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Instantaneous   Listen
adjective
Instantaneous  adj.  
1.
Done or occurring in an instant, or without any perceptible duration of time; as, the passage of electricity appears to be instantaneous. "His reason saw With instantaneous view, the truth of things."
2.
At or during a given instant; as, instantaneous acceleration, velocity, etc.
Instantaneous center of rotation (Kinematics), in a plane or in a plane figure which has motions both of translation and of rotation in the plane, is the point which for the instant is at rest.
Instantaneous axis of rotation (Kinematics), in a body which has motions both of translation and rotation, is a line, which is supposed to be rigidly united with the body, and which for the instant is at rest. The motion of the body is for the instant simply that of rotation about the instantaneous axis.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Instantaneous" Quotes from Famous Books



... much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions. Next moment the half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna, came upon the scene. He ran out eager and bareheaded, looking right and left, and very full ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... indeed one of the greatest mysteries of nature. What it is, the means by which it acts, or why such a force should exist at all, are questions to which so far we have not had even the merest hint of an answer. Its action across space appears to be instantaneous. ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... admiration, then looked at the glass in his hand, hiccuped with much solemnity thrice, and, as though struck with a sudden sense of duty unfulfilled, swallowed the contents at a gulp. The effect was almost instantaneous. He dropped the tumbler, lurched towards the woman at the door, and then making a half-turn in accordance with the motion of the vessel, fell into his bunk, and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was seated in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms of the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and then I perceived myself outside my body—saw my body near me, but certainly not containing me, with the hands relaxing ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... the attention of the Master. It is related that the piteous appeal of the sufferer, and the faith which had inspired such great energy on the part of his friends, attracted the interest and sympathy of Jesus, and He paused in His discourse and made another of those instantaneous cures which are possible only to the most advanced adepts in the science of ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... to within fifteen meters without being seen, and, just at the moment when the enemy pilot turned round his head, sent him seven cartridges from his machine-gun: "Result: one ball in the ear, and another through the middle of his chest. You can imagine whether the fall of the machine was instantaneous or not. There was nothing left of the pilot but one chin, one ear, one mouth, a torso and material enough to reconstitute two arms. As to the "coucou" (burned), nothing was left but the motor and a few bits of iron. The ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... no instantaneous corresponding sense that it was my duty to follow this call. I was (I will confess it) a little dazzled; but, as soon as that wore off, I felt an indescribable reluctance to undertake the task, a consciousness of not being equal to it, a strong sense ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... can ascertain the distance of Jupiter from the earth; and hence deduce the scale of the solar system. It must, however, be remarked that at both extremities of the process there are characteristic sources of uncertainty. The occurrence of the eclipse is not an instantaneous phenomenon. The satellite is large enough to require an appreciable time in crossing the boundary which defines the shadow, so that the observation of an eclipse cannot be sufficiently precise to form the basis of an important ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... out of the trading-principle government, only renders, to a disinterested looker on, the old antipathies more apparent, I made an occasion, indirectly, to let our new associate understand that we came from the other side of the Atlantic. This produced an instantaneous change in his manner, and it was now that he began to favour us with specimens of his humour. Notwithstanding all this facetiousness, I soon felt suspicion that the man was an employe of the Carlists, and ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... chief orchestra hinders the conductor from hearing that which is being performed at a distance from him, the intervention of a special conducting mechanism becomes indispensable, in order to establish instantaneous communication between him and the distant performers. Many attempts, more or less ingenious, have been made of this kind, the result of which has not everywhere answered expectations. That of Covent Garden Theatre, in London, moved by the conductor's ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz

... cloud, is the splitting into two, which has been occasionally observed in them! Well, if they be clouds, the coming of one into contact with our earth would most likely deposit with us an immense addition to our stock of water. It would be instantaneous, or nearly so. Only think of a sudden fall of water sufficient to raise the ocean a hundred feet, and submerge all parts of the land which were less than that height above the present level of the sea! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various

... has, moreover, been confirmed by other means, whose results agree perfectly with the preceding. The two principal are based on the velocity of light. The propagation of light is not instantaneous, and notwithstanding the extreme rapidity of its movements, a certain time is required for its transmission from one point to another. On the Earth, this velocity has been measured as 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second. To come from Jupiter ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... we are not acquainted with mere signs but, in so far as there is any matter at all, what we know in sensible perception is that matter itself. The facts which we know directly are matter itself and would be nothing but matter if they were instantaneous. For Bergson, however, an instantaneous fact is out of the question: every fact contains more than the mere matter presented at the moment of perception. Facts are distinguished from matter by lasting through a period ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen

