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Exceptional   /ɪksˈɛpʃənəl/   Listen
Exceptional

adjective
1.
Far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree.  Synonyms: exceeding, olympian, prodigious, surpassing.  "An exceptional memory" , "Olympian efforts to save the city from bankruptcy" , "The young Mozart's prodigious talents"
2.
Surpassing what is common or usual or expected.  Synonyms: especial, particular, special.  "Exceptional kindness" , "A matter of particular and unusual importance" , "A special occasion" , "A special reason to confide in her" , "What's so special about the year 2000?"
3.
Deviating widely from a norm of physical or mental ability; used especially of children below normal in intelligence.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Exceptional" Quotes from Famous Books



... see if he is peculiar even in this crowding of many law-terms into a single brief passage. We turn to the very play open at our hand, from which we have quoted before, (and which, by the way, we have not selected as exceptional in this regard,) "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage," and find the following ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... Nevertheless, there are certain parasitic fungi, Chytridiaceae for example, whose relationships plainly entitle them to a place among the hyphate forms that have no hyphae whatever in the entire round of their life-history. These are, however, exceptional cases and really do not bear very closely ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... sized bull is six feet, but I once killed one that was seven feet, and a neighbour of mine who has seen a great deal of bison shooting has killed one of similar height, and he informs me that he is positive that he has seen a larger bull than either of these very exceptional animals. ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, these things might be called the hands of God reached forth against sin. But about God himself he was at ease; his act was doubtless exceptional, but so were his excuses, which God knew; it was there, and not among men, that he felt sure ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... due reception of which must involve a denial of habitual impressions, as the necessary first step in the way of truth. His philosophy had been developed in conscious, outspoken opposition to the current mode of thought, as a matter requiring some exceptional loyalty to pure reason and its "dry light." Men are subject to an illusion, he protests, regarding matters apparent to sense. [129] What the uncorrected sense gives was a false impression of permanence or fixity in things, which have really ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... groups—climbing bogs, lake bogs, and marine marshes. The first two of these groups depend on the movements of the rain water over the land; the third on the action of the tides. Beginning our account with the first and most exceptional of these groups, we note the following features ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... firms belonging to the same nation and conducting their business upon closely similar conditions. One Lancashire cotton exporter competes much more closely with other Lancashire exporters than he does with German, American, or Japanese exporters of similar goods. So it is everywhere, save in the exceptional times and circumstances in which governments themselves take over the regulation and conduct ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson

... of women the Japanese paint mostly on their vases is an exceptional one in their country. It is almost exclusively among the nobility that these personages are found, with their long, pale faces, painted in tender rose-tints, and silly, long necks which give them the appearance ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... self-respect, his courage, and also of his less noble traits, occasional cunning and falsehood, and cruelty toward Hagar and Ishmael,—these qualities, good and bad, are still those of the desert. Only in Abraham something higher and exceptional was joined with them. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... be no more water for the toilet; we shall have to cleanse our hands with snow and let our faces go. The rice will enter the pot unwashed and will transfer its talcum and glucose to our intestines. Nor is this the case merely on exceptional mountain-climbing expeditions; it is the general rule during the winter throughout Alaska. It takes a long time and a great deal of snow and much wood to produce a pot of water on the winter trail. That "talcum-and-glucose" abomination should be taken up by the Pure Food Law authorities. All the ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... pronouns of the first person, would appear to be above all ambiguity, uncertainty, or dispute. Yet when we consider the force of the plural 'we,' we are met with a contradiction; for, as a rule, only one person can speak at the same time to the same audience. It is only by some exceptional arrangement, or some latitude or license of expression, that several persons can be conjoint speakers. For example, a plurality may sing together in chorus, and may join in the responses at church, or in the simultaneous repetition of the Lord's Prayer or the Creed. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... was talking tumultuously with the onrush of that dynamic spirit which drove him and gave him power. He stood there with his coat open over his magnificent chest, and his eyes alight with the forces that made him exceptional. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... difficulties. His faithful, loving nature made him cling desperately to early hopes, friendships, and affections. Even to the end Thomas Scott never loses his hold upon him. His narrative is not the history of the normal progress of a mind from England to Rome; it is so thoroughly exceptional that it does not seem calculated to seduce to Rome men governed in such high matters by argument and reason rather than by impulse and feeling. We do not therefore think that the mere fact of this secession tells with any force against that communion whose claims ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... since the sight of a person who had lost one of his lower limbs was an infrequent occurrence. Now, alas! there are few of us who have not a cripple among our friends, if not in our own families. A mechanical art which provided for an occasional and exceptional want has become a great and active branch of industry. War unmakes legs, and human skill must supply their places as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... State should intervene to secure, not an all-round minimum wage, but the same wages for the same work, and nothing less than the standard rate of his particular work for every worker, is not a proposition that the State should do something new, or exceptional, or impracticable. It is a proposal that the State should do for the weakest and most helpless trades what the strongly-organised trades already do for themselves. I cannot see that there is anything unreasonable, much less revolutionary or ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner

... friendship was never renewed. The winter proved a severe one, and Will experienced a steady drain on his capital, but he comforted himself in thoughts of the spring, watched his wheat dapple the dark ground with green, and also foretold exceptional crops of hay when summer should return. The great event of his wife's advent at Newtake occupied most of his reflections; while as for Phoebe herself the matter was never out of her mind. She lived for the day in June that should ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... sport, the drama, or work is protected by conventionalization. The occasion calls for a variation from current usage, and the conventionalization, while granting toleration, defines it also, and makes a new law for the exceptional case. It is like taboo, and is, in fact, the form of taboo in high civilization. Like taboo, it has two aspects,—it is either destructive or protective. The conventionalization bars out what might be offensive (i.e. when a thing may be done only under the conditions set by ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... will Chatty be Miss Warrender all her life, if no one comes to the rescue. Of course it should lie with me in the first place: but except neighbouring clergymen, we are likely to see so few people just at present. To be sure I have married a clergyman myself: but Eustace was quite an exceptional case, and clergymen as a rule can scarcely be called eligible: so there is nothing for it but that Lady ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... were treated with a much greater show, at least, of respect and veneration than they are at present; and therefore Mistress Putnam was greatly shocked at her daughter's language; but her daughter was well known to all present as an exceptional child, being very forward and self-willed, and therefore her mother simply said, "I had not expected such unkind behavior ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... most advantageously built, and this difference is at least twenty-five per cent. Call it rather more or rather less as we please, but a vast difference is on all hands acknowledged, and the fact of our non-production proves it. The shipbuilders have already had exceptional legislation by a considerable remission of duties in their favor. But ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman

... rather too far apart for beauty, were round, with pupils which dilated until they all but covered the blue iris; the eyes of an emotional nature, an imaginative mind. Her other features, though delicate, were not exceptional, but the tout ensemble was such that her looks would have been considered above the average even in a country where pretty girls were plentiful. In her present surroundings, and by contrast with the womenfolk about ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... has shown exceptional work in mathematics," she continued, "and while her preparation for college has been undoubtedly faulty, her teachers recommend that she continue her work and apply herself with special tutors for those studies in which ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... in perhaps all cases but the last out of a thousand, a man of peace, not to be forced into a fight; but the exceptional one out of the ten hundred it is well not to stir up if you are looking for an easy victim. Hamilton was in the habit of considering every antagonist immediately conquerable. His domineering spirit could not, when opposed, reckon with ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... also; the two indeed cannot remain separate, and man must subordinate knowledge to the authority of religion—or make science supreme, submitting religion to its scrutiny and judging it like other phenomena. Under this investigation Christianity does not appear altogether exceptional. Its early logic, ontology and cosmology, with many of its distinctive doctrines, are shown to be the natural offspring of the races and ages which gave them birth. Put into their historical environment they are freed from adverse criticism, and indeed valued as steps in the intellectual ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... generating productive force does not assist us to distinguish a machine from a tool. A type-writer, a piano, which receive their impulse from the human muscles, must evidently be included among machines. It is indeed true that these, like others of the same order, are exceptional machines, not merely in that the motive power is derived more essentially from human muscles, but in that the raison d'etre of the mechanism has been to provide scope for human skill and not to destroy it. But though it ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... I think," he said, "unless it be mediocre—then one is safe; one has scores of friends, and scarce a