Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Alteration   Listen
noun
Alteration  n.  
1.
The act of altering or making different. "Alteration, though it be from worse to better, hath in it incoveniences."
2.
The state of being altered; a change made in the form or nature of a thing; changed condition. "Ere long might perceive Strange alteration in me." "Appius Claudius admitted to the senate the sons of those who had been slaves; by which, and succeeding alterations, that council degenerated into a most corrupt."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Alteration" Quotes from Famous Books



... that observances directed to the alteration of bodies, as for the purpose of acquiring health, or the like, are lawful. It is lawful to make use of the natural forces of bodies in order to produce their proper effects. Now in the physical order things have certain occult forces, the reason of which man is unable to assign; for instance ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... being satisfied with this blessed sight, as his soul ascended, and his last breath departed from him, he closed his own eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture, as required not the least alteration by those ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... arrangements for getting a bullet put into you in the most gentlemanly way possible, and call it receiving satisfaction,—very satisfactory, certainly. Well, sir, you shall soon have my answer: no man can call George Lawless a coward; if he did, he'd soon find his eyesight obscured, and a marked alteration in the general outline of his features; but I never have fought a duel, and I never mean to fight one. If I've smashed your panels, or done you any injury, I am willing to pay for repairs, and make as ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... within the last four years in Chemical Science, and of the various important applications, such as the gas-lights, and the miner's-lamp, to which they have given rise. But in regard to doctrines or principles, the work has undergone no material alteration. ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... years later, at any rate, an important alteration was made in the fabric, by the building of the present west front with its two flanking towers, and the tall wooden and lead-covered spires which once crowned the latter and the central tower were probably erected ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... the key to the Incarnation.—With slight alteration the words will read truly of that supreme act. He rose from the throne, laid aside the garments of light which He had worn as His vesture, took up the poor towel of humanity, and wrapped it about His glorious Person; poured His own blood into the basin of the Cross, ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... never seen John more moved, more mortified, more indignant, than on reading a letter from Sir George Grey yesterday announcing the intention of the Ministry to make an alteration in the Conspiracy Laws under the threats of an inconceivably insolent French soldiery. He had heard a rumour of such an intention, but would not believe it. He thinks very seriously of the possible effects of debates on the measure, and feels the full weight of his responsibility; but he ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... the Yankee had carelessly approached his canoe, and was affecting to make some alteration in the disposition of the sail. The officers, the younger especially, keeping a sharp look out upon his movements, followed at some little distance, until they, at length, stood on the extreme verge of the sands. Their near approach ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... The alteration of her name annoyed Katharine, and she observed, rather sharply, that she didn't want to marry ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... that all the schools built between 1911 and 1914 were so arranged, not only in Germany, but throughout Austria, that they could be turned into hospitals with hardly any alteration. For this purpose, temporary partitions divided portions of the buildings, and an unusually large supply of water was laid on. Special entrances for ambulances were already in existence, baths had already been fitted in the wounded reception ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... irritably suspicious about the merest trifles. This change did not necessarily imply the consciousness of guilt: it might merely have indicated natural nervous agitation as the time for the trial drew near. Naomi noticed the alteration in her lover. It greatly increased her anxiety, though it never shook her confidence in Ambrose. Except at meal-times, I was left, during the period of which I am now writing, almost constantly alone with the charming ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins

... suddenly found himself in command of a ship. It was extraordinarily interesting to me to figure out the advantage accruing from this shortening of the process or that, and to weigh it against the capital cost of the alteration. I made a sort of machine for sticking on the labels, that I patented; to this day there is a little trickle of royalties to me from that. I also contrived to have our mixture made concentrated, got the bottles, which all came ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... opposition roused by them too furious to permit of any doubt as to their effectiveness. But that portion of the page not taken up by his writings and the cartoon (which was often based upon an idea supplied by him), was susceptible of alteration, of keying-up. Casting about him for the popular note, the circus appeal, he started a "signed-article" department of editorial contributions to which he invited any and all persons of prominence in whatever line. The lure of that universal egotism which ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... to this stage of Gracchus's career belongs a proposal which he promulgated for a change in the order of voting at the Comitia Centuriata. The alteration in the structure of this assembly, which had taken place about the middle of the third century, had indeed done much to equalise the voting power of the upper and lower classes; but the first class and the knights of the eighteen ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... conveyance is our coupe. This began life as a buckboard, and we bought it for five dollars from a sorrowful man who had no other sort of possessions; and the seat came off one night when we were turning a corner in a hurry. After that alteration it made a beautiful salting-machine, if you held tight, because there was nothing to catch your feet when you fell out, and ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... pocket. This was the most ridiculous part of the exhibition: to see a gentleman, with the use of his eyes, looking affectionately at a thumping horse's tooth, and believing it to be his own. Yet this was a key to the Major's whole character. A received opinion was with him unchangeable, no alteration of circumstances could shake it: it was his tooth. A belief or a doubt was equally sacred with him; and though his senses in the present case should have shown him it was a horse's tooth—no, it was a piece of himself—his ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... also had discernment enough to perceive that Bruse, although slow to enter into an agreement, would promise nothing but what he intended to keep; but as to Thorfin when he had once made up his mind he went readily into every proposal and made no attempt to obtain any alteration of the king's first conditions: therefore the king had his suspicions that the earl would infringe ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... surrounded by a free people, enriched by that industry which the security of property by means of just laws never fails to create, permit me humbly and respectfully to suggest, that if your Majesty were to decree that the English constitution, in its most perfect practical form—which, with slight alteration, and chiefly in name, is also the constitution of the United States of North America—shall be the model for the government of Brazil under your Imperial Majesty, with power to the Constituent Assembly to alter particular parts as local circumstances may ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... though occasionally rather technical, explanation of his newest proposals. They have been published, it seems, for general criticism, and one gathers that in the modern Utopia the administration presents the most elaborately detailed schemes of any proposed alteration in law or custom, some time before any measure is taken to carry it into effect, and the possibilities of every detail are acutely criticised, flaws anticipated, side issues raised, and the whole minutely tested and fined down by a planetful of critics, before ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... discuss the cause of this change in the use of the possessive, though it seems to me an evident Gallicism, nor shall I open the question of whether it is a mere passing fad or the beginning of an actual alteration in the language. However this may be, it seems undeniable that there is an actual and considerable difference in the use of the possessive to-day and its use ten years ago, at least in formal titles and headings. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... mercy of unreasoning passions; but it can also make us living members of the Communion of Saints. The appeals of the prophet and the revivalist, the Psalmist's "Taste and see," the Baptist's "Change your hearts," are all invitations to an alteration in the direction of desire, which would turn our instinctive energies in a new direction and begin the domestication of the human soul ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... had been printed Mirza Ally Akbar, Burton enquired insultingly whether his old friend claimed kin with Ally Sloper. In explanation the Mirza said that the English were accustomed to spell his name so, and as he did not in the least mind what he was called, he had fallen in with the alteration. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... of Amontillado sherry was not placed on the table as usual. These refreshments having been produced, under the sanction of the medical gentlemen, the aged patient partook of them with an appearance of the utmost relish. Since this happy alteration for the better, her ladyship's health has, we rejoice to say, rapidly improved; and the answer now given to all friendly and fashionable inquirers is, in the venerable lady's own humorous phraseology, 'Much ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... me," said the duchess. "If we should be discovered in changing this letter, I do believe your father would kill us. I do not know that it would be right to make the alteration. It would be forgery, and that, you know, is a ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... days in an easterly direction in order to reach the French coast. As we have already said, the corrections made in the map of France were considerable. It was recognized that Perpignan and Collioures more especially were far more to the east than had been supposed. To gain a fair idea of the alteration, one has only to glance at