... magnanimity, she was singularly free from any tenacious insistence upon the matters of external life. She had her preferences; but she always accommodated herself to the decision or the necessity of the hour, and there was an end of it. She had that rare power of instantaneous mental adjustment; and if a given thing were right and best, or if it were not best but was still inevitable, she accepted it and did not make life a burden to every one concerned ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... Anthony caught a sudden clear instantaneous impression of a group of faces in the window opposite. There were a couple of men in front, stout city personages no doubt, with crimson faces and open mouths cursing the traitorous Papist and the crafty vagrant fox trapped at last; but between ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... instantaneous sensation as of furtive guilt, decidedly the reverse of comfortable. He shuffled uneasily. There was a brief silence, on her part expectant, on his, blank. His mental attitude remained hopeless: for some mysterious reason his nonchalance ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... frying-pan we are quickly made aware of his intentions. A combination of this sort is rare and lasts only for a very short time, for directly the fire is aglow the ventilator can be opened again and the relief is almost instantaneous. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... bright-eyed, homing tide came the Girl from Sieber-Mason's. The Man from Nome looked and saw, first, that she was supremely beautiful after his own conception of beauty; and next, that she moved with exactly the steady grace of a dog sled on a level crust of snow. His third sensation was an instantaneous conviction that he desired her greatly for his own. This quickly do men from Nome make up their minds. Besides, he was going back to the North in a short time, and to act quickly ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... contain. Musicians who do not restrict themselves within the limits of conventional routine, have, consequently, more need than other artists of the aid of time. They cannot hope that death will bring that instantaneous plus-value to their works which it gives to those of the painters. No musician could renew, to the profit of his manuscripts, the deception practiced by one of the great Flemish painters, who, wishing in his lifetime to benefit by his future glory, directed his wife to spread abroad the ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... pass away like a cloud, pass away like a summer cloud, pass away like a shadow, pass away like a dream. Adj. transient, transitory, transitive; passing, evanescent, fleeting, cursory, short-lived, ephemeral; flying &c. v.; fugacious, fugitive; shifting, slippery; spasmodic; instantaneous, momentaneous[obs3]. temporal, temporary; provisional, provisory; deciduous; perishable, mortal, precarious, unstable, insecure; impermanent. brief, quick, brisk, extemporaneous, summary; pressed for time ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... hunters made precipitous descents over unexpected frozen slopes—at times it seemed as though they were about to be hurled to instantaneous death. Yet Ootah steeled his heart. His teeth chattered but he gritted ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... afterward examined the remains, preparatory to embalmment, could not find a single bullet; all had gone through the body, and it was his opinion that death must have been almost instantaneous, and that the movements observed ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... last, so suddenly, so blindingly, that she reeled back against the curtain in sheer, physical recoil. The whole sky seemed to burst into flame, and the crash of thunder was so instantaneous that she felt as if a shell had exploded at her feet. Trembling, she hid her face. The world seemed to rock all around her. For the first time ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... rest of my life. But when I turned to the Theseus, and saw that every form was altered by action or repose-when I saw that the two sides of his back varied as he rested on his elbow; and again, when in the figure of the fighting metope, I saw the muscle shown under one armpit in that instantaneous action of darting out, and left out in the other armpits; when I saw, in short, the most heroic style of art, combined with all the essential detail of everyday life, the thing was done at once and for ever.... Here were the principles which the great Greeks in their finest time established, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... situations, and one who never lost his head in an emergency. Only a few years before he had stopped a runaway hunter, with a girl clinging to a stirrup, by springing straight at the horse's head and bringing them both to the ground unhurt. It only required the same instantaneous concentration of all his forces, he said to himself, as he gazed into old Alec's terror-stricken face framed by the open window. Once let the truth be known and the house would be in a panic—women fainting, men rushing ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... by a new and very elegant arrangement of Sir William Thomson's reflecting galvanometers, due to Mr. J. Carpentier. The mounting adopted by Mr. Carpentier permits of an easy removal of the bobbins and of an instantaneous substitution therefor. The galvanometric part, composed of the needles and mirror, therefore remains entirely free, thus allowing of its being verified, and making it convenient to attach the silken fiber. Mr. Carpentier has, moreover, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail—undoubtedly though not evidently—between ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... have you never sinned?" Yes, I grieve to say I have. Sin is the one thing I abhor—for it is the one thing that can, if unrepented of, separate us, not from Christ, but from the consciousness of his presence. But I have learned that there is instantaneous forgiveness and restoration to be had always. That there need be no ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth

... was reading the newspaper report of the debate in parliament, that apparently doomed her to hopelessness. That heart-sinking feeling was painted in her sunk eyes and spiritless attitude; a cloud was on her beauty, and frequent sighs were tokens of her distress. This sight had an instantaneous effect on Raymond; his eyes beamed with tenderness, and remorse clothed his manners with earnestness and truth. He sat beside her; and, taking the paper from her hand, said, "Not a word more shall my sweet Perdita read of this contention of madmen and fools. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... accomplishes the salvation of the believer. Instead of waiting for death in order to come under the protection of Amida, the faithful soul is at once received into the care of the Boundlessly Compassionate. In a word, the Shin sect believes in instantaneous conversion and sanctification. Between the Roman and the Reformed soteriology of Christendom, was Melancthonism or the co[o]perate union of the divine and the human will. So, the old Buddhism prior to Shinran taught ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... color was now taking the place of form; the scene ceased to have the effect of an instantaneous photograph; it was like an impressionistic study. As the ship swung free of the shed and got into the stream, the shore lost reality. Up to a certain moment, all was still New York, all was even Hoboken; then amidst the grotesque and monstrous shows of the architecture on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Belgians have a full exhibit of the light, handy vehicles of all shapes, from a barrel to a basket, that they make to run on rails. Platforms movin' by the instantaneous action of the Westinghouse brake on a train of one hundred cars ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... eye even when they are standing "in plain sight." You can look straight at them, and not see them at all. Then some old woodsman lets you sight over his finger exactly to the spot. At once the figure of the deer fairly leaps into vision. I know of no more perfect example of the instantaneous than this. You are filled with astonishment that you could for a moment have avoided seeing it. And yet next time you will in all probability repeat just this "puzzle ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... his harsh voice was pitched in one sardonic monotony of tone. Mercy took an instantaneous dislike to this hobbling, ugly old man, staring at her rudely through his great ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... course, was the real business for which all this organization had been planned. A moment's pause succeeded the proposal, but an instantaneous and unanimous assent followed the demand for a vote. At this precise instant a messenger opened the door and informed them that Governor Johnson was in the building requesting ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... scripture phrases into secular discourse. This seemed to me a question of some difficulty. A scripture expression may be used, like a highly classical phrase, to produce an instantaneous strong impression; and it may be done without being at all improper. Yet I own there is danger, that applying the language of our sacred book to ordinary subjects may tend to lessen our reverence for it. If therefore ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... I say of Morse? Of Morse, the wonder-worker, the world-girdler, the space-destroyer, the author of the noblest invention whose glory was ever concentrated in a single man, who has realized the fabulous prerogative of Olympian Jove, and by the instantaneous intercommunication of thought has accomplished the work of ages in binding together the whole civilized world into one great Brotherhood ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... "The doctrine of instantaneous regeneration by the special operations of the Holy Spirit, is believed by all who have any claim to be called Orthodox. But this doctrine, like the others mentioned, is variously stated and explained. Some ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... There was an instantaneous convulsion in my cousin's face, and I distinctly heard him gnash his teeth at this reply; but, to my surprise, he resumed in tones ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... instantaneous crash was the answer, and the door flew from its hinges, and four or five of the men rushed into the cottage, while the rest kept watch outside. Exclamations of surprise, mingled with harsh, epithets, were heard within; and then they appeared a second ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... accurate deduction. The information of the senses (from which Fancy generally borrows her images) always obtains the earliest credit, and makes for that reason the most lasting impressions. The sallies of this irregular Faculty are likewise abrupt and instantaneous, as they are generally the effects of a sudden impulse which reason is not permitted to restrain. As therefore we have already seen, that the desire of imitating is innate to the mind (if your Lordship will permit me to make use of an unphilosophical epithet) and as the first inhabitants ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... darkened cry Of inward-wailing agony Surprised them, and all eyes on each Fixed in the mute-appealing speech Of self-reproachful apprehension: Knowing not what to think or do: But Joan, recovering first, broke through The instantaneous suspension, And knelt upon the ground, and guessed The bitterness at a glance, and pressed Into the comfort of her breast The deep-throed quaking shape that drooped In misery's wilful aggravation, Before the farmer as he stooped, Touched with accusing consternation: Soothing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... affections, while his unrivalled endowments command our highest admiration. To illustrate what is here alluded to, let the reader recall Burke's noble generosity towards that erratic victim of genius and grief,—the painter Barry; or his instantaneous sympathy in behalf of Crabbe the poet, when almost a foodless wanderer in our vast metropolis; and our estimate of Burke's excellencies as a man, will not ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... morning this gun opened upon a laager in the very midst of the enemy's main position. The effect was instantaneous; the Boers, thunderstruck by the sudden visitation of shrapnel, which came they knew not whence, abandoned their camp and fled to the kopjes for shelter. Another laager, 2,000 yards more distant, then became the target with the same result, the enemy's doubt as to the situation ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... the first and instantaneous answer. Many French people seem unaware of this. They are sincerely persuaded that the curbing of their critical activity has been one of the most important and useful results of the war. One is told that, in a spirit of ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... impulse reaches the brain it may give rise to a conscious sensation, and a somewhat definite estimation can be made of the amount of time required for this. The periods are very short, of course, but they are not instantaneous. The nervous impulse, can be studied in still other ways. We find that the impulse can