foe. Mediocrity succeeds wonderfully well nowadays—nobody hates it, because every one feels how easily they themselves can attain to it. Exceptional talent is aggressive—actual genius is offensive; people are insulted to have a thing held up for their admiration which is entirely out of their reach. They become like bears climbing a greased pole; they ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... sac being exposed, it may be possible in some very exceptional cases to give the patient the benefit of the minor operation, which consists in leaving the sac unopened. In such a case (to be described immediately), the surgeon passes his finger along the neck of the sac as far as possible into the ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... not know how we fell into the feeling that this marriage was somehow exceptional and important, since marriages take place every day, and are so common and ordinarily so commonplace, when the first flutter is over. Even Morgan said, in his wife's presence, that he thought there had been weddings enough; at least he ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... only in extreme and exceptional cases, where it can be shown that neither the parents' resources nor Local Voluntary Funds are sufficient to cover the cost, and after the consent of the Board of Education as to the necessity for such expenditure has been obtained, a Local Authority ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... had, I believe, great merit. But painting was one of the subjects in which he never received instruction, though he modelled, under the direction of his friend Mr. Story; and a letter of his own will presently show that, in his youth at least, he never credited himself with exceptional artistic power. That he might have become an artist, and perhaps a great one, is difficult to doubt, in the face of his brilliant general ability and special gifts. The power to do a thing is, however, distinct from the impulse to do it, and proved ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... Duvillard who sent me to you, monsieur, telling me that you alone had the necessary authority to grant immediate admittance in an exceptional case." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... any—even in such circumstances and worse, but they are rare, and not a little better worth knowing than the common class of mortals—alas that they will be common! content to be common they are not and cannot be. Among these exceptional mortals I do not count such as, having secured the corner of a couch within the radius of a good fire, forget the world around them by help of the magic lantern of a novel that interests them: such may not be in the least worth knowing for their disposition or moral attainment—not even ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... Finckh to conclude that, provided there are no complications, reduction can generally be effected within four weeks of the accident; that within nine weeks the prospect of success is fairly good; but that beyond that time reduction is exceptional. ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... topic all over London was the mystery of Severac Bablon, and Lady Vignoles' party was not exceptional in this respect. It had already been several times referred to, and at Miss Oppner's words all eyes were directed towards the handsome stranger, who bore this scrutiny ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... JANEIRO, September 5th. A situation of exceptional gravity has evidently arisen on the island of Fernando do Noronha, whence, it is said, ex-President De Sylva recently attempted to escape. A battleship and two cruisers have been despatched thither under forced draught. No public telegrams have been received from the island during ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... queenly supremacy over them. "This violin," said Krespel, on my making some inquiry relative to it, "this violin is a very remarkable and curious specimen of the work of some unknown master, probably of Tartini's[3] age. I am perfectly convinced that there is something especially exceptional in its inner construction, and that, if I took it to pieces, a secret would be revealed to me which I have long been seeking to discover, but—laugh at me if you like—this senseless thing which only gives signs ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Vermont something more than an exceptional legal equipment and the familiarity with the languages that is necessary to a mastery of the intricate old Spanish and French claims which were plastered over Missouri in those early days. He had inherited through his mother, from ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... as the definition of the plant cell embraced little more than the hardened cell-wall it was little wonder that "cells" in this sense were not recognised in animal tissues, except in a few exceptional cases—as in the notochord by Johannes Mueller.[242] Careful observation of animal tissues discovered in some cases the existence of discontinuous units of structure, but these were not, as a rule, recognised before ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... and their bad effect on the morality of women culminated in the great Maharaj libel suit in the Bombay High Court in 1862. Since then the objectionable features of the cult have to a large extent disappeared, while it has produced some priests of exceptional liberality and enlightenment. The tilak of the Vallabhacharyas is said to consist of two white lines down the forehead, forming a half-circle at its base and a white dot between them. They will not admit the lower castes into the order, but only ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... being, corporeal and spiritual, seemed, to the ceaseless vibrations of the great globe, a very seismograph. Often would he make his sign to Kob to lay his ear on the ground and listen, when no indication had reached the latter. I suspect the exceptional development in him of some sense rudimentary ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... our hotel it was about sunset, and the heavy dew had wetted us through, as though we had been walking in the rain. This was no exceptional occurrence. All the year round such dews fall morning and evening, as well as almost daily showers of rain. The climate is too warm for this dampness to injure health, as it would in our colder regions. To us, who had just left the bracing air of the high plateaus, it seemed ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... office men from military careers, or men, like the distinguished subject of this book, from fields apparently remote from practical politics, but such successes are due to an appealing personal force, or to exceptional genius which the young aspirant had better not assume that he possesses. The general rule holds good that a political apprenticeship is as necessary and ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... could hear the fiddled notes of a reel proceeding from some building in the rear; but no sound of dancing was audible—an exceptional state of things for these parts, where as a rule the stamping drowned the music. The front door being open she could see straight through the house into the garden at the back as far as the shades of night would allow; and nobody appearing to her knock, she traversed the dwelling and went up ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... Miss Tebbs. "Eleanor is taller than Anne. Anne's lack of height is her one drawback. If she had not shown such exceptional talent, 'Rosalind' would have certainly fallen to Miss Savell or yourself. I am very sorry, but it looks as though Miss Savell will have to play Rosalind after all, and she must be ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... whose bulging eyes, always smiling condescendingly, and whose habit of reigning on the stage had procured for him for life that exceptional position of a spoiled and admired child-king! When he left the house, the shopkeepers on the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, with the predilection of the Parisian for everything and everybody connected with the theatre, saluted him respectfully. He was always so well dressed! And then he was so kind, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... insignificant in themselves, but very important for me, it was my lot to spend six months in the district town O——. This town is all built on a slope, and very uncomfortably built, too. There are reckoned to be about eight hundred inhabitants in it, of exceptional poverty; the houses are hardly worthy of the name; in the chief street, by way of an apology for a pavement, there are here and there some huge white slabs of rough-hewn limestone, in consequence of which even carts drive round it instead of through it. In the very middle of an astoundingly dirty ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... there were circumstances which made this statement, viewed from this world's standpoint, not only absolutely mistaken, but almost ludicrously so. The woman's nature had been a far more faulty one—more impetuous, less balanced, and so forth. The male spirit described had been a man of very exceptional character and spirituality, whilst ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... Smith! Well, men of another kind, when I get them to be honest enough to own the truth, think just the reverse: that my life must be a dreadful bore in its normal state, though pleasant for the exceptional ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... and his end was supposed to have been hastened by the severe inflammation consequent on two operations performed by an English oculist. He departed this life July 30, 1750, and was buried in St. John's churchyard, universally mourned by musical Germany, though his real title to exceptional greatness was not to be read ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... proportion of common cruelty comes of ignorance, bad tradition and uncultured sympathies. Some painful outbreaks of inhumanity, where one would least expect it, are no doubt strictly to be accounted for by disease. But over and above these common and these exceptional instances, one cannot escape the conviction that irresponsible power is opportunity in all hands and a direct temptation in some to cruelty, and that it affords horrible development to those morbid cases in which cruelty becomes ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Oldham nodded her head in modest acceptation of the fact that she was the exceptional woman. "I found it not only thrilling, but often so romantic. I do not see why people will speak of 'the dry details of business.' I think it ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... remembered having often met Marguerite in the Bois, where she went regularly every day in a little blue coupe drawn by two magnificent bays, and I had noticed in her a distinction quite apart from other women of her kind, a distinction which was enhanced by a really exceptional beauty. ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... government and a nation should coincide. That is to say, so far as a nation and a government coincide, we accept it as the natural state of things, and ask no question as to the cause. So far as they do not coincide, we mark the case as exceptional, by asking what is the cause. And by saying that a government and a nation should coincide we mean that, as far as possible, the boundaries of governments should be so laid out as to agree with the boundaries of nations. That is, we assume the ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... excess profit tax which it is now proposed to augment largely does not accomplish that. It taxes not merely the exceptional profit, i.e., the war profit. It lays a burden not on business due to ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn

... to those permanent strategic lessons which lie close to the surface of naval history. For instance, how many look upon the battle of Trafalgar, the crown of Nelson's glory and the seal of his genius, as other than an isolated event of exceptional grandeur? How many ask themselves the strategic question, "How did the ships come to be just there?" How many realize it to be the final act in a great strategic drama, extending over a year or more, in which two of the greatest leaders ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... terrible enemy. I would say to the gentleman from Virginia, that although too many instances among extreme men may have been found of attempts to justify that invasion, such was not the general feeling at the North. Those instances were rare exceptions; and because they were so few and so exceptional, acquired a degree of notoriety and received a degree of attention to which they were never entitled. Such instances as these have always served to prejudice the South improperly against the North. Men are too much given to forming opinions ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... at about mid-day on Friday, and increasing in violence reached an average of 60 miles for one hour on Saturday, the gusts at this time exceeding 70 m.p.h. This force of wind, although exceptional, has not been without parallel earlier in the year, but the extraordinary feature of this gale was the long continuance of a very cold temperature. On Friday night the thermometer registered -39 deg.. Throughout Saturday and the greater ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... indeed, demands—and to nothing so much as strict justice and truthfulness in these matters are the peaceful people of those shores devoted—strict justice and truth demand that it should not be denied that single, exceptional, but upon the whole sufficiently well attested cases of malarial trouble have been known. But they were always brought from abroad, probably from that losel Yankee-land from which most of the woe of New York has proceeded. While, therefore, it is a wanton calumny—and the corroboration of all suburban ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... the animation that grew visibly greater in the inhabitants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be questioned. Must this strange erethismus of the brain be attributed to the exceptional circumstances of the time, to that proximity of the Queen of Night from which a few hours only separated them, or to some secret influence of the moon acting on their nervous system? Their faces became as red as if exposed to the reverberation of a furnace; their respiration became more active, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... senses, as we find eunuchs holding the highest offices in the State under the reigns of Alexander, the Ptolemys, Lysimachus, Mithrades, Nero, and Arcadius. The eunuch Aristonikos, under one of the Ptolemys, and another, Narces, under Justinian, led the armies of their sovereigns. These are, however, exceptional cases; as a rule, the result is as we observe in the domestic animals,—loss of spirit, vim, and ambition. The Church recognized this result, and, while the Hebraic law excluded eunuchs from participating in the priesthood ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... say "I come," and "I seen it," and "I done it" prove by their lack of grammar that they had little education in their youth. Unfortunate, very; but they may at the same time be brilliant, exceptional characters, loved by everyone who knows them, because they are what they seem and nothing else. But the caricature "lady" with the comic picture "society manner" who says "Pardon me" and talks of "retiring," and "residing," and "desiring," and "being acquainted with," and ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... uses the word "love," and when he does it expresses every quality, every attribute, every intensity, emotion and passion embraced in those four little letters. Surely this was an exceptional story I was ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... out attending to his work or securing orders. Levine would find some excuse for entering the shop, engage the clerk in conversation, and having secured his attention would produce one of his watches and extol its merits at length, explaining what a great bargain it was and how—only owing to an exceptional concatenation of circumstances—he was able to offer it for the ridiculously ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... window] Come, let us take a walk, we might be overheard here. [They get up] My dear friend, you should hear the whole story from the beginning if it were not so long and complicated that to tell it would take all night. [They walk up and down] Anna is a splendid, an exceptional woman. She has left her faith, her parents and her fortune for my sake. If I should demand a hundred other sacrifices, she would consent to every one without the quiver of an eyelid. Well, I am not a remarkable man in any way, and have sacrificed ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... at all events," said Meldon. "For, unless under very exceptional circumstances, I couldn't conscientiously assist you in ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... Parnapishtim drifts to the north that the storm came from the south.[951] No stress, however, is laid upon the question of direction in the Babylonian narrative. The phenomenon of a whirlstorm with rain is of ordinary occurrence; its violence alone makes it an exceptional event, but—be it noted—not a miraculous one. Nor are we justified in attributing the deluge to the rush of waters from the Persian Gulf, for this sheet of water is particularly sacred to Ea as the beginning ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... century many had been so carefully enclosed in invisible cages, they had been so well drilled in the reticences and the duties and the subserviences that their parents silently demanded of them, that we can never know all the tragedies that took place. In exceptional cases, indeed, they gave a sign. When they possessed unusual power of intellect, or unusual power of character and will, they succeeded in breaking loose from their cages, or at least in giving expression to themselves. ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... was lately intrusted with a mission of exceptional peril, involving a flight into hostile territory and the capture of certain photographs of defenses much needed for the plans of the supreme command. With his wonted brilliancy, he is said to have accomplished the errand and to have returned in safety as ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... successes. Companions shared his triumphs, lecturers and professors came down from their high pedestals of dignity to help him on. When he obtained his London University diploma with honours for a thesis of exceptional merit, he had already held the post of principal anaesthetist at St. Stephen's Hospital for a year. Now, a vacancy occurring upon the Junior staff of surgeons to the Hospital's in-patient Department, Owen Saxham, M.D., was chosen to fill it. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... very well together, leaving me plenty of leisure to attend to the quantities of necessary arrangements which have to be made when you are settling yourself for good, fifty miles from a shop, and on a spot where no other human being has ever lived before. F—— congratulated myself in private on my exceptional good luck, and attributed it partly to my having followed the Upholsterer's advice in that book of Mr. Wilkie Collins. But as it turned out, F—— was dwelling in a fool's paradise. In vain had it been pointed out to me that a certain stalwart north countryman, whose ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... the course I have already described as practical for girls should be the foundation for the education of all girls, save in a few exceptional cases. If, in the end, a girl marries, her reading and cooking and housekeeping are all necessary. How can she use these homely accomplishments ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... others endeavor to guess what that object is and are only allowed to ask twenty questions in doing so. The one who thinks of the object to be guessed, only answers the questions asked by yes or no. It is exceptional when the object is not guessed, no matter how difficult it may be, before the twenty questions have been asked. Example,—the King of Belgium is selected by the player. The first question asked by another player is, "Is it in the animal kingdom?" This question ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper

... analysis we need not hesitate in recognizing a correlation between physical and nervous energy. Even though nervous energy is very subtle and only affects our instruments of measurements under exceptional conditions, the fact that nervous forces are excited by physical forces, and are themselves directly measurable, indicates that they are correlated with physical forces. Up to this point, then, we may confidently say that the nervous system is ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... lest the negotiations for peace with Spain, which were just about to be opened, should be interrupted by such an enterprise. Yet under her government the company was formed for trading with the East Indies, to which, among other exceptional privileges, the right of acquiring territory was granted. It was only bound to hold aloof from those provinces which were in the possession of Christian sovereigns. We have seen how carefully in the peace which James I concluded with Spain everything was avoided which ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... course exceptional in history. She was an untrained woman, generous and pleasure-loving, utterly without a sense of responsibility. She had all the instincts and habits of a demi-mondaine; moreover, she had been thrust into a position where she was expected to live up to traditions ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... assumption of Margaret, once more displayed that profound, comprehensive, and particular knowledge of human love—that knowledge of it through the soul and not simply the mind—which is the source of her exceptional and irresistible power. This Margaret was a woman who essentially loves, who exists only for love, who has the courage of her love, who gives all for love—not knowing that it is a sacrifice—and whose love, at last, triumphant over death, is not only her ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... on skins, but upon the papyrus paper commonly used at that day, which was a frail and flimsy fabric, and under ordinary circumstances would soon perish. Fragments of this papyrus have come down to us, but only those which were preserved with exceptional care. Jerome tells us of a library in Cassarea that was partly destroyed, owing to the crumbling of its paper, though it was only a hundred years old. Parchment was sometimes used by the apostles; Paul requests Timothy, in his second letter, to bring with him, when he comes, certain parchments ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... be light, but when it ought to be heavy. He was very much in love with her, but there was nothing particularly exclusive, unique, individual, or interesting about his passion at that time. It was of the everyday sort which carries a well-meaning man to the altar, and sometimes, in cases of exceptional fervor and duration, even a little farther. Stock sizes of this article are common and inexpensive, and John Hathaway's love when he married Susanna was, judged by the highest standards, about as trivial an affair as Cupid ever put upon the market or a ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Irish clergyman, who diverted himself by weaving romances and constructing tragedies. He loved to mingle with the gay and frivolous; he affected foppish attire, and prided himself on his exceptional skill in dancing. His indulgence in literary work was probably but another expression of his longing to escape from the strait and narrow way prescribed for a Protestant clergyman. Wild anecdotes are told of his idiosyncrasies.