the map of France published in the first part of the seventh volume of the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. All the astronomical observations to which we have called attention are noted in it, and the original outline ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... subjects to admonition, but it was discussed at this time whether the rule of discipline should not be rendered more stringent, and this practice made a disownable offence. Finally it was resolved to make no alteration at present, but to recommend the local meetings of Friends to use further labor in the line of reproof and persuasion. I am informed that some of the American Yearly Meetings of Friends go still farther on this subject. It ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... aircraft when the pilot draws back this lever—the motion being slight and made gently—is to tilt up the elevating plane A, and this in its turn, owing to the pressure of air upon it, raises the front of the machine. The result of this alteration in the angle of the craft is that it presents its main-planes at a steeper angle to the air. Their lifting influence is increased, with the result that—at an angle governed by the pilot with his movement of the elevating plane—they bear ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner, for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may tend to a gradual alteration for ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... excellent pose of waiting with nothing more than a polite interest, Lucille saw in her a pronounced alteration. That was not so much in her face as in her body. Her limbs had a ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... brook behind the store is a forest extending for six miles back to the Medicine Lodge Hills. As soon as it became known in the neighborhood of the missing man's dwelling that he had been seen in Nolan there was a marked alteration in public sentiment and feeling. The vigilance committee went out of existence without the formality of a resolution. Search along the wooded bottom lands of May Creek was stopped and nearly the entire ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce

... as it went, but the interest was affected by the young man's not being Chad. Strether wondered at first if he were perhaps Chad altered, and then saw that this was asking too much of alteration. The young man was light bright and alert—with an air too pleasant to have been arrived at by patching. Strether had conceived Chad as patched, but not beyond recognition. He was in presence, he felt, of amendments enough as they stood; it was a sufficient amendment that the gentleman up ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... undergoes a change. But it may be objected that this view will not apply to minerals, because those of the archaean rocks do not differ, and have undergone no change since then to the present time, unless we except such minerals as are alteration products due to metamorphism. The primary laws of nature, of physics, and of chemistry are unchangeable, while change, progression from the generalized to the specialized, is distinctly characteristic of the organic as opposed to ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... within the limits of the present article to deal fully with all the aspects of this vitally important question. Attention may, however, be drawn to the very weighty remarks of Sir Fleetwood Wilson when he speaks of "the great alteration which a tariff war in India would effect in the balance of our trade, in the arrangements that now exist for the payment of our external debt, and in the whole of our exchange policy. This aspect of the question is one of extraordinary complexity, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... expression is one of depression, with downward-curving angles to the mouth. The eyes, and even the nostrils, sympathetically follow suit, and we have that countenance which, by the cartoonist's well-known trick, can be produced by the alteration of one pair of lines, those at the angles of the mouth, turning a smiling countenance into a weeping one. On the other hand, if all these processes of nutrition and absorption are proceeding as they should, they are accompanied by mild sensations of comfort which, although they no longer reach ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... only encountered in romance, who dwell on the brink of exaltation, and never eat bread and butter without seeming to fly in the face of Divine Providence.' But this feebly expresses the worn-out ornamental piety of the work. It would require but very little alteration to become one of the most intensely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... kings of all the number. Then followeth the reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage. Then the reign of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as febris ephemera). Then the reign of a queen matched with a foreigner; ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... verse so barren of new pride, So far from alteration and quick change? Why, with the time, do I not glance aside To new-found methods and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed That every word doth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... I advanced, a curious alteration in the form of light around me. The glare from above (the sky showed only as a narrow dull ribbon of blue) barely penetrated to the depths of the canon's floor. But all about me there was a soft radiance, seeming to ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... facts, supposing them to be corroborated by more extensive studies? It would seem