be started by ordinary forms of energy. A mechanical shock, a chemical or an electrical shock will develop nervous energy. Now these are ordinary forms of ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... some indirect means, some accidental allusion, or the agency of a third person, they have been suddenly revealed. Then, with throbbing hearts, in tears and rapture, they have rushed into each other's arms, with an instantaneous recurrence of their early friendship in all its original warmth, fulness, and flooding associations. Many such instances are related in books of romance with strict truth to the actual occurrences of life. Several instances ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... realized, a slight storm will throw down the almost-ripened fruit in a day. A disease sometimes attacks the roots and spreads through a plantation. It would be imprudent, therefore, to devote one's time exclusively to the cultivation of this product at the risk of almost instantaneous ruin. Usually, the Philippine agriculturist rightly regards cacao only as a useful adjunct to his other crops. In the aspect of a cacao plantation there is nothing specially attractive. The tree itself is not pretty. The natives who grow the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... sight, although not new in M. Flocon's experience. There lay the corpse in the narrow berth, just as it had been stricken. It was partially undressed, wearing only shirt and drawers. The former lay open at the chest, and showed the gaping wound that had, no doubt, caused death, probably instantaneous death. But other blows had been struck; there must have been a struggle, fierce and embittered, as for dear life. The savage truculence of the murderer had triumphed, but not until he had battered in the face, destroying features ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths

... reached California in safety. He was a powerfully built man, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds. He was sheriff of Napa County for six years, and in 1852 represented that county in the State Legislature. He died near Calistoga, in 1875, of heart disease. His death was instantaneous, and occurred while pitching hay from a wagon. He was the father of eleven children, six of whom, with his wife, are ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... living only, but also for the dead, he proposed full and instantaneous deliverance from all future punishments on the payment of the price. And any wretch who dared to doubt or question the saving power of these certificates he in advance doomed to excommunication and the wrath ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... as though at a signal sprang into the air, wheeled back and forth with instantaneous precision, and departed. The ducks, too, dove, and came up ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... thirteen knots. I had not gone above three miles, however, when the sky in a moment changed from the intense glare of a tropical noontide to the deepest gloom, as if a bad angel had suddenly overshadowed us, and interposed his dark wings between us and the blessed sun; indeed, so instantaneous was the effect, that it reminded me of the withdrawing of the foot—lights in a theatre. The road now wound round the base of a precipitous spur from the Liguanea Mountains, which, instead of melting ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... of the fact evanescently gleamed upon her with the appearance of Mrs. Bolton, lamp in hand, and the instantaneous appearance and disappearance of her husband at the back door through which she emerged. The two women spent the first moments of the lamp-light in making certain that Idella was sound and whole in every part, and then in making ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... Iodized Collodion, for obtaining Instantaneous Views, and Portraits in from three to thirty seconds, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... spaces impenetrable by the naked eye. The aristocracy of intelligence becomes a democracy for the diffusion of the knowledge of the history of the day, which is the most important chapter that has been written, impartial, instantaneous, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... his large eyes gleamed, rather than shone; for the effect of wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the company with a half—insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at the success of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... "The effect was instantaneous. There was one howl of horror, and the black fellows darted out of the tent! They almost cannoned into me—and you know I must look a rum chap in these furry clothes and cap, with my grandfatherly white beard! At all events, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... Indians, meanwhile, were stealthily advancing to the silent camp, and, "no sooner had they reached the slope of the rising ground than they were astounded by the deep battle-cry of the Spaniards, followed by the instantaneous appearance of the whole army. Scarcely awaiting the shock of their enemy, the panic-struck barbarians fled rapidly and tumultuously across the plain. The horse easily overtook the fugitives, riding ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... was that: here on the one hand was something somebody very much wanted to do, and here on the other were certain stern powers ranked against his doing it. That was enough for her. Her sympathy with all forms of revolt was instantaneous. For law and order, as such, she had an instinctive antipathy, as in all contests whatsoever her one general rule was: "Side with the weaker." And it cannot but have been perceived that so much ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... little sugar provides a pleasant, as well as effective remedy for coughs and colds. Oil of pine is also frequently used in this way by preachers and public speakers, to relieve hoarseness and other affections of the vocal organs. Its effect is almost instantaneous. The genuine virgin oil of pine is put up in half-ounce vials for dispensing through druggists and prepared only in the laboratories of the Leach Chemical Co., Cincinnati, O., who guarantee its ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... manifest facts witnessed in the whole animal creation are to be overlooked? If other animals evidently, on the first opening of their eyes, see form, and movement, and the whole world before them; does not this sufficiently intimate the instantaneous knowledge which it is the nature of vision to bestow? The human infant arrives, indeed, more slowly at the perfect use of its senses. It arrives, also, more slowly at the perfect use of its