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Prime   Listen
verb
Prime  v. t.  (past & past part. primed; pres. part. priming)  
1.
To apply priming to, as a musket or a cannon; to apply a primer to, as a metallic cartridge.
2.
To lay the first color, coating, or preparation upon (a surface), as in painting; as, to prime a canvas, a wall.
3.
To prepare; to make ready; to instruct beforehand; to post; to coach; as, to prime a witness; the boys are primed for mischief. (Colloq.)
4.
To trim or prune, as trees. (Obs. or Prov. Eng.)
5.
(Math.) To mark with a prime mark.
To prime a pump, to charge a pump with water, in order to put it in working condition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prime" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Keats" in the "Men of Letters" series. She borrowed two or three of the political biographies with which Arthur's shelves were crowded, having all the while, however, the dispiriting conviction that Lady Dunstable had been dandled on the knees of every English Prime Minister since her birth, and had been the blood relation of all of them, except perhaps Mr. G., whose blood no doubt had not been blue enough to ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... much unconcern as though we were in an up-town restaurant. For the first time since we started, Mr. Lake sat down, and we had an opportunity of talking with him at leisure. He is a stout-shouldered, powerfully built man, in the prime of life—a man of cool common sense, a practical man, who is also an inventor. And he talks frankly and convincingly, and yet modestly, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... punctuality is made a prime virtue for both officers and men. Hence there were no laggards at dinner. Every officer took his seat at the long table at the minute of 6.30. Hapgood, who was officer of the day, came in with his sword at his side; he placed that weapon in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... for her handsome, clever children, found herself increasingly embarrassed for funds. She lacked the means with which to suitably adorn herself and her children for the station in life to which she aspired and for which good clothes were the prime equipment and to "eddicate" Tony as he deserved. Hence when Annette had completed her second year at the High School her mother withdrew her from the school and its associations and found her a place in the new Fancy Box Factory, where girls could obtain "an illigant and ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... the habit of taking advice from young gentlemen." "Sir," said the young officer, with that confidence in himself which never carried him too far, and always was equal to the occasion, "I am as old as the prime minister of England, and I think myself as capable of commanding one of his Majesty's ships as that minister is of governing the state." He was resolved to do his duty, whatever might be the opinion or conduct of ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... seemed short by reason of the varied and beautiful scenery of the Hoosac Tunnel route, particularly in the region of the Deerfield Valley, and also west of the Massachusetts state line. The abundant foliage was in its autumnal prime, not yet having been touched by the wand of the Frost King, while the teeming fields gave evidence both of fertility of soil and skilled cultivation. The neat farm-houses were ornamented by creeping vines, and tiny flower-gardens in their fronts. Tall ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... England and America, Gardiner is highly esteemed. But the critics must have their day. They cannot attack him for lack of diligence and accuracy, which according to Gibbon, the master of us all, are the prime requisites of a historian, so they assert that he was deficient in literary style, he had no dramatic power, his work is not interesting and will not live. Gardiner is the product solely of the university and the library. You may visualize him at Oxford, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... again,—the sunshine and showers of April, more than renewing the delight of the children's first weeks in Kirklands. They had never been in the country in the early spring before; and even "bonny Glen Elder," in the prime of summer, had no wonders such as revealed themselves day by day to their unaccustomed eyes. The catkins on the willows, the gradual swelling of the hawthorn-buds, the graceful tassels of the silver birch, were to them a beauty and a mystery. The ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson

... life of this good man pass gently away while he was still in the prime of manhood. He was carried to beautiful Greenmount for burial, near the city in which his name will be coupled with loving memories for long ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... is ready for any and every kind of public service, providing he can be at the head of it. There is no end to the work he will do if he can only have his own way.