win her approbation, and carve out for himself ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... water tax and a street tax. Every day when I sit down in my dining-room—my dining-room! I find the wish growing stronger that each poor soul in Baltimore, whether saint or sinner, could come and dine with me. How I would carve out the merry-thoughts for the old hags! How I would stuff the big wan-eyed rascals till their rags ripped again! There was a knight of old times who built the dining-hall of his castle across the highway, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... best of all to go hunting, carrying on such trips an old gun of the kind used in the Revolution. A good many of his hours at home were spent in working with tools, and thus he became skilful enough to carve out of wood a skate on which he learned to travel about on the ice. He was active and industrious at school, too, and he made such a good record there that though he whispered a great part of the time he got along peaceably with the school-master. The only ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... When the outer part of the mould is nearly set, scoop out the centre with a spoon, and let the whole dry; then remove the strings, &c., and smooth off the edges of the joints upon the model with a sharp penknife, and carve out the eyes from the mass, otherwise they will appear as ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... subjects, to whom the memory of the Battler was dear. As king of Aragon he took a share in the work of the reconquest, by helping his cousin Alohonso VIII. of Castile to conquer Cuenca, and to suppress one Pero Ruiz de Azagra, who was endeavouring to carve out a kingdom for himself in the debatable land between Christian and Mahommedan. But his double position as ruler both north and south of the eastern Pyrenees distracted his policy. In character and interests ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia



Words linked to "Carve out" :   take away, remove, withdraw, take, create



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