limbs. But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... imagined that Desaix's little corps, together with the few heavy cavalry commanded by General Kellerman, would, about five o'clock, have changed the fortune of the day? It cannot be denied that it was the instantaneous inspiration of Kellerman that converted a defeat into a victory, and decided the battle ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... she was gone, full of sadness. He had been very fond of the Squire, and that awfully sudden death, an apopleptic seizure, instantaneous as a thunderbolt, had impressed him very painfully. It was his first experience of the kind, and it was infinitely terrible to him. It seemed to him a long time before Vixen appeared, and then the door opened, and a slim black figure came in, a white fixed ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... of his recollections, would be detained at Countisford: too modest by half, if he was shy of meeting an old friend! Rowsley Stafford was doing the honours and came forward to be introduced to Lawrence, a ceremony remarkable only because they both took an instantaneous dislike to each other. Lawrence disliked Rowsley because he was young and well-meaning and the child of a parsonage, and Rowsley disliked Lawrence because a manner which owed some of its serenity to his physical advantages, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... this autobiography such things as annalists record, I have omitted the coming of the Emperor with his great host, and the King's mustering of his whole army. [1] At the time when these events took place, his Majesty sought my advice with regard to the instantaneous fortification of Paris. He came on purpose to my house, and took me all round the city; and when he found that I was prepared to fortify the town with expedition on a sound plan, he gave express orders that all my suggestions should be carried out. His Admiral was directed to command the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... news, he was startled by the telegraph operator with the intelligence that John Morgan was in Ohio, and was at that moment making for Gallipolis to recross the Ohio river. Here was a cry of help from home. His own State invaded, and his own friends and kindred in danger! His decision was instantaneous to go to the rescue. He sent over the wires to his adjutant, then at Charleston, the message: "Are there any steamboats at Charleston?" And being informed there were two, he instantly ordered them to be sent to Luke creek, the highest navigable point on the Kanawha. Colonel Hayes then ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... bravery or Indian stoicism could stand. With yells of terror they dropped their arms and fled to the forest, followed by a fierce firing from both parties, which made great havoc in their ranks. The rout was complete and instantaneous. Had it not been for panic, they might have paused to note how few were those new foes in number, and how small even the united body was as compared with their own numbers; but they fled, as Stark had foretold, like hunted hares, and the white men were left upon the ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... will is clever to drape itself with more or less honest excuses, and the only safety is in cheerful obedience and glad submission. The will of God ought not only to receive obedience, but prompt obedience, and such instantaneous and whole-souled submission is indispensable if we are to 'work out our own salvation,' and to present an attitude of true, receptive correspondence to that of God, who 'works in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.' Our surrender of ourselves into the hands of God, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... better," was answered. And the words were truly spoken; for this unlooked-for, kind, even tender reception, had wrought an almost instantaneous change. He had come home with a feeling of despair tugging at his heart. Nothing appeared before him but ruin. Now the light of hope, feeble though were the rays, came glimmering across the darkness of ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur

... artistry, but it is its sincerity which gives it its value. Here are the little sharp experiences of life mirrored poignantly, sometimes feverishly, always truly. Each lyric is an instantaneous photograph of one of the many moments in existence which affect one briefly perhaps, but indelibly. Mr. Braithwaite says in his introduction that this author engages "life at its most reserved sources whether the form or substance through which it articulates be nature, or the seasons, touch ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... now distinguish the instantaneous sensation of wrong that had flashed on his excited mind in the moment of his sinning.... Then he could think no more, and in the twilight of contrition he dreamed vaguely of God's great goodness, of penance, of ideal atonements. And as ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... and the gate was opened, the body of an Indian was seen lying without; a small mark on his forehead showed where Harold's bullet had entered; death being instantaneous. His war-paint and the embroidery of his leggings showed him at once to be an Iroquois. Beside him lay his bow, with an arrow which had evidently been fitted to the string for instant work. Harold shuddered when he saw it and ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... a new constitution, which was again adopted by popular vote on September 5 following. General Banks reported the constitution to be "one of the best ever penned.... It abolishes slavery in the State, and forbids the legislature to enact any law recognizing property in man. The emancipation is instantaneous and absolute, without condition or compensation, and ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... as love at first sight. Love's a thing that comes when you know a person well and..." She paused. It had just occurred to her that she was hardly the girl to lecture in this strain. Her love for Gerald Foster had been sufficiently sudden, even instantaneous. What did she know of Gerald except that she loved him? They had become engaged within two weeks of their first meeting. She found this recollection damping to her eloquence, and ended by ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... extravagant expectations, which chemists themselves foresaw, and for which they vainly attempted to prepare the agriculturist, was followed by an equally rapid reaction; and those who had embraced Liebig's views, and lauded them as the commencement of a new era, but who had absurdly expected an instantaneous effect, changed their opinion, and contemned, as strongly as they had before supported, the application ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... having removed his courier's boots, for fear of disturbing the Doctor, a quick sharp rap at the door announced the American envoy. The man of wisdom entered, with two small wads of paper in one hand, and several crackers and a bit of cheese in the other. There was such an eloquent air of instantaneous dispatch about him, that Israel involuntarily sprang to his boots, and, with two vigorous jerks, hauled them on, and then seizing his hat, like any bird, stood poised for his flight ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... which you are lacking," was the instantaneous retort. "If you desired it more, your ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... of this letter had an instantaneous effect, silencing the scruples of the most timid, and confirming the confidence of the others. The soldiers, in particular, who had received with dissatisfaction some intimation of what was passing in the council, welcomed it with general enthusiasm; ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... to sleep off, under reviving atmospheric influences, the unseemly effect of the evening's banquet, he had gone back on both sides of the road to his boarding-house, and, with his boots upon the pillow, sunk into an instantaneous sleep of unfathomable depth. Dreaming, towards morning, that he was engaging a large boa-constrictor in single combat, and struggling energetically to restrain the ferocious reptile from getting into his boots, he had suddenly awakened, with a crash, upon the floor—to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various

... and instantaneous action at the signal on the part of three hundred officers and several thousand men as the most vitally important element of success. It was necessary that this should be thoroughly understood and emphasized, so that every soldier should ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... that the bullet had passed through the great artery of the heart, which had caused the instantaneous death of the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... education more obviously useful or practical. He found himself in a system of fixed rules, amid which, it might be, some of his own tendencies and inclinations would die out of him through disuse. The confident word of command, the instantaneous obedience expected, the enforced silence, the very games that go by rule, a sort of hardness natural to wholesome English youths when they come together, but here de rigueur as a point of good manners;—he accepts all these without hesitation; the early ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... naturally a little timid, but John's youth and what she considered as his extraordinary presumption inspired her with courage to protest. The effect upon John was instantaneous. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... or a theft, or a fraud, or an act of cruelty or ingratitude, or the like, than the appropriate ethical emotion is at once excited. The intellectual process may also be exceedingly rapid, or even instantaneous, and always is so when we have no doubt as to the nature either of the action or of the intention or of the motives, but its characteristic, as distinguished from the ethical emotion, is that it may take time, ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... author of 'A Man's a Man for a' That,' could have planned to become a slave-driver suggests how closely the most genuine human sympathies are limited by habit and circumstances.) To secure the money for his voyage Burns had published his poems in a little volume. This won instantaneous and universal popularity, and Burns, turning back at the last moment, responded to the suggestion of some of the great people of Edinburgh that he should come to that city and see what could be done for him. At first the experiment seemed fortunate, for the natural good breeding with ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... her with such a vivid and instantaneous flash of anger that the girl stepped back ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... had no malevolent intentions towards a struggling industry, I went round and assisted the caracoling producer in stemming the crowd. Among others I stemmed a pushful policeman. I didn't notice he was a policeman until he was biting the dust, with my stick between his legs. However an instantaneous application of palm-oil made it all right between us, and he squatted half-stunned on the kerb, nursing his brow with one hand, my five bob with the other and took no further interest in the proceedings. And very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... Miss Middleton she had always been cold and uncertain. Mr. Drummond she treated with a mixture of satire and haughtiness that aroused his ire. Phillis's frankness and simplicity had won her for a moment to her earlier and better self: she conceived an instantaneous liking for the girl who looked at her with such grave kindly glances. "I shall expect you, remember," she repeated, as Nan at that moment appeared ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Emilie returned, Mrs. Somers was dressed: she had dressed in the greatest hurry imaginable, that she might be ready for action—instantaneous action—if the service of her friends, as she hoped, required it. Emilie brought the newspaper in her hand, which her mother had ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... on a holy day," was the Bishop's argument, and so the Christmas Day was spent, partly in walking, partly at Chipoka's village, where was held the Holy Communion feast. "How wondrous," wrote the Bishop, "the feeling of actual instantaneous communion with all you dear ones, though the distance and means of earthly communication are so great and so difficult!" The negroes of the neighbouring villages joined them, and they proceeded. Near Manasomba's village they met a large body ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... enemies; these early marks of aversion, which he was at no pains to conceal, alienated the minds of many from his person and government, who would otherwise have served him with fidelity and affection. An instantaneous and total change was effected in all offices of honour and advantage. The duke of Ormond was dismissed from his command, which the king restored to the duke of Marlborough, whom he likewise appointed colonel of the first regiment of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... benefits as to do the greatest amount of good to the recipient. The first object was attained by enacting that those who had hitherto been slaves should be free; the third was arrived at by making the freedom thus given, not instantaneous, but by leading them to