[58] He ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... this instance of the unmixed evil wrought by these practices in the case of the Olynthians an exceptional one, or without parallel elsewhere. For in Eretria,[n] when Plutarchus and the mercenaries had been got rid of, and the people had control of the city and of Porthmus, one party wished to entrust the State to you, the other to ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... for curtseys in the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens as soon as in the hamlet of this remarkably self-possessed little maid. Her manner was exceptional; but, if we must lose the curtsey, and the rural little ones cease to mimic that pretty drooping motion of the nightingale, the kitty wren, and wheatear, cannot our village pastors and masters teach them some less startling ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... frequently misunderstood. The scriptures do not say that truth should be sacrificed in view of what is beneficial, for such view will militate with the saying that there is nothing higher than truth. The saying has reference to those exceptional instances where truth becomes a source of positive harm. The story of the Rishi who spoke the truth respecting the place where certain travellers lay concealed, when questioned by certain robbers who were for killing the travellers, is an instance to the point. The goldsmith's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... a novel," she said impressively. "The great American novel has yet to be written. I do not want you to think me conceited, Jock, but I have had exceptional advantages—I may be the chosen one to write ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... exceptional character," answered Brereton, "except that she indulges herself in a ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State. And all these clever men were at work giving accounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted and ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... carry. But they could not manage to take our tusks in that fashion. They carried them on their shoulders, four men to a tusk, three near to the thick or butt end, and one near the point. In this way we brought all our ivory to Behar, and the tusks were so perfect and exceptional in size that we could obtain almost any equivalent we pleased for them. And in fact of such marvellous size and beauty were most of the gems that we got in exchange that our fortune on our return to Bagdad threatened to be fabulous, and it seemed evident that it would ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... old Merriweather Manor is where their most thrilling adventures occur. The author has given us four exceptional titles in this series—absorbing mysteries and their solutions, school life, horseback riding, tennis, and adventures during ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... thought the post of minister, or even secretary of state, without temptations for him, but, in 1860, amidst the gathering clouds of a grave crisis, the championship of the Union in a great political arena seemed to appeal, in an exceptional degree, to his desire to help guide the destinies of his country; and, after counselling with Weed at Albany, and with his wife at Auburn, he wrote the President-elect that he thought it his duty to accept the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... son of a seventh son, as I suppose you all know. It is commonly believed that some extraordinary gifts belong to the fortunate individuals born under these exceptional conditions. However this may be, a peculiar virtue was supposed to dwell in me from my earliest years. My touch was believed to have the influence formerly attributed to that of the kings and queens of England. You may remember that the great Dr. Samuel Johnson, when ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... an exceptional state of affairs. Suppose a lot of boys are being driven out of a yard where they had no right to be playing. Suppose also that a boy can resist and lag back twice as much if some other boy urges him to do so. Make it easy and imagine three boys. The first ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills

... feelings expressed! What I feel, every mother, alas! since the beginning must have felt, I suppose, in the same way, and put into the same words. You will laugh at me, as we do at the naive father who dilates on the beauty and cleverness of his (of course) quite exceptional offspring. But the refrain of my letter, darling, is this, and I repeat it: I am as happy now as I used to be miserable. This grange—and is it not going to be an estate, a family property?—has become my land of promise. ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... development which holds exceptional consequences, for it means, as I shall enlarge in a later chapter, that highly standardized, highly subdivided industry need no longer become concentrated in large plants with all the inconveniences of transportation ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... of "I wonder," and "I just would like to know," before it occurred to Susan that if she wrote to Lady Harman at the Putney address the letter might be forwarded. And even then she almost wrecked the entire enterprise by mentioning the money, and it was by a quite exceptional inspiration that she thought after all it was wiser not to say that but to state that she had finished the curtains and done everything (underlined) that Lady Harman had desired. Sir Isaac read it and tossed it over to his wife. "Make her ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... families and a male boarder—ate, slept, lived, and made cigars. "The tobacco was stowed about everywhere, alongside the foul bedding, and in a corner where there were scraps of food." These conditions were not exceptional; they were only a little worse ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... section of the buttery, fifty-two feet in length, to Lord