that we must at any rate allow for a considerable plasticity in the head-form, whereby it is capable of undergoing decisive alteration under the influences of environment; not, of course, at any moment during life, but during those early days when the growth of the head is especially rapid. The further question whether such an acquired character can be transmitted we need not raise again. Before passing on, however, let this ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... by the other? If so, the first two objects named are derivatives, to say the least, from the same third object, and may be held, if they resemble each other, to refer to one and the same reality.] The fact that all these Ivanhoes RESEMBLE each other does not prove the contrary. But if an alteration invented by one man in his version were to reverberate immediately through all the other versions, and produce changes therein, we should then easily agree that all these thinkers were thinking the SAME Ivanhoe, and that, fiction ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... and nearly twenty years had elapsed, ten of which were after the Restoration; so that in all probability the king, who with all his faults was not ungrateful, was agreeably surprised with his appearance at the palace. Whatever alteration the rough life of a sailor had made on his appearance, the king at once recognized him. All the progress he had made as to worldly prosperity was from being mate of a fisher-boat, under Tattersall, to becoming mate of a West ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... them (i.e. the Hellenes and Xenophon) to give a spiritual application to their rules of bodily and mental training. These things to them are an allegory. The goal is lofty, if not so sublime as St. Paul's or Comte's, the Christians or Positivists (there has been an alteration for the better in the spiritual plane, and Socrates helped to bring it about, I believe), but ceteris paribus, the words of St. Paul are the words of Hystaspas and Xenophon. They for a corruptible crown, and we for an incorruptible—and ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... and accordingly has for some time past been gradually laid aside. Very few targets were at Culloden. The dirk, or broad dagger, I am afraid, was of more use in private quarrels than in battles. The Lochaber-ax is only a slight alteration of the old ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... that I observe he has omitted to mark the hour and the minute of his writing with his usual precision." It needed a heavy shock to disturb the routine of George III. The King hoped no one would think that the bad news "makes the smallest alteration in those principles of my conduct which have directed me in past time." Lesser men might change in the face of evils; George III was resolved to be changeless and never, never, to yield to the ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... therefore, determined to communicate himself, as soon as the party was seated at table, the very secret which he so much commended the youth for keeping. Admiral Bluewater joining the company, at this instant, Sir Wycherly led Mrs. Dutton to the table. No alteration had taken place among the guests, except that Sir Gervaise wore the red riband; a change in his dress that his friend considered to be openly hoisting the standard of the house ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... night in pacing up and down the decks, watching the aspect of the heavens, and occasionally tauting a rope or squaring a light yard, unassisted, as the fluttering of the canvass in the wind rendered the alteration necessary. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... Lucienne should not be deeply moved whilst thus stirring the ashes of her past. She showed no evidence of it, however, except, now and then, a slight alteration in ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... ever, for unfortunately his bread and butter depended on this perverse young woman; but he was also graver and less talkative, considering within himself that he could not be expected to pass over such a slight without some alteration in his manner. He ought, he felt, to show that he was pained, and he ought to show it so unmistakably that she would perhaps be led to offer some explanation of her conduct. Accordingly he assumed the subdued behaviour of one whose feelings have been hurt, and Anna thought ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... determined to devote a portion of his lectures to fermentation. At that time ferments were believed to be, to quote Liebig, "Nitrogenous substances—albumin, fibrin, casein; or the liquids which embrace them—milk, blood, urine—in a state of alteration which they undergo in contact with air." Pasteur examined the lactic ferment and found little rods, 1/25000 inch in length, which nipped themselves in the centre, divided into two, grew to full length and divided again, and these living things he declared to be the active principles ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... not know these things until a few short months ago. Some one, I believe, told my husband the truth soon after our marriage, and it was this discovery that so changed his feelings towards me. At first I was utterly unable to explain the awful alteration in his attitude. Not until I returned to England and settled down at Beechcroft did I become aware of ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... with a mirthless laugh, "is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown. If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... give to the jury instructions as to the law. These instructions, which