it, and preparing them for its proper and useful enjoyment, by a system of apprenticeship. The slave was to be apprenticed to his master for seven years, receiving, partly in money and ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Instantaneous renewal of the character and the life is not even claimed by other faiths; there is in them nothing like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, or that of thousands of others well known in the history of Christian ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... And pour, as erst, the song of heartfelt praise. From yonder line, where fade the farthest hills Which bound the blue lap of the swelling vale, On whose last line, seen like a beacon, hangs Thy tower,[146] benevolent, accomplished Hoare, To where I stand, how wide the interval! Yet instantaneous, to the hurrying eye Displayed; though peeping towers and villages Thick scattered, 'mid the intermingling elms, And towns remotely marked by hovering smoke, And grass-green pastures with their herds, and seats Of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... it was no use. My face was deep in the pillow, but I made sounds as of a hen who has laid an egg. It broke on the Doctor with a total instantaneous ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... enough that they were, or I should have missed my frisson; and others would have suffered a similar loss, for the recognition was not only on my part but on that of several passers-by, and it was instantaneous. Indeed, I heard one lady tell her companion the name of the play they are in and the extraordinary length of its run, and since she spoke loudly I thought how delightful it must be to be a theatrical celebrity and hear cordial things like that as you move about. Neither ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various

... can be proved to be a forgery," urged Raffles, "nothing could possibly turn the tables on the other side with such complete and instantaneous effect." ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... instantaneous relief. He had been glad to meet Miss Chatterton again. Not that he would have known her, for time had not dealt very kindly with the young girl. Her face, from overmuch play of expression, showed a few little wrinkles already, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... a spot 400 yards between Saulcourt and where we stood. For once in a way the dog neglected shells, and searched for bully-beef leavings among the tins thrown aside by the battery drivers. We were not absolutely safe. The Boche shells were fitted with instantaneous fuses, and after each burst bits of jagged iron flew off at right angles to points as far distant as 700 yards. As we turned to go a piece whistled over our heads and hit one of the Red Cross waggon lead-mules. The poor beast dropped and brought down his frightened, kicking, companion mule ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... by friends properly planted in different parts of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but questionable society. 'The joyous crew of thunderers in the galleries,' as Robert ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... Samoval's reply was instantaneous. "On guard, then," he cried, and on the words, without giving Sir Terence so much as time to comply with the invitation, he whirled his point straight and deadly at the greyish outline of his opponent's body. But a ray of moonlight caught the blade and its livid flash gave Sir Terence ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... to answer the telephone, and when she came back, she caught him off guard, and saw his face in repose. Henry wasn't aware of it; and when he heard her footsteps, he looked up with an instantaneous re-arrangement of his features. But Anna had seen, and Anna had understood; she sensed that Henry, for a generous purpose, had merely adopted a pose. Secretly, he was quite as tormented, quite as desperate, as she had expected ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... of my own, but it would be impossible to read the papers of the South, or the speeches made in the South, before, and at the time of, and after the secession, without seeing that the universal opinion there was, that the stoppage of the supply of cotton would be our instantaneous ruin, and that if they could only lay hold of it, keep it back in the country, or burn it, so that it never could be used, that then the people of Lancashire, merchants, manufacturers, and operatives in mills—everybody dependent ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... existence, is endowed with a personality analogous to that of the animal whose operations most resemble its manifestation. For instance, lightning is often given the form of a serpent, with or without an arrow-pointed tongue, because its course through the sky is serpentine, its stroke instantaneous and destructive; yet it is named Wi-lo-lo-a-ne, a word derived not from the name of the serpent itself, but from that of its most obvious trait, its gliding, zigzag motion. For this reason, the serpent is supposed to be more nearly related to ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing

... Three raps—instantaneous, quick and vigorous. The sounds in this instance are four times repeated, the repetitions being in quick succession and apparently without variation ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... uncertain accents. He found his voice in this overwhelming moment to some purpose; though the words he actually used, and whether they were in German or English, he could never remember. Their effect, nevertheless, was instantaneous. The Brothers understood, and that grey Figure ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... as vivid all about him as if caught by the latest instantaneous process made the same comparatively ineffective appeal. The operatic spectacle was still there. The people, with their cloaks statuesquely draped over their left shoulders, moved down the street, or posed in vehement ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... Ivanovna had seemed quite fearless, and laughing, had stepped, for a moment, from behind the shelter to see whether the soldiers were coming for their tea. She was struck instantly; she gave a sharp little cry and fell. They rushed to her side, but death had been instantaneous. She had been struck in the heart.... There was nothing to be done.... The soldiers seemed to feel it very deeply, and one of them, a little round fellow with a merry face whom I knew well, turned away from me and began to cry, with his ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... by electricity. Mr. Edison, upon a request from the government, could easily have arranged it. I was particularly horrified with the blunders of the hangman's methods, because I was in a friend's office in New York, when the telegraph wires gave instantaneous reports of the executions in Chicago. I made notes of these ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... and cowboys were added Mexicans, Cossacks, and South Americans, with regular trained cavalry from Germany, France, England, and the United States. This aggregation showed for the first time in 1893, and was an instantaneous success. Of it Opie Read gives a ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... obstructing log and died. His mother stopped, came back several times, gazed at him pensively, then disappeared. We got out, carried him to a distant spot and skinned him. He weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. My arrow had shaved a piece off his heart. Death was instantaneous. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... serious. And, besides, he was going to Jerusalem, just then of all the world the place where such intelligence possessed by an enemy might be most dangerous to him, his associates, and the cause. But was she an enemy? It is well for us that, while writing is slow, thought is instantaneous. When the cup was fairly cooled, he filled it and arose, saying, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... the color of their costume is still farther diversified by a chequered handkerchief and white apron. The young are generally pretty; the old, tanned and ugly; and the transition from youth to age seems instantaneous: labor and poverty have destroyed every intermediate gradation; but, whether young or old, they have all the same good-humored look, and appear generally industrious, though almost incessantly talking. ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... youth ... slew his victims mostly by the midnight oil, not by any blaze of gaiety, or in the accumulative fervour of social sarcasm. From him came most of those sharp things which the victims could not forget.... Lockhart put in his sting in a moment, inveterate, instantaneous, with the effect of a barbed dart, yet almost, as it seemed, with the mere intention of giving point to his sentences, and no particular feeling ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... were in the air, going over a wall. Another was just rising to the leap. A string of others, headed by a lady, were tearing across a meadow bounded by a little brook, and beyond that streamed the hounds following the invisible fox. It was like one of Muybridge's instantaneous photographs of "The Horse in Motion," for the moment that it lasted; and Katy put it away in her memory, distinct and brilliant, as she ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... His answer was instantaneous and effective. The battery 'blazed with cannon, swivels, and small-arms,' which fired point-blank at the men ashore and with true aim at the boats crowded together round the narrow landing-place. Undaunted though undisciplined, the men ashore rushed at the walls with their scaling-ladders ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood

... compromise measures should be regarded as a permanent settlement. In 1852, the Democrats, assembled in national conventions at Baltimore, indorsed them in their platform. So did the Whigs; and Rufus Choate, their convention orator, was excusable for his hyperbole when he described "with what instantaneous and mighty charm they calmed the madness ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... the recognition, which he felt sure was unavoidable, followed the sight of the child; but he just yielded to the impulse, and took the child from Mrs Gray's arms and carried her round to the back-door. The recognition was even more instantaneous than he had expected. As he came round the corner of the house, with the little, white-bonneted girl in his arms, Jane sprang up with a cry of glad surprise and delight, such as swept away in a moment all his doubt of her loyalty to him and his, ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... was le coup de foudre of a French writer on the affections—M. Stendhal. Miss Birkenhead had won my heart from the first moment of our meeting. Why should I attempt to describe a psychological experience as rare as instantaneous conversion, or more so? Miss Birkenhead was tall and dark, with a proud pale face, and eyes which unmistakably indicated the possession of a fine sense of humour. Proud pale people seldom look when they first meet a total stranger—still ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... burlesque overplayed, and followed the soft curve of audible wistfulness with an actual bluebird which looped across the open space in front. The spell was broken for a moment, and my subconscious autocrat thrust into realization the instantaneous report—apparent bluebird call is the note of a small flycatcher and the momentary vision was not even a mountain bluebird but a red-breasted blue chatterer! So I shut my eyes very quickly and listened to the soft calls, which alone would have deceived ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... their own gunfire sink an enemy's ship as a well-flung brick disposes of an empty tin on the surface of a pond. The after twelve-inch guns, astride whose muzzles David and Freckles once soared to the giddy stars, have hurled instantaneous and awful death across leagues of the North Sea. The X-ray apparatus, by the agency of which Cornelius James desired to see right through his own "tummy," has enabled the Fleet Surgeon to pick fragments ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... lancet from the case, he made an incision in the subject's right arm; then, in the wound, he poured a few drops of the contents of the phial. The effects were instantaneous and terrible; the poison became infused in every vein of the sufferer's body, and his blood seemed changed to liquid fire; he writhed in mighty agony—his heart leaped madly in his breast, in the intensity of ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... decorous and quiet pages. That curious conviction that we have formerly passed through a precisely similar experience is strong upon us as we read, and it is the most emphatic testimony to the novelist's peculiar skill. But there is none of this instantaneous acquiescence in Mr. Putney's wit; for although he does make one very nice little joke, it is hardly enough to flavor all his conversation, which is for the most part rather unwholesome than humorous. The only way to elucidate him is to suppose that Mr. Howells, in sardonic ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)



Words linked to "Instantaneous" :   instantaneous sound pressure, instant



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