Cobham, whose mansion it adjoined. The rest of the buttery, forty-six feet in length, and the frater, he converted into lodgings. Since the frater was of exceptional breadth—fifty-two feet on the outside, forty-six feet on the inside—he ran a partition through its length, dividing it into two parts. The section of the frater on the west of this partition he let to Sir Richard Frith; ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... Van Lennop was different, being the first really eligible man who had ever come within the circle to which she had been limited by her always straitened circumstances. She looked upon Van Lennop in the light of an exceptional business chance, and with a conceit oddly at variance with her eminently practical nature, she believed she had only to set about exerting herself in earnest to arouse his interest and attach him ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... with many who have done much good. There are many temptations connected with it, and it requires a strong mind to resist them. I have only given the bright side of the picture; but let us look for a moment at the other. I have told that great chances are got by some at times; these, however, are exceptional to the general rule. Lean cattle are sold by value as well as fat, and if well bought will be easily sold. I found it the safe plan to buy a small drove well. It was only a little trade that I carried on—I never had fewer than from seven ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... declared, "Mrs. Grundy of New York is quite as formidable as Mrs. Grundy of London, only we don't invoke her quite so often. Still, I will admit that, strictly speaking, I ought not to be travelling alone. The circumstances are very exceptional." ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... release her; but her father's wealth and influence prevailed against all her efforts. The abbess, however, felt such pity for her that she was allowed more freedom than the other nuns, with whom her wit and beauty made her a favourite in spite of her exceptional privileges. These, as Coeur-Volant hinted, included the liberty of leaving the convent after night-fall to visit her friends; and he professed to be one of those whom she had thus honoured. Always eager to have his good taste ratified by the envy of his friends, he was urgent with Odo to make ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... composed mostly of good, honest folk but plain ones. They did, however, seem to know exactly what they were buying and why they wanted it, and Wallie was fearful that a pair of such exceptional horses would be run up to a figure beyond his resources. He wished they would bring them out and end the suspense which was momentarily growing greater as he ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... as he is not forced to head the trick even if he has a card higher than that led but in practice it is seldom desirable to pass a trick in the first round, when headed by the senior hand, except under exceptional circumstances, such for instance as holding ace and a small one, with knave ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel

... been appointed to his professorship at Gratz. A change, however, having taken place in the religious belief entertained by the ruling powers of the University, the Protestant professors were expelled. It seems that special influence having been exerted in Kepler's case on account of his exceptional eminence, he was recalled to Gratz and reinstated in the tenure of his chair. But his pupils had vanished, so that the great astronomer was glad to accept a post offered him by Tycho Brahe in the observatory which the latter had recently established ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... larceny; while a card-player had entered a path that might lead as far as the gallows and comprehend all the crimes. This opinion still largely exists in towns and country-sides. We find it maintaining itself even in large cities, among all sorts of very good people, even among the most exceptional men of business, of the professions and of the pulpits. Novel-reading, as a mental vice, according to this opinion, may be compared with opium-eating as a moral vice. It is thought to enervate and corrupt by means of a luxurious excitement, ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison

... This keeps the temperature steady at about 55 degrees—a little cool for comfort of an unacclimated person, especially indoors. Californians, used to it, hardly ever think of making fires in their houses except in the few exceptional days of the winter season, and then they rely mainly upon fireplaces. This is like the custom of the Venetians and ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... footsteps as did the natives elsewhere, several American women in town having helped satiate their curiosity. But they stared at us, nevertheless, with a deep and absorbing interest, the quartermaster's wife, as usual, being the cynosure of all eyes, because of her exceptional height and slenderness, not to mention that astounding walking-skirt, which had apparently grown upon her, there being no visible means by which it could be put on ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... Exceptional facilities have been provided for the unloading of coal from vessels, or barges, which can be brought to the northerly side of the recently constructed pier at the foot of West 58th Street. The pier was specially built by the Department ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous

... difference between self-reliance and obtrusiveness. Every man should have a full degree of self-confidence. It is needed in every walk in life. But the salesman, more than most men, must have an exceptional degree of faith in himself and in what ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser



Words linked to "Exceptional" :   psychology, abnormal, exceeding, psychological science, extraordinary, uncommon, exception



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