are offered in writing, and argued by the counsel, the judge can give or refuse, as he sees fit, or can alter them to suit himself; but any such refusal or alteration furnishes ground for a bill of exceptions, on which the case, if a verdict is given against the prisoner, may be carried by writ of error before the Circuit Court of the District, for ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... of partners are not in themselves injurious or undesirable. People are not demoralized by them when they are effected according to law. Therefore we need not hesitate to alter the law merely because the alteration would make such ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... can think what a turn, what a change, what an alteration this hint of things did make in the countenance of the town of Mansoul! No man of Mansoul could sleep that night for joy; in every house there was joy and music, singing and making merry: telling and hearing of Mansoul's happiness was then ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... further term, and to confirm to the company the sole and exclusive trade of the East Indies for three years at least after the expiration of the charter granted in the last reign; that it should agree to an alteration in the inland duty upon tea, with the view of preventing smuggling; that it should allow a drawback on the exportation of tea; that it should alter the duties on calicoes and muslins; that it should consent to some proper ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... two changes. 1. The alteration of the vowel. 2. The addition of -en. Mr. Guest quotes the forms brethre and brothre from the Old English. The sense is collective ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... Latin eclogues are imitations of Theocritus. The plan of the most finished didactic poem in the Latin tongue was taken from Hesiod. The Latin tragedies are bad copies of the masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides. The Latin philosophy was borrowed, without alteration, from the Portico and the Academy; and the great Latin orators constantly proposed to themselves as patterns the speeches ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... that the inordinate disposition of the parts produces an altogether new body or thing. Thus, forsooth, the horrible perturbation of the soul has also produced, as it were a new kind of monster fighting against God." (Preger 2, 409.) Accordingly, it was not man's body and soul as such, but the alteration of the relation of his powers toward one another and the consequent corruption of these powers, that Flacius had in mind when he designated original sin as the new substantial form, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... by supposing the planet to be running like a railway engine on a track which has been laid in a long elliptic path. We may suppose that while the planet is coursing along, the shape of the track is gradually altering. But this alteration may be so slow, that it does not appreciably affect the movement of the engine in a single revolution. We can also suppose that the plane in which the rails have been laid has a slow oscillation in level, and that the whole orbit is with more or less ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... of scandal had done its work. Her husband, unfortunately, never suspected that she was really ill; he had a deep longing for a child of his marriage, and, misled by too eager a hope, he misinterpreted the strange alteration in his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... Hardenberg, offering his hand to the count, "and all misunderstandings have been satisfactorily explained. Only confide in us—firmly believe that the system of the king has undergone no alteration—that no overtures, direct or indirect, have been made to Russia, and that he has rejected the offers which she has made to him. The repudiation of General York's course is a sufficient proof of all this. Only believe our protestations, count, and entreat your emperor ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... presumably because Ireland was to be represented at Westminster and would have a share in the making of any amending act. In the Bill of 1886, which excluded the Irish Members, Mr. Gladstone proposed (in Clause 39) that no alteration of the Act should be made (apart, of course, from points left for Irish alteration) except (1) by an Imperial Act formally assented to by the Irish Legislature, or (2) by an Imperial Act for the passing ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... staring eyes; its two or three inches of cornice stole timidly out, as if ashamed of itself, over the side, and the whole wore an awkward and sheepish air. It made me uncomfortable every time I looked at it, and I resolved upon an alteration. So I shut up half the windows, and increased the size where I could, and threw out a cornice, which, besides the merit of beauty, has the practical advantage (that is the national word, I believe) of acting as an umbrella to protect the sides against the mid-day heat of the sun in ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... professional pride and corporate duty and self-respect among all who are engaged in the same function. No one can say how long it may take to bring about such a fundamental change of attitude, especially among those who have most to lose, in the material sense, by an alteration in the existing distribution of economic power. But the war has cleared away so much of prejudice and set so much of our life in a new light that the dim ideals of to-day may well be the realities of to-morrow. This at least we can say: that no country ...
