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Specific   /spəsˈɪfɪk/  /spɪsˈɪfɪk/   Listen
Specific

adjective
1.
(sometimes followed by 'to') applying to or characterized by or distinguishing something particular or special or unique.  "Demands specific to the job" , "A specific and detailed account of the accident"
2.
Stated explicitly or in detail.
3.
Relating to or distinguishing or constituting a taxonomic species.
4.
Being or affecting a disease produced by a particular microorganism or condition; used also of stains or dyes used in making microscope slides.  "A specific remedy" , "A specific stain is one having a specific affinity for particular structural elements"



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"Specific" Quotes from Famous Books



... are books, though books have the disadvantage of never meeting the needs of any one locality. Variations of climate, custom, and the local markets make specific suggestions about buying difficult. For this reason I shall not attempt to go into detail, but suggest that, as our relations with our poor friends should be as natural as possible, when we do not know anything, it is always best to frankly say so, and then think out ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... now examined the treatment and specific kinds of ornament at our command. We have lastly to note the fittest places for their disposal. Not but that all kinds of ornament are used in all places; but there are some parts of the building, which, without ornament, are more painful than others, and some which wear ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... definition, howsoever approved by most, [1028]Hercules de Saxonia will not allow of, nor David Crucius, Theat. morb. Herm. lib. 2. cap. 6. he holds it insufficient: as [1029]rather showing what it is not, than what it is: as omitting the specific difference, the phantasy and brain: but I descend to particulars. The summum genus is "dotage, or anguish of the mind," saith Aretaeus; "of the principal parts," Hercules de Saxonia adds, to distinguish it from cramp and palsy, and such diseases as belong to the outward sense ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... assigns a constantly diminishing proportion of each productive work to the effort of man, of that portion which remains for him to do a constantly increasing proportion will be work of judgment and specific calculation applied to particular cases. And this is the conclusion which ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... the ships had lifted out of the water and were resting on the wide concrete docks, but the Javelin was afloat in the pool, her contragravity on at specific-gravity weight reduction. She was a typical hunter-ship, a hundred feet long by thirty abeam, with a squat conning tower amidships, and turrets for 50-mm guns and launchers for harpoon rockets fore and aft. The only thing open ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... vessels form no small part of the collection. The forms and styles of these vessels can only be appreciated by reference to the specific descriptions ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in 1881 • James Stevenson