—He wants to be prime mover in every enterprise: to be chairman of the committee; to settle every question that comes up; to "run" things according to his own ideas. Such people are often very useful. It is generally wisest not to meddle ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... pause also she saw him as he was—a man broken before his prime, haggard and tired and old, with the fire of his genius quenched for ever in the bitter waters ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... lesson from which any one might profit; which was by no means always the case with Madame d'Avrigny's plays, which too often were full of risky allusions, of critical situations, and the like; likely, in short, to "sail too close to the wind," as Fred had once described them. But Madame d'Avrigny's prime object was the amusement of society, and society finds pleasure in things which, if innocence understood them, would put her to the blush. This play, however, was an exception. There had been very little to cut out this time. Madame de Nailles ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... to say, if they could only say it— indeed they generally have; but the next class are people who, having nothing to say, are cursed with a facility and an unhappy command of words, that makes them the prime nuisances of the society they affect. They try to cover their absence of matter by an unwholesome vitality of delivery. They look triumphantly round the room, as if courting applause, after a torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hour, a close carriage drove up to the palace. It contained no less a personage than the Prime Minister, the Marquis de Lutera,—a dark, heavy man, with small furtive eyes, a ponderous jaw, and a curious air of seeming for ever on an irritable watch for offences. His aspect was intellectual, yet always threatening; and his frigid manner ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... a larger number. In what then is a single prig inferior to any other great man, but because he employs his own hands only; for he is not on that account to be levelled with the base and vulgar, because he employs his hands for his own use only. Now, suppose a prig had as many tools as any prime minister ever had, would he not be as great as any prime minister whatsoever? Undoubtedly he would. What then have I to do in the pursuit of greatness but to procure a gang, and to make the use of this gang centre in myself? This gang shall rob for me only, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... was in the prime of youth and beauty, very large of limb, dark in color, cried considerably; whilst the younger one ... laughed as if she thought the change in her ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... after Bob had communicated to me what the captain had said, the pressed men were ordered up, and ranged along the quarter-deck. A finer set of men I never saw together: and they all appeared to be, as they afterwards proved to be prime seamen. The captain called them one by one and questioned them. He asked them to enter, but they refused. The crimp begged hard to be released. Their names were all put down on ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... a genuine regard for Count d'Orsay, and he pointed him out to me one day sitting in the window of his club, near Gore House, looking out on Piccadilly. The count seemed a little past his prime, but was still the handsomest man in London. Procter described him as a brilliant person, of special ability, and by ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... of the system is that it is rectangular. A prime meridian is first determined, then a baseline crossing it at right angles. Then from points on the baseline six miles and multiples thereof from the meridian, lines are run due north. And parallels to the base-line are run at ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... prime leader in Congress: I would also see that votes enough to carry the measure were privately secured before the bill was offered. This I would try through my leader ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... enthusiasts; a race of men who towered above the genius of their country and of their religion; passed away without a successor. In the beginning of the 18th century, the most profligate man in France was an ecclesiastic, the Cardinal Dubois, prime minister to the most profligate prince in Europe, the Regent Orleans. The country was convulsed with bitter personal disputes between Jesuit and Jansenist, fighting even to mutual persecution upon points either beyond or beneath the human intellect. A third party stood by, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... the travel tax must and forthwith would be dropped. The story of the evacuation of Gallipoli had grown old and tedious. Cranks were still vainly trying to prove to the blunt John Bullishness of the Prime Minister that the Daylight Saving Bill was not a piece of mere freak legislation. The whole of the West End and all the inhabitants of country houses in Britain had discovered a new deity in Australia and spent all their spare ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... intermixed with hazel and brushwood. From this appearance it was inferred that the soil was of inferior quality, and these tracts were denominated "barrens." Subsequently, it was found that this land was of prime quality. The term "barrens" is now applied extensively in the West to the same description of country. It distinguishes an intermediate grade from forest and prairie. A common error has prevailed abroad that our prairie land is wet. Prairie is a French word signifying ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... my hapless sons, By the hands of wicked and cruel ones; Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime, All innocent, for your father's crime. He sinned—but he paid the price of his guilt When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt; When he strove with the heathen host in vain, And fell with the flower of his people slain, And the sceptre his children's hands should sway From his injured ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... all our real enjoyments, lest we should be so taken up by them, as to be stopt from further pursuits. I make no manner of doubt but that, in this light, we may see the imaginary future chancellor just called to the bar, the archbishop in crape, and the prime minister at the tail of an opposition, more truly happy than those who are invested with all the power and ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... Mrs. Mortimer. "You