— Progress and History • Various

... part of the country, and Saavedra named the island Isla del Oro, the Island of Gold; but his description of the natives, whom he found to be black, with short crisped hair or wool, similar to those of the coast of Guinea in Africa, gave rise, no doubt, to the alteration in the name, for at a later date the island became known as Nova Guinea, or ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge

... reading 'of his father' (sc. Heaven) rests on inferior MS. authority and is probably an alteration due to the difficulty stated by a Scholiast: 'How could Zeus, being not yet begotten, plot against his father?' The phrase is, however, part of the prophecy. The whole line may well be spurious, and is rejected by Heyne, Wolf, Gaisford ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... No alteration appears to have taken place in the depth of water in Cleveland Bay. The damage to the eastern breakwater caused by the cyclone of last year has been repaired, and the structure has been greatly strengthened. At its outer extremity a massive concrete foundation has been embedded in the masonry, upon ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours

... Impossibles, or the Rest—ranging from the wives of successful Brewers to that class known as Unfortunate. Here there was no alteration in his manner; he was stern, and short, and stiff with all of them, and the reason of their existence was one of the unsolved problems that had always puzzled him. This woman would, of course, belong to this latter class—he ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... surplice fees want a better regulation in the payments; for though the allowance be sufficient, yet differences often and illwill arise about these fees, whether they are to be paid in money or tobacco, and when; whereas by a small alteration and addition of a few laws in these and the like respects, the clergy might live more happy, peaceable, and better beloved; and the people would be more easy, and pay ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... have come about since 1854, when (p. 151) this volume was written, but it is republished without alteration of the text, so as to give a picture of sailor days before the ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there was no persecution, martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the world external to it while there ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... of the too well remembered kisses, with commonplace kind inquiries instead of an embrace, not to realize at least how entirely the relations between herself and Herman were changed. She did not understand the alteration, it is true. To do that would have required not only a knowledge of facts of which she could have no cognizance, but far keener powers of reason than were centered in Ninitta's shapely head. Only of one thing she was sure; there the instinct of her ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... colour; for at twelve years old it became green, so continued till five and twenty, then turned to a deep blue: at five and forty it grew coal black, and as large as an English shilling; but never admitted any further alteration." He said, "these births were so rare, that he did not believe there could be above eleven hundred struldbrugs, of both sexes, in the whole kingdom; of which he computed about fifty in the metropolis, and, among the rest, a young girl born; ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... same in whose honour the older Dionysia are to this day celebrated in the month of Anthesterion not only by the Athenians but also by their Ionian descendants. There are also other ancient temples in this quarter. The fountain too, which, since the alteration made by the tyrants, has been called Enneacrounos, or Nine Pipes, but which, when the spring was open, went by the name of Callirhoe, or Fairwater, was in those days, from being so near, used for the most important offices. Indeed, the old fashion of using the water ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... appears what our author's sentiments were on the nature and extent of the spiritual power of the see of Rome. It has frequently been said that he was the editor of doctor Hulden's Analysis Fidei: had this been the fact, it would have been a strong proof of an alteration of his sentiments on those points; but, after particular inquiry, the editor finds the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the Baltic trade, repairing to Stockholm for the purpose of asserting their claims, and seeing how far this Government may be disposed to indemnify them for the property sequestered. The sooner such a measure is adopted the better, as should it be delayed, and any alteration take place betwixt the two Governments, the whole will be lost. From what passed between Baron Tawast and myself, I have reason to believe that Sweden would ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... man now returned to them after little more than a week's absence was vastly different from the one who had left. All marked the alteration in him, and over and over in family council tried, vainly, to account for it, for Donald had withheld far more than he told of his experiences, and ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... lettering, diamond-scratchings on the glass, and even apparently accidental markings. The first point which I tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. I could not doubt that the first of these, that of Job—"There is a place for the gold where it is hidden"—with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure; so I applied myself with some confidence to the next, that of St John—"They have on their vestures a writing which no man knoweth." The natural question will have occurred to you: Was there an inscription on the ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... purchasers; they are quite competent to take care of themselves, and