... the people, in the British system of government, which may mitigate the resentment of mankind for his execrable seizure and delivery to the royal vengeance of Oakey, Corbett, and Barkstead. He introduced into Parliament and established the principle of Specific Appropriations. The House of Commons has, ever since, not only held the keys of the treasury, but the power of controlling expenditures. The fortune of Sir George, on the failure of issue in the third generation, went to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... I may say incensed," said Marston excitedly, "by a passage in his last letter to me. Not that it says anything specific; but—but ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... of knowledge could not include any extensive array of specific details in any one of its divisions; it was possible only to set forth some of the more striking and significant facts which would demonstrate the nature and meaning of that department from which they were selected. The illustrations ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... of her life was that day to June. The anxiety in times of war for the women who wait at home is vague because they are mercifully ignorant of the dangers their loved ones run, but a specific issue that involves death to those loved ones has a special and poignant terror of its own. June knew her father's plan, the precise time the fight would take place, and the especial danger that ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... destroy General Forrest, who, with an irregular force of cavalry, was constantly threatening Memphis and the river above, as well as our routes of supply in Middle Tennessee. In this we failed utterly, because General W. Sooy Smith did not fulfill his orders, which were clear and specific, as contained in my letter of instructions to him of January 27th, at Memphis, and my personal explanations to him at the same time. Instead of starting at the date ordered, February 1st, he did not leave Memphis till the 11th, waiting for Warings brigade ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... Correggio and his imitators, Ferrari has introduced no clouds, and has in no case made the legs of his angels prominent. It is a mass of noble faces and voluminously robed figures, emerging each above the other like flowers in a vase. Bach too has specific character, while all are robust and full of life, intent upon the service set them. Their instruments of music are all the lutes and viols, flutes, cymbals, drums, fifes, citherns, organs, and harps that ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... an era to which Mr. Symonds gives the name of the Catholic Reaction, and they contain a most interesting and valuable account of the position of Spain in the Italian peninsula, the conduct of the Tridentine Council, the specific organisation of the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus, and the state of society upon which those forces were brought to bear. In his previous volumes Mr. Symonds had regarded the past rather as a picture to be painted than ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... one of the most memorable in the history of music, not so much, however, for what it fully accomplished as for the new ideas brought out and in part developed. The specific part of the general development of music which this century accomplished was the development of free melodic expression. While, as already noticed, the musical productions of the preceding centuries had manifested an increasing ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... external asymmetry is due to this habit, so that too much classificatory importance must not be attached to it. The soles and other related fish, for instance, are twisted and asymmetrical, through a similar specific habit, to such an extent that both eyes lie on ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found in kitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there? Is there not, said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in the kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monks there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings? Or is it a natural induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... have a love feast at our meetinghouse. Union in the evening. A fine day and good behavior. Some of the older Brethren will no doubt know what Brother Kline means by the word union, here and elsewhere used in the Diary in a specific sense. ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... do best with my regular accompanist,' I returned—meaning you, of course. I hope you don't mind being degraded to that level. 'And your regular accompanist is not—not——?' 'Is miles away,' I replied. 'A hundred and fifty of them,' I might have added, if I had chosen to be specific. Now, if he had wanted to hear me, why hadn't he asked? He would have needed only to second Mrs. Phillips herself; and there he was, just on the other side of me. In consequence of his reticence I was driven—or drove myself—to blank verse. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... of, and yet be a boor or a shabby fellow. One may have none of them, and yet be fit for councils and courts. Then let them change places. Our social arrangement has this great beauty, that its strata shift up and down as they change specific gravity, without being clogged by layers of prescription. But I still insist on my democratic liberty of choice, and I go for the man with the gallery of family portraits against the one with the twenty-five-cent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... demented, so utterly helpless was his appearance just then, and he went out reluctantly. No sooner was he gone than the Squire, with great difficulty, stretched himself over to a cabinet by the bedside, unlocked it, and took out a small bottle. It contained a gout specific, against whose use he had been repeatedly warned by his regular physician, but whose warning he now cast to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... noticed, after repeatedly perceiving various plants similar or analogous to the first, is able by spontaneous reflection, and by the automatic exercise of his intelligence, to refer them to a single type, and in this way the specific idea of a tree is evolved in his mind and fixed in his memory. The same thing gradually takes place with respect to flowers, animals, springs, rivers, and the like. These ideal types are not wholly wanting even among the most barbarous peoples, in the most concrete ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... Bonaparte and one of the novels, or two, almost every day. He must soon, he says, apply to London for copies. Read a Refutation, as it calls itself, of Napoleon's history. It is so very polite and accommodating that every third word is a concession—the work of a man able to judge distinctly on specific facts, but erroneous in his general results. He will say the same of me, perhaps. Ballantyne and Cadell leave us. Enter Miss Sinclairs, two in number, also a translator, and a little Flemish woman, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... since each substance always has, when pure, the same specific gravity, we have here a means of distinguishing precious stones. It is very seldom, if ever, the case that we find any two precious stones of the same specific gravity. A few stones have nearly the same specific gravities, and in such cases it is well to apply other tests also. In fact one should always make sure of a stone by seeing that two or three different tests point ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... books may be made for sick children, doll furniture and other toys for the orphans' home or some family of unfortunates. A sack might arrive a week or two before Christmas accompanied by a telegram from Santa requesting contributions to help him out in some specific way and stating that it would be called for at a certain time. When a "real Santa" calls for the sack, he may leave in its place another containing some unexpected treat for the children themselves. The gifts which the ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs

... are the stealthy footsteps of the unwelcome guest in the city of San Francisco, Cal. "While medical information relating to the plague is still less definite and extensive than it should be," says an eminent physician, "it is now well demonstrated that the disease depends upon a specific microbe." ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... able to see anything but the earth and what lies on it. Still, these things in a measure ceased to worry him, and the long conflict died away gradually into a peace not formally concluded, and with no specific stipulations, but nevertheless definite. He was content to rest and wait. Better health and time, which does so much for us, brought this about. The passage of years gradually relaxed his anxiety about death ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... reader of "N. & Q." kindly furnish the undersigned with certain Letters, which have recently {294} appeared in The Times, on "The Defence of Hougomont?" Such letters, extracted, would be of much service to him, as they are wanted for a specific purpose. The letters from Saturday, Sept. 10, inclusive, are already obtained: but the letters on the subject previous to that date are wanting, and would greatly favour, if it ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... of the most interesting mineral veins of this region, it may answer to select the Montague lode at Lake Loon for a specific description. The course of this vein is E. 10 deg. N., that being the strike of the rocks by the compass in that particular district. It has been traced by surface-digging a long distance,—not less, probably, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... century as towards the end of the eighteenth century. Each court had its pairs of friends, who dressed alike, and shared room, bed, and heart. Nor was this cult of fervent friendship restricted to the sphere of aristocratic life. It was among the specific characteristics of the devotio moderna, as, for the rest, it seems from its very nature to be inseparably bound up with pietism. To observe one another with sympathy, to watch and note each other's inner life, was ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... desired that the besiegers should desist. It was claimed by and for him that he was maltreated and indeed wounded by the mob, and it appears that he did ride into the throng and was forcibly dismounted. He might perhaps have exerted himself with greater determination if he had received more specific orders from his master the Ameer. That feeble or treacherous prince never stirred. To the frequent urgent messages sent him by Lieutenant Hamilton, he replied vaguely: 'As God wills; I am making preparations.' ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... attaching the Bureau to the Treasury Department. This bill passed, but too late for action in the House. The debate wandered over the whole policy of the administration and the general question of slavery, without touching very closely the specific merits of the measure ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... area: 620 km2 Comparative area: slightly less than 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC Land boundaries: none Coastline: 161 km Maritime claims: Continental shelf: not specific Territorial sea: 3 nm Disputes: territorial dispute with Qatar over the Hawar Islands; maritime boundary with Qatar Climate: arid; mild, pleasant winters; very hot, humid summers Terrain: mostly low desert plain rising gently to low central escarpment Natural ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... questions arose bearing upon the domestic institutions of one portion of the Confederacy and involving the constitutional rights of the States. But notwithstanding differences of opinion and sentiment which then existed in relation to details and specific provisions, the acquiescence of distinguished citizens, whose devotion to the Union can never be doubted, has given renewed vigor to our institutions and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind throughout the Confederacy. That this repose ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... caused no great concern abroad and was regarded with apprehension only in limited circles at home—and even here the apprehension was more over the return to power of the Democratic Party than on account of specific fears based on the character of the President-elect. The business depression of 1913 and 1914 would probably have been inevitable upon the inauguration of any Democratic President, particularly one pledged to the carrying out of extensive alterations ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan

... doctrine concerning them; therefore, such a work as this, which is but a mere introduction to what will henceforth emanate from the pen of colored men and women, appeared to be in most anxious demand, in order to settle their minds entirely, and concentrate them upon an effective and specific course of procedure. We have never conformed with that class of philosophers who would keep the people in ignorance, lest they might change their opinion from former predilections. This we shall never do, except pressing necessity demands ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... the conflicts, the heroisms, the failures,—in one word, the great and solemn issues of human life. And a few comprehensive lessons from that "Wisdom which uttereth her voice in the streets," may prove a fitting introduction, from which we can pass to consider more specific conditions ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... composed chiefly of the two gases nitrogen and oxygen, united in the ratio of four to one by volume, with exceedingly small and variable quantities of carbonic acid and aqueous vapor. No other mixture of these, or of any other gases, will sustain healthy respiration. To be more specific—atmospheric air consists of about seventy-eight per cent. of nitrogen, twenty-one per cent. of oxygen, and not quite one per cent. of carbonic acid. Such is its constitution when taken into the lungs in the act of breathing. When it is expelled from them, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... a parlour-maid presented herself with the announcement that there was a person outside who was asking to see Miss Bart; and on Lily's pressing for a more specific ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... the most unreal thing in the world, when one is on the other side of it; and yet face to face with it, it has a strength, a poignancy, a paralysing power, which makes it seem like a personal and specific ill-will, issuing in a sort of dreadful enchantment or spell, which renders it impossible to withstand. Yet, strange to say, it has not exercised its power in the few occasions in my life when it would seem to have been really justified. ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... wonderful results. It rejected imagination, and made its theories the expression of facts obtained by experiment and observation, aided by mathematical discussion. It enforced the principle that the true method of studying Nature is by experimental interrogation. The researches of Archimedes in specific gravity, and the works of Ptolemy on optics, resemble our present investigations in experimental philosophy, and stand in striking contrast with the speculative vagaries of the older writers. Laplace says that the only observation which the history of astronomy offers ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... the fact that the young of the same litter sometimes differ considerably from each other, though both the young and their parents have apparently been exposed to exactly the same conditions of life; for had the action of these conditions been specific or direct and independent of other laws, if any of the young had varied, the whole would probably have ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... an answer. I am calling on you for as many men as you can raise, and I have made you specific promises. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... their verdict, and came once or twice into court with imperfect findings, expressing themselves as greatly embarrassed by the complexity and multiplicity of the issues submitted to them; on which Mr Justice Crampton, who remained to receive the verdict, delivered to them, in a specific form, the issues on which they were to find their verdict. They ultimately handed in very complicated written findings, the substantial result of which may be thus stated: All the defendants were found guilty on the whole of the last eight counts of the indictment, viz., the Fourth, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... taken advantage of and accumulated through sexual selection in relation to the propagation of the species, as well as through natural selection in relation to the general purposes of life. Hence secondary sexual characters, when equally transmitted to both sexes, can be distinguished from ordinary specific characters only by the light of analogy. The modifications acquired through sexual selection are often so strongly pronounced that the two sexes have frequently been ranked as distinct species, or even as distinct genera. Such strongly marked differences must be in some manner highly important; ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... may be briefly defined as the study of the laws of the phenomena of composition and decomposition, which result from the molecular and specific mutual action of different substances, natural or artificial. In the observations of chemistry the senses are still more employed, and experiment is of still more utility. Even in chemistry metaphysical conceptions, ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... explain the specific use and nature of these materials, reserving the various kinds of photographic enlargements and their special qualities and advantages, for ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt

... A specific evil is never cancelled by being counterbalanced by a greater good. The fruit of that evil must be experienced, and also of that greater good, by appropriate births in the hells and heavens, or in the higher and lower grades of earthly existence. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... contradiction of which I was speaking? A great deal of time is lost in profitless conversation, and a good deal of ill temper frequently caused, by not considering these organic and practically insuperable conditions. In dealing with them, acquiescence is the best of palliations and silence the sovereign specific. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... hermetically sealed at the lower end, and closed with the finger at the top, on being inserted in a basin of the same liquid and the finger withdrawn, stood at a height of about 28 inches in the basin. As the specific gravities of water and mercury were in the ratio of 32 feet and 28 inches, he was led to the conclusion that the water in the pump and the mercury in the tube at these respective heights exerted the same pressure on the same base, and that both were of course counterbalanced by ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... at the strait below, I got more specific information. They vary in price from three to ten pounds, but the latter sum is only paid for the finest of these animals, in the respects of shape and color. It is not a little remarkable, that the same causes which, in Shetland, have made the horse the smallest ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... fusion, or what Parrish has called irradiation, enters into the judgments. It was evident from the beginning of this whole investigation that fusion or displacement of the points was very common. The term 'irradiation' is, however, too specific a term to describe a process that works in these two opposite directions. The primary concern of these next experiments was, therefore, to devise means for preventing fusion among the points before ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... statement may lack in accuracy of detail, but not, I think, in essential veracity. He selected in the beginning of the year some four departments of reading, such as Poetry, History, Philosophy, Fiction, and in each department a specific course, such as Greek Poetry, Macaulay's History, Spencer's Philosophy, Scott's Novels. Then he read according to his mood, but generally in the selected course: if poetry, the Greek poets; if history, Macaulay; if philosophy, ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... soldier, "if it be necessary to give you such a specific explanation, I am going to Fairport on ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... was almost nil. On June 6th, 1558, another rigorous act was published from "our manor of St. James," and will be found in Strype's "Ecclesiastical Memorials" (ed. 1822, iii. part 2, pp. 130, 131). It had specific reference to the illegality of seditious books imported, and others "covertly printed within this realm," whereby "not only God is dishonoured, but also encouragement is given to disobey lawful princes and governors." This proclamation declared that not only those who possessed ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts

... was still Mr. Coleridge's favourite theme of discourse, and the banks of the Susquehannah the only refuge for permanent repose. It will excite great surprise in the reader to understand that Mr. C.'s cooler friends could not ascertain that he had received any specific information respecting this notable river. "It was a grand river;" but there were many other grand and noble rivers in America; (the Land of Rivers!) and the preference given to the Susquehannah, seemed almost to arise solely from its imposing name, which, if not ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... - modifications applied while transcribing printed book to e-text. - instances in which a footnote referred to a specific page in the printed book; these references have been modified to identify the appropriate chapter. - ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... of intestinal diseases can originate only from the excretions of people who are giving off the specific germs, it would be logical to endeavour to destroy such excreta or render it incapable of contaminating water or food. This is done. All excreta behind the front line and reserve trenches is destroyed in numerous incinerators, which are kept burning ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... is emitted from the hot surface of the sun or from the wires in an incandescent lamp. The gamma rays on the other hand are emitted by the atomic nuclei themselves when they are transformed in the fission process. The gamma rays are therefore specific to the atomic bomb and are completely absent in T.N.T. explosions. The light of longer wave length (visible and ultra-violet) is also emitted by a T.N.T. explosion, but with much smaller intensity than by an atomic bomb, which ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States