have no idea what they netted me this year. I never keep a hen a moment past the prime ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... traverses the circuit had the value, i, when the motor was at rest; by the working of the motor it is reduced to i - i1. The power applied to the generator is itself reduced to W-[(i-i1)[omega] M C]/K. The prime mover is relieved by the action of the counter current, precisely as the consumption of zinc in the battery would be reduced by the same cause, if the battery was the source of the current. The efficiency ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... the character of Mademoiselle de Bourbon and the legitimacy of her future offspring were concerned, she received ample guarantees. For the rest, the Prince, in a simple letter, informed her that he was already past his prime, having reached his forty-second year, and that his fortune was encumbered not only with settlements for his, children by previous marriages, but by debts contracted in the cause of his oppressed country. A convention of doctors and bishops of France; summoned by the Duc de Montpensier, afterwards ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... his ground did he presume to discuss the gory spectacle. Then, at dinner, he discovered that Manvers had been more interested in the spectators than the fray, and allowed himself free discourse. The Queen and the Court, the alcalde and the Prime Minister, the manolos and manolas—he had plenty to say, and to leave unsaid. He just glanced at the performers—impossible to omit the espada—Corchuelo, the first in Spain. But the fastidious in Manvers was awake and edgy. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... Danville, a neighboring village, did the second piece of original surgical work in Kentucky. It consisted in removing an ovarian tumor. The deed, unexampled in surgery, is destined to leave an ineffaceable imprint on the coming ages. In doing it Ephraim McDowell became a prime factor in the life of woman; in the life of the human race. By it he raised himself to a place in the world's history, alongside of Jenner, as a benefactor of his kind; nay, it may be questioned if his place be not higher ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell

... apostle's warning: "Quench not the Spirit?" The voice of the Lord must be heard in his church, and to the Holy Ghost alone has been committed the prerogative of communicating that voice. Is there any likelihood that that voice will be heard when the king or prime minister of a civil {139} government holds the sole function of appointing the bishops, as in the case of State churches? Is there any certainty of it when an archbishop or bishop puts pastors over flocks by the action of his single will? We may congratulate ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... yet, O noble land, forbid us not Even now to join our faint memorial chime To the fierce chant wherewith their hearts were hot Who took the tide in thy Imperial prime; Whose glory's thine till Glory sleeps forgot With her ancestral ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... attack upon the High-Churchmen. In his Challenge, of Peace, addressed to the whole Nation, he denounced them as Church Vultures and Ecclesiastical Harpies. It was they and not the Dissenters that were the prime movers of strife and dissension. How are peace and union to be obtained, he asks. He will show people first how peace and union ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... Bouille, who commanded a portion of the troops still faithful to the king, was the prime confidant and helper in this movement. He earnestly, but in vain, endeavored to induce the king to make some alterations in this plan. He entreated him, in the first place, not to excite suspicion by the use of a peculiar carriage constructed for his own use, but to make ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... take the present time With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, For love is crowned with the prime In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... plaintive night-hymn. In childhood Guy Hartwell had been taught by his nurse to regard the melancholy chant as ominous of evil; but as years threw their shadows over his heart, darkening the hopes of his boyhood, the sad notes of the lonely bird became gradually soothing, and now in the prime of life he loved to listen to the shy visitor, and ceased to remember that it boded ill. With an ardent love for the beautiful, in all its Protean phases, he enjoyed communion with nature as only ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... to his side and went abroad. The sun by this had risen, and cleared the fog From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed Into the open plain; so Haman bade— Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled The host, and still was in his lusty prime. From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd; As when some gray November morn the files, In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, Or some ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... West India trader, the master of which, an elderly man of considerable wealth, was on the eve of quitting the sea; and the owners had already determined that I should succeed him in the charge. But fate had ordered it otherwise. Our seas were infested at this period by American privateers—prime sailors, and strongly armed; and, when homeward bound from Jamaica with a valuable cargo, we were attacked and captured when within a day's sailing of Ireland, by one of the most formidable of the class. Vain as resistance might have been deemed—for the force of the American ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... said that she did know Mrs. Grimes. "The lion of Yoxham is