are quite ready to dispense with the intervention of a third party. Besides, there is no necessity to do away with sworn meters, payable by the job according to a fixed scale. The only alteration that is required is the confiscation of the right of the Corporation to derive any profit from their labours. This doctrine of confiscation is a convenient one, but it is somewhat inconsistent with the outcry that has so recently been raised because Lord Canning was supposed ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... knowing where to start the quest. Vane was no fool, but in days gone by he had accepted a certain order of things as being the only possible order—just as England had been the only possible country. But now it seemed to him that if England was to remain the only possible country an alteration would have to be made in the order. Before, any danger to her supremacy had come from without—now the trouble ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... when He was not, and before being begotten He was not, and He was made out of things that were not(105) or those who say that the Son of God was from a different substance [hypostasis] or being [ousia] or a creature, or capable of change or alteration, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... very little alteration till noon next day; at which time we observed in latitude 23 deg. 18', longitude made from the Isle of Pines 1 deg. 54' E. In the afternoon we had little wind from the south, and a great swell from the same direction: And many boobies, tropic, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... wretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in his Journey. I regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should have changed very little; but I should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth', for I really ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... the principles of the freedom of the Press, of assemblies, and of associations were guaranteed by a law, invested with the sanctity of fundamental laws, which, for their repeal or alteration, require a qualified majority. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... in the crevices of the material at the time when the rocks were formed in the sea. In all cases this water contains a certain amount of gases derived from the decomposition of various substances, but principally from the alteration of iron pyrite, which affords sulphuretted hydrogen. Thus the water is forced to the surface with considerable energy, and the well is often named artesian, though it flows by gas pressure on the principle of the soda-water fountain, and not by gravity, ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... is more observable because it follows a period of the opposite tendency, a period of heaviness, and rest, and silence, when no bird sings and no quadruped plays, for about half an hour of the afternoon. Then suddenly, without any alteration of the light, or weather, or even temperature, or anything else that we know of, a change of mood flashes into every living creature, a spirit of life, and activity, and stir, and desire to use their own ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... come East was received several days ago, but the President withdrew it, I supposed to make some alteration, but it has not been returned. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... little sense, for she quitted Robert quietly, without complaint or question, without the alteration of a muscle or the shedding of a tear, betook herself to her studies under Hortense as usual, and at dinner-time went home ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... TRENCHES—On Christmas Day the Battalion paraded for trench duty to relieve the 1st Royal Berks, the trenches taken over being the same as were occupied on December 19-22, with the alteration in disposition that made No. 4 Company replace No. ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward

... father. 'No, you never are. When your opinion's wanted, you give it. When you're spoke to, you speak. When your opinion's not wanted and you're not spoke to, don't you give an opinion and don't you speak. The world's undergone a nice alteration since my time, certainly. My belief is that there an't any boys left—that there isn't such a thing as a boy—that there's nothing now between a male baby and a man—and that all the boys went out with his blessed Majesty King ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... Numa Pompilius, a man learned in all laws, human and divine, and two ambassadors were accordingly sent to him at his home at Cures, to offer the kingdom to him. The ambassadors were politely received by the good man, but he assured them that he did not wish to change his condition; that every alteration in life is dangerous to a man; that madness only could induce one who needed nothing to quit the life to which he was accustomed; that he, a man of peace, was not fitted to direct a people whose progress had been gained by war; and that he ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... of the Jans House, although the family became extinct soon after perpetrating what was regarded by the old inhabitants as a sacrilegious act. The Garrack-zans may still be remaining in Roskestal and Sawah, but, as much alteration has recently taken place in these villages, in consequence of building new farm-houses, making new roads, etc., it is a great chance if they have not been ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... Hollesley from further inroads of the sea."