... into the stomach in a sufficient quantity and length of time, cause specific diseases characteristic of the poison taken. Healthy food does not do this. You see a man reeling in the streets, or drunk on the sidewalk, or with rum-blossoms on his face; you know that he has been drinking fermented wine or some fluid containing its chief ingredient—alcohol. ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... mother was alarmed and sent for her nurse, who, when informed of what had happened, declared, "That nothing was so specific to drive away evil spirits as the smoke of camel's hair;" a quantity of which was instantly brought, and being set fire to, the smoke of it filled the whole apartment, and so affected the eyes of the young man, that they watered exceedingly, when he unthinkingly wiped them with his handkerchief, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... that as the guests departed, Evelyn, from whose side the constant colonel had insensibly melted away, lingered last,—save, indeed, the admiral, who was discussing with Cleveland a new specific for the gout. And as Maltravers stood on the steps, Evelyn turned to him with all her beautiful naivete of mingled timidity and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... understand you that you would wish it to embrace branches of liberal education in general, and not be merely confined to specific artistic studies?—Certainly. I would have the Academy education corresponding wholly to the university education. The schools of the country ought to teach the boy the first conditions of manipulation. ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... relevant officials who admit that their League must do more than issue edicts, that their mechanism must function, are ignoring the specific technical aspect of the war methods whose use we wish to limit. This matter will ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... two hundred leagues, both according to the letter and the discourse. It distinctly affirms this long stretch of coast to have been discovered long before the Verrazzano voyage by the Portuguese and the Bretons and Normands, assigning to the Portuguese and French specific portions of it. This is in perfect harmony with the truth as established by the authorities to which occasion has already been had to refer. This account therefore unequivocally repudiates the Verrazzano claim to the discovery ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... addition of stimulant, if the victim escapes, it is by miracle. Hundreds are plundered yearly in this systematic way: nor, if at all troublesome, does the affair end here; for these gamblers are no half-measure men; they have a ready specific to silence noisy pigeons, and are right ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... This commission, while reporting favorably, advised against any further advance payments. But Congress, nevertheless, voted him three-quarters of a million more. It is said that this is the only instance where the government has voted money to an individual in advance of the specific terms of his agreement. Moreover, his contract was re-arranged so as to be ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... escaped into it. Once more, as in the days when his writing had had a daily freshness and wonder and promise for him, he was conscious of that new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release. The air of the place seemed to hold more oxygen; as if his own specific gravity had changed, his very tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls, the fair proportions of the meadowsweet-coloured panels and mouldings, the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling, fairly laughed their welcome. Oleron actually laughed back, ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... tone and in adequacy of feeling and treatment. But, throughout all these forms, the drift of his spirit, setting boldly away from conventions and formalities, has been manifested with delightful results. He has always seemed to be alive with the specific vitality of the person represented. He has never seemed a wooden puppet of the stage, bound in by formality and straining after a vague scholastic ideal ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... need for a more thorough cultivation of the speaking voice. It is astonishing how few persons give specific attention to this important subject. On all sides we are subjected to voices that are disagreeable and strident. It is the exception to hear a voice that is musical ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser

... representative of that august impulse feels in it his immortality, and by all his lovely allegories, mythologies, fables, pictures, statues, manners, songs, and symphonies, he seeks to communicate his own feeling, that by specific gravity man must rise. It is no wonder, then, that we love Art while it offers us reinforcement of being, and despise the pretenders, for whom it is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... Carthage towards the end of the reign of Antoninus Pius. When he was a young man, the fame of Apuleius as a writer and lecturer was at its height; and though Tertullian himself never mentions him (as Apuleius, on his side, never refers in specific terms to the Christian religion), they must have been well known to each other, and their antagonism is of the kind which grows out of strong similarities of nature. Apuleius passed for a magician: Tertullian was a firm believer in ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... attenuating, and too acrid or viscid; for India teas, that to some constitutions are very diluting, may produce in others contrary effects: therefore such should be chosen as possess a combination of quality that may render them, as nearly as possible, to a general specific. But this cannot be well expected where one single ingredient is used, and that is distinguished for its particular qualities, which, if wholesome, can only be such to those whose fluids are so, by nature or circumstances, as to require such a particular assistant; for to ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith

... 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject. 2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows very little. 3. To complain to a person who is not in a position to correct the difficulty. 4. To purposely annoy another person verbally. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... which have hardly a character in common; yet the species at both ends, from being plainly allied to others, and these to others, and so onwards, can be recognised as unequivocally belonging to this, and to no other class of the articulata[3]." Now it is evident that this progressive modification of specific types—where it cannot be said that the continuity of resemblance is anywhere broken, and yet terminates in modification so great that but for the connecting links no one could divine a natural relationship between the extreme members of the series,—it is evident that such chains of affinity speak ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... especially adapted to that purpose. It is a common belief that the light of the glow-worm is used as a lamp of love to assist in nocturnal meetings, but there can be little doubt that the insect makes use of its natural brilliancy without any specific intention. It is as natural for the fire-fly to glitter by night as for the colored butterfly to ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... in my way to Scarborough, where I propose to brace up my fibres by sea-bathing, which, I know, is one of your favourite specificks. There is, however, one disease, for which you have found as yet no specific, and that is old age, of which this tedious unconnected epistle is an infallible symptom: what, therefore, cannot be cured, must be endured, by you, as ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... consider the word 'McMurdo' as indicating a different position from that appearing on Air Traffic Control flight plans dispatched from Auckland during 1978 and 1979. I cannot for a moment accept that suggestion. First Officer Rhodes made a specific inquiry at McMurdo within a few days of the disaster and ascertained that the destination waypoint of the first Air Traffic Control flight plan for 1979 had been plotted by the United States Air Traffic Control personnel, and there was evidence ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... a word, we refused to yield to any of the demands of the malcontents, or to hamper the Legislature with any specific recommendations. You know that we Berkshire people, thanks to our delay in recognizing the State authority, have an evil repute at Boston for a mobbish and ungovernable set. It seemed that this was a good opportunity, when the conventions of all the other counties were sending up seditious petitions, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... warmth indeed, but the coldness and aloofness of exalted purity put her beyond the zone of desire; a snowy peak, distinct to the eye, but inaccessible. When they were done with greetings Arthur brought up a specific subject. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... He and the Father said, "now We will send down the last one of Us, the Holy Spirit, and He will do His best to woo men back," and so it was done. The last supreme effort to win men back was begun. The Holy Spirit came down for the specific purpose of telling the world about Jesus. His work down here is to convict men of their terrible wrong in rejecting Jesus, and of His righteousness, and of the judgment passed upon Satan. Only He can convince men's minds and consciences. A thousand preachers with the logic of a Paul and the eloquence ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... tough job, and he would gladly have had an extension of time on the contract, but he had to choose between the girl and the ghosts, and he wanted the girl. He tried to invent or remember some short and easy way with ghosts, but he couldn't. He wished that somebody had invented a specific for spooks—something that would make the ghosts come out of the house and die in the yard. He wondered if he could not tempt the ghosts to run in debt, so that he might get the sheriff to help him. He ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... good-natured man, and then went to look after Tom and Gerald. He advised them to lie down with their eyes shut in the berth which was now vacated, the occupants being called off to their respective duties, and the assistant-surgeon having retired into the dispensary to concoct a specific against sea-sickness of his own invention, which made him and those he persuaded to ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... the Ward Five leader was by no means the only cipher message I sent back during my stay. I had not needed to be told that the matter in hand would cost money, but Mr. Watling's parting instruction to me had been to take the Colonel's advice as to specific sums, and obtain confirmation from Fowndes. Nor was it any surprise to me to find Democrats on intimate terms with such a stout Republican as the Colonel. Some statesman is said to have declared that he knew neither ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... species, and questioned whether the accepted ideas of variation and heredity were after all in consonance with the facts. Speaking generally, species do not grade gradually from one to the other, but the differences between them are sharp and specific. Whence comes this prevalence of discontinuity if the process by which they have arisen is one of accumulation of minute and almost imperceptible differences? Why are not intermediates of all sorts more ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... time large concessions, in spirit if not in letter, helped to modify the rigour of this constitutional doctrine. "I have not drawn any specific line," Russell wrote at the end of the despatch already quoted, "beyond which the power of the governor on the one hand, and the privileges of the assembly on the other, ought not to extend.... The governor must only oppose the wishes of the assembly ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... than the antecedent non-existence of knowledge; just because it is knowledge based on valid proof; like that valid knowledge which proves the ajna maintained by you.—Knowledge does not destroy a real thing, because it is knowledge in the absence of some specific power strengthening it; whatever is capable of destroying things is—whether it be knowledge or ajna—strengthened by some specific power; as e.g. the knowledge of the Lord and of Yogins; and as the ajna consisting in a pestle (the blow of which ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Mountain Creek. Fair travelling from Mountain Creek is about twenty days to Dawson. I understand that at Hart, no matter which route he took, he would have to cross the divide. I think it would be advisable to make for this point and take up his trail from there. I cannot give you any specific instructions; you will have to be guided by circumstances and your own judgment, bearing in mind that nothing is to stand in your way until you have got ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... was omitted from numbers, but not always. A few specific cases: twenty five > twenty-five twenty four > twenty-four seventy five > seventy-five ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... them in the neighbourhood of the Cape, that many of them have no names. Most of them are extremely venomous, and the colonists would suffer much more than they do from them, were it not that they have a specific remedy for their bites, not known in Europe. This remedy is the serpent-stone, allowed to be factitious, and is brought from India, where they are made by the bramins who have the secret of composing them, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... camelina.—The singular name of Coxcomb Prominent, was given to this moth from the crest on its thorax, which resembles that of a cock. The specific name was bestowed in consequence of two lobes on its upper wings, which it raises when ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown

... should begin by recognising one specific resemblance between his speculations and Darwin's. Facts, which appear from an older point of view to be proofs of a miraculous interposition, become with Malthus, as with Darwin, the normal results ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... them to the king's mother after her own death, together with her letter from home. After doing this she passed a wakeful night which seemed as if it would never end. She remembered that in her box of ointments there was a specific for improving the complexion, which, if swallowed in a sufficiently large quantity, would cause death. She had this poison brought to her, and resolved calmly and deliberately, to take her own life directly the executioner should draw near. From that moment she took ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... your Committee is informed is the regular mode of commencing a criminal prosecution, where the office of the judge is promoted, in the Civil and Canon Law courts of this country. The answer, again, is usually specific, both to the fact and the law alleged in each particular article; which is agreeable to the proceeding of the Civil Law, and not of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... showman, Amphitrite arose. By Ginger! not a nautilus, not a seal, but a living girl of sixteen summers, in fleshings, who floated in the air, made revolutions, waved her hands, stood on her head, touching nothing, precisely as if she really were devoid of all specific gravity. Only when hand or foot touched the calico-rocks did these same rocks ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... I spent the evening in a thorough search of the old bureau. I found in it several quaint ornaments besides those already mentioned, but only one thing which any relation to my story would justify specific mention of—namely, an ivory label, discoloured with age, on which was traceable the very number Sir Giles had read from the scabbard of Sir Wilfrid's sword. Clearly, then, my sword was the one mentioned in the book, and as clearly it had not ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... called, with unexcelled imaginative justice of language, "the huge and thoughtful night." And his book in consequence, whatever may be the final judgment of its merit, whatever may be its influence on the future, should be in the hands of all parents and guardians as a specific for the distressing malady of being seventeen years old. Green-sickness yields to his treatment as to a charm of magic; and the youth, after a short course of reading, ceases to carry the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... proofs of the truth of the divine revelation. One of the traditions, told with much fervor and earnestness about Tacoma, involves in it a Savior of mankind. With great reverence and awe the good listener among the band of tourists is told that at one period—legends are seldom very specific in the matter of time or space—a Savior arrived in a copper canoe, his mission being to save the Siwash Indians, who were spoken of as the chosen people of the Great Unseen. That some prophet or missionary certainly came ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... the lands, whether, in the language of the law, 'abandoned' or 'confiscated,' so that the bureau here could have full and complete information of all action of its agents throughout these States, and upon examination it could be determined where any specific lands which were under the charge of the bureau came from, and how they ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... No specific reference is anywhere made, in the Journals, to Witchcraft; but the Court was to act upon all cases of felony and other crimes. The "Council Records" were not obtained from England, until 1846. Writers have generally spoken of the Court as consisting of seven Judges. Saltonstall's resignation ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... the court, when I was surrounded by the entire seraglio. Some begged me for physic, some for amber, and all were most desirous of trying the great African specific of blood-letting. They are ten or twelve in number, most of them young and handsome, wearing on their heads ornaments of gold or pieces of amber. They rallied me a good deal upon different subjects, particularly upon the whiteness of my skin and the length of my nose. They insisted that both ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... of miscellaneous maxims and prohibitions, taught by the elders and linked with whatever impulsive and haphazard punishments are customary, to the formulation of legal codes, with definite penalties attached to specific infringements, is an easy transition. With the invention of written language these laws could become still better fixed and more clearly known. The appointment of certain men of authority as judges, to investigate ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... object is to insure a fair deal, as no card can be recognised by any mark on its back, since up to the moment of drawing they are all invisible within the box. A stylish "faro box" is the ambition of every "faro dealer"— the specific title of all "sportsmen" whose game ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... of it after the way it had been cut up in the Atlantic campaign, with the same artful vagueness used in the matter of the range, seeking to create the inference that the battle losses of the regiment had been very extraordinary. Again, to be specific, the regiment lost in its three years' term of service two officers and thirty-seven men killed or died of wounds, less than one-third the average loss of the six regiments composing Bradley's brigade, ...
— The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee - read after the stated meeting held February 2d, 1907 • John K. Shellenberger