Mrs. Grimes. She is supposed to have all the misfortunes and all the virtues to which humanity is subject. And how do you and Minnie get on? Minnie is my prime minister. The boys, I suppose, teased you out ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... Russia and Turkey and Russia and Persia, winding in and out among the Trans-Caucasian Mountains. About two hundred miles from the Russo-Turkish frontier stands Tiflis, the rich and ancient capital of Georgia, and one of the prime objectives of any Turkish offensive. One of the few railroads of this wild country runs from Tiflis through the Russian fortress of Kars, forty-five miles from the Turkish frontier, to Sarikamish, thirty miles nearer. On the Turkish side the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... no deep sympathy, with no moral tie, without collective interests, a cleverly designed machine which, in general, works accurately and smoothly, but with no soul because, to have a soul, it is of prime necessity to have a living body. As a machine constructed at Paris according to a unique pattern and superposed on people and things from Perpignan to Douai and from Rochelle to Besancon, it does not adapt itself to the requirements ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... women: some with the last lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked: others with every mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out, and presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime; some mere girls, others but young women, and none past the prime of life; formed the darkest and saddest portion of this ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... a doctrine from the author of the Second Discourse, is declared to be that of property. And he can only acquire this idea by having something of his own. But how are we to teach him the significance of a thing being one's own? It is a prime rule to attempt to teach nothing by a verbal lesson; all instruction ought to be left to experience.[282] Therefore you must contrive some piece of experience which shall bring this notion of property vividly into a child's mind; the following for instance. Emilius is taken to a ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... finally triumphed, partly by diplomatically granting—temporarily only, of course—some of the demands of the masses, but chiefly by force and unrelenting severity. The latter policy brought about the fall of one of the most able statesmen that Russia had ever produced, Count Witte, who was then Prime Minister and to whose diplomacy and ability Russia owed primarily its easy bargain with Japan ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... "modest man" of the Ring, and is popularly believed to carry the brains of that body in his head. He is regarded by the public as the real leader of the Ring, and the originator of, and prime, though secret mover ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... in wet tropical countries. Then, too, the storms which at the present time give such variability to the climate of the United States would follow more southerly courses. In its stimulating qualities the climate of the home of the Mayas in the days of their prime was much more nearly like that which now prevails ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... care of my Brother and Sister. And lastly, He gave me a special charge to beware of strong Drink, and lewd Company, which as by Experience many had found, would change me into another man, so that I should not be my self. It deeply grieved him, he said, to see me in Captivity in the prime of my years, and so much the more because I had chosen rather to suffer Captivity with him than to disobey his Command. Which now he was heartily sorry for, that he had so commanded me, but bad me ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... a mystic power, Shall summon mute Antiquity, to tell The buried glories of the long lost hour; And she will answer the enchanter's spell— Then shall we hear what wondrous things befell When the young world existed in its prime. The truths revealed will turn the wisest pale, That ignorance so long abused their time. Vainly may Error blessed Truth assail With specious argument, and looking wise Exult, as millions worship at her shrine; Yet, in the time ordained, shall Truth arise And walk in beauty over earth ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... its wisdom and its moderation. I believe that it was valuable for the spirit of brotherhood which it displayed. But above all I welcome it because it showed that the Italian Government, as expressed by the speech of the Italian Prime Minister (Signor Orlando), recognise to the full that the principles on which the kingdom of Italy was founded were not only of local application, but extend to international relations. (Cheers) Italy has shown herself ready to ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... gratifying idea of the happiness of the people. On seeing the worthy citizens of Hamburg assembled round their doors I could not help thinking of a beautiful remark of Montesquieu. When he went to Florence with a letter of recommendation to the Prime Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany he found him sitting at the threshold of his door, inhaling the fresh air and conversing with some friends. "I see," said Montesquieu, "that I am arrived among a happy people, since their Prime Minister can enjoy ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... evening of my visit, I met, at the head of Biddle's Stair, the guide to the Cave of the Winds. He was in the prime of manhood—large, well built, firm and pleasant in mouth and eye. My interest in the scene stirred up his, and ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... who thus practically exemplified the proper mode of treating milksops, were drunk. The two-bottle men who lingered till our day were surviving relics of the type which then gave the tone to society. Within a short period there was a prime minister who always consoled himself under defeats and celebrated triumphs with his bottle; a chancellor who abolished evening sittings on the ground that he was always drunk in the evening; and even an archbishop—an Irish archbishop, it is true—whose jovial habits broke down his constitution. ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... increasing in this manner my knowledge by every available means, to reserve the period of general consideration and of specific recommendation until the whole preliminary reconnoissance should be accomplished. The thing of prime importance is that the game expert should see the reserves, and see them thoroughly. In a measure of such scope what we desire is a well thought-out plan, based on knowledge of the actual conditions, ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... Member of Parliament—the type of man to whom Great Britain commits the direction of her affairs and, by consequence, her well-doing and her well-being and her honour. Liberal or Conservative, are not the features pretty much the same? a solid man, well past fifty, who has spent the prime of his life in business and withdrawn from it with a good reputation and a credit balance equally satisfactory to himself and his bankers. Or it may be that he has not actually retired but has turned to politics to fill up those leisure hours which are the reward or vexation (as he chooses ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... respect it resembled the valuable sealskins of the present day. The coats of the lads were open in front, and within were the pockets, which they used as required, the trowsers also being provided with a couple of these prime necessities. ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... the cattle should all turn their horns against the dog and the shepherd, what becomes of my fine pair? So is it with the Prince and his council. Oh, if ye were only united! Fling off the parsons too, for they are prime movers of all your misery. Do they not teach you, and teach you from your youth up, that ye must have princes and priests? Eh, brothers, where is that written ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... the prime of life. He combined the occupations of manufacturer and farmer, evidenced marked capacity for business, and gave substantial promise of growing leadership. From the schools of Oswego he had entered Union College, and after teaching ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Aunt Ella's room and Uncle Robert's prime cigars were offered to Sir Stuart and Quincy. But Aunt Ella had too much to say to think of her cigarette. For an hour conversation was general; everybody took part in it. The events of the past year, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... hastens hourly and of Death Who need not haste. Scatter your fumes, O lime, Loose from each hispid star of citron bloom, Tangled beneath the labyrinthine boughs, Cloud on such stinging cloud of exhalations As reek of youth, fierce life and summer's prime, Though hardly now shall he in that dusk room Savour your sweetness, since the very sprig, Profuse of blossom and of essences, He smells not, who in a paltering hand Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, Your curfew secrets out ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... Desmond, Caesar's father, came down to Harrow and gave a luncheon at the King's Head. From time immemorial the Desmonds had been educated on the Hill. The family had produced some famous soldiers, a Lord Chancellor, and a Prime Minister. In the Fourth Form Room the stranger may read their names carved in oak, and they are carved also in the hearts of all ardent Harrovians. Mr. Desmond, though a Cabinet Minister, found time to visit Harrow once at least in each term. He always chose a whole holiday, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... guessed that among the jostling throng of soldiers, statesmen, and philosophers this obscure playwright was the intellectual king. But Time has more than redressed the wrong, for now he is not only reverenced as a sovereign but sometimes worshiped as an oracle. The prime secret of his power, compared with the men before him and about him, is his return to reality. It is the actual world, the actual men and women in it, that he portrays, and not the puppets or shadows of a made-up world. It is a change of standpoint such as ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... their ways are their own, and their own problems loom large to them. The English production of parts has come through, or is proceeding satisfactorily, but the rest is in hopeless confusion. The Red menace from Russia is the prime reason, of course. With the Reds mobilizing their forces, we cannot blame her neighbors for preparing to defend themselves. But our program!—and the sure invasion that will come in six short months!—to be fighting ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... that they might entertain this very probable expectation; and they congratulated the Academy especially for having prepared this great work, and for having been the rallying point, the centre, and the prime mover of the liberty ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... Castle as much he does, and that it is very fit he should instruct the young Queen in the business of government, but he disapproves of his being always at her side, even contrary to the rules of etiquette; for as a Prime Minister has no precedence, he ought not to be placed in the post of honour to the exclusion of those of higher ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... promoted to office