[3] Formerly the River Alde flowed direct to the sea just south of the town of Aldeburgh. Perhaps some day it may be able to again force a passage near its ancient course or by Havergate Island. This alteration in the course of rivers is very remarkable, and may be observed at ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... though—tall, with an amply-rounded, mature-seeming figure—if one had judged from her appearance, one would have fancied her three or four years older. For that matter, she looked then very much as she looks now; I can perceive scarcely any alteration. She had the same dark hair, gathered up in a big smooth knot behind, and breaking into a tumult of little ringlets over her forehead; the same clear, sensitive complexion; the same rather large, full-lipped mouth, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... spared in the education of these girls, low as are the terms they pay. I saw quite a ruinous heap of spoilt envelopes and fashionable sheets of thick cream-laid; for they have to make their experiments on the best material, and the slightest alteration in the position of a pin where the stamping process has to be several times repeated spoils the whole result. Mrs. Fernando has also introduced envelope and circular addressing by women, as a department of female industrial work in the Technical Industrial ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... III. A Change in Conduct and in Character: our evil Passions will some- times produce good Effects; and on the contrary, an Alteration for the better in Manners will, not unfrequently, have amongst its Causes a little Corruption of Mind; for the Feelings are so blended that, in suppressing those disagreeable to others, we often suppress those which ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... written, 'Is Paris free from the plague?' he alters, 'Is London free[B] from the plague?' Again, in another place, where one says, 'Why are we afraid to cut up this capon?' he changes 'capon' into 'hare'; yet makes no alteration in what follows, 'Do you prefer wing or leg?' Forsooth, although he so kindly favours the Dominican interest that he desired to sit among the famous Commissaries: nevertheless he bears with equal mind a cruel attack on Scotus. For he made no ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... old, too high in feather'd state, Hinder'd the fair to pass the lowest gate; A church to enter now, they must be bent, If ever they should try the experiment. As change thus circulates throughout the nation, Some plays may justly call for alteration; At least to draw some slender covering o'er, That graceless wit [Footnote: "And Van wants grace, who never wanted wit." —POPE.] which was too bare before: Those writers well and wisely use their pens, Who turn our wantons into Magdalens; And howsoever wicked wits revile ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... remember, Beloved, is a digression on my own account, and I return to the old Master whom I left smiling at his own alteration of Shenstone's celebrated inscription. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... nothing be enacted to the petitions of his commons that be contrary to their asking, whereby they should be bound without their assent."[14] The promise tended in practice to be evaded, and late in the reign of Henry VI. there was brought about an alteration of procedure in accordance with which measures were henceforth to be introduced in either house, in the form of drafted bills. The legislative process was now essentially reversed. The right of initiative was secured to ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... the subject. "The Quartet," he said, "must be dedicated to Field-marshal von Stutterheim, to whom I am under great obligations. Should the first dedication by any possibility be already engraved, I beg of you, on every account, to make this alteration. I will gladly pay any extra expense connected ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... the nature of this profound alteration in his character and temperament is not easy, but Dr. Laidlaw summed it up to himself in three words: Loss of Hope. The splendid mental powers remained indeed undimmed, but the incentive to use them—to use ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... varying form of the chorus to Psalm cxxxvi; but while it corrects the errata tabulated in that edition it commits many more blunders of its own. It is valuable, however, as the editio princeps of ten of the sonnets and it contains one important alteration in the Ode on the Nativity. This and all other alterations will be found noted where they occur. I have not thought it necessary to note mere differences of spelling between the two editions but a word may find place here upon their general character. Generally it ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... found; I looked for felicity where it could not be discovered; I enquired after bliss in those places, situations, and circumstances which neither bliss, nor felicity, nor happiness ever visited. Thus it remained with little change, and continued without much alteration, all through the days of my youth, the years of my juvenility, and the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... of manner Loveday—who was not a ladies' man—blushed, and made some alteration in his bodily posture, began a sentence which had no end, and showed quite a boy's embarrassment. Recovering himself, he politely offered his arm, which Anne took with a very pretty grace. He conducted her through his comrades, who glued themselves perpendicularly to the wall to let her pass, and ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy



Words linked to "Alteration" :   change, damage, loss of consciousness, twinkle, breakup, surprise, occurrent, shimmer, transformation, nascency, modulation, adaptation, sex change, laxation, transition, acceleration, sparkling, alter, moderation, decease, mutation, revision, impairment, slowing, occurrence, deceleration, separation, revolution, transfiguration, sublimation, happening, detachment, qualification, retardation, easing, deformation, drop-off, loosening, scintillation, lessening, reorganization, adjustment, birth, conversion, variation, chromosomal mutation, distraction, expiry, play, avulsion, fluctuation



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org