... sticks to his trade through life. He becomes a master mechanic. You can't lure him away into an unskilled channel by more money. It's not the money alone he is thinking of. It is also the pride of having a specific calling that lifts him out of the great commonplace market of untrained labor. So Germany is full of competent mechanical men while we limp along with our huge supply of the partly experienced. Every such German knows how to ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... taken at intervals of three months and at a time when the patient was receiving no specific treatment, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... difficulty of their task by delivering the whole in fragments and in the most various kinds of composition,—in biography, history, travels, and familiar letters; incorporating and interfusing with the whole an amazing number of minute facts, historic allusions, and specific references to persons, places, and dates, as if for the very purpose of supplying posterity with the easy means of detecting their impositions: he must believe that, in spite of their thus encountering what ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... So many specific causes have been assigned for Burgoyne's failure, that it is hardly practicable to discuss all of them within reasonable limits. The simplest statement of the whole case is that he allowed himself to be beaten in detail. It seems plain enough that any ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... you are not in possession of all the facts. One thing was entirely overlooked in all this speculation until about twenty years ago,—that pneumonia was due not simply to the depressing effects of cold, but to a specific germ, the pneumococcus of Fraenkel. This threw an entirely new light upon our elaborate weather-causation theories. And while these still hold the field by weight of authority and that mental inertia ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... be 'unreasonable and degrading' not to hold the doctrine itself. And, finally, he declares that he accepts two doctrines of 'unspeakable importance.' He prays frequently, and at times fervently, though not for specific objects, and believes that his prayers are answered. And further, he is convinced of a 'superintending Providence' which has throughout affected his life. No argument that he has ever read or heard has weighed with ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... may have a generic name, such as kalou, or wakan, but the specific distinction is universally made by low savages. On one hand, original gods; on the other, non-original gods that were once ghosts. Now, this distinction is often calmly ignored; whereas, when any race has developed (like late Scandinavians) the Euhemeristic hypothesis ('all gods were once men'), ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... Order, Generic and Specific Characters, according to the celebrated LINNAEUS; their Places of Growth, ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 7 - or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... understand to be the plan at the German Universities. There is no definite curriculum connected with them. They cover a wide range of subjects, each candidate making her selection, and preparing herself for examination in one or more specific subjects, and, if successful, receives a certificate of proficiency in those, except that certain subjects must be passed before a ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... with his stripes we are healed," is perhaps the grandest presentation of the atoning life, the Christ man, that exists in literature. The ideal fulfilment of it was Jesus, as primitive Christianity quickly saw; but had the original writer no specific example in mind belonging to his own day when he wrote? To be sure he had; the case of Jeremiah would furnish it if no other. This brave and faithful advocate of the moral ideal, after standing alone in his resistance to the materialising tendencies of his ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... debts assumed by the general government, by the act, was twenty-one millions, five hundred thousand dollars. For this the act authorized an additional loan, payable in certificates of the state debts, which were distributed among the states in specific proportions;[26] but no certificates were to be received except such as had been issued for services or supplies during ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... an unfortunate devil—but I suppose it can't be helped. Damn the luck that dogs me!" he ejaculated as he turned to issue more specific commands. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... appointed time, dined with the President and his family and two other guests, and after dinner discussed with the President chiefly the character of individual colored office holders or applicants for office and, as says Colonel Roosevelt, "the desirability in specific cases, notably in all offices having to do with the administration of justice, of getting high-minded and fearless white men into office—men whom we could be sure would affirmatively protect the law-abiding ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... volume of 'Ferguson's Lectures on Mechanics,' which fell into their hands, was a great treasure to both the students. One who remembers their evening occupations says he used to wonder what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a way. They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the devices which they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often of the rudest kind. In these evening entertainments, the mechanical contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... and "boilers" are often used interchangeably, and this probably came about through confusion over the number of flues. A "single boiler, double flues," would thus become "boilers," apparently. The Russian description specifically states there were two boilers, and gives specific dimensions; though these probably are not exact. Either a single boiler with double flues, or double boilers, each with a single flue, could have been fitted in the reconstruction. However, fuel space is affected ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle

... (an honour that has spoiled more than one Arcadia), so pray do not look there, but just believe in it, and some day you may be rewarded by driving into it by chance, as I did, and feel the same Columbus thrill running, like an electric current, through your veins. I withhold specific geographical information in order that you may not miss that Columbus thrill, which comes too seldom in a world ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Specific acknowledgment is due George Bell and Sons, London, for Martial's Epigrams; Smith, Elder, and Company, London, for The Doom of the Slothful; Houghton, Mifflin Co., for After Construing, A Roman Mirror, Enceladus, ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... acquaintance had her inherited obligations, her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the great civic machine; and all hung together in the solidarity of these traditional functions. The performance of specific duties would have simplified Miss Bart's position; but the vague attendance on Mrs. Hatch was not without ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... atmospheres, endowed with motions quite independent of each other. An elastic fluid, now known as the photosphere, is in course of continual formation on the dark rugged surface of the solar mass; and rising, on account of its specific lightness, it forms the pores in the stratum of reflecting clouds; then, combining with other gases, it produces the irregularities or furrows in the luminous cloud-region. When the ascending currents are powerful, they create those appearances which astronomers ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous

... this genus, however, irregular and abnormal elaters are occasionally met with among the typical ones. As these abnormal forms always arrest attention, and have been conceived to possess specific value, it may be well to note the principal ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan

... most important trait in his nature, is also so obvious and so famous that I need not dwell on it at length. But against one prevalent misconception I must say a word of warning. Hamlet's intellectual power is not a specific gift, like a genius for music or mathematics or philosophy. It shows itself, fitfully, in the affairs of life as unusual quickness of perception, great agility in shifting the mental attitude, a striking rapidity and fertility in resource; so that, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... short cut to perfect and permanent intimacy and affection. But there is a still more unworkable assumption which must be discarded before discussions of marriage can get into any sort of touch with the facts of life. That assumption is that the specific relation which marriage authorizes between the parties is the most intimate and personal of human relations, and embraces all the other high human relations. Now this is violently untrue. Every adult knows that the relation in question ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... presents his humble duty to your Majesty. The House sate until half-past eleven last night. Lord Stanhope[6] made a long declamatory speech, very violent, but having in it nothing defined or specific, and was answered by Lord Brougham in a most able and triumphant defence and maintenance of the late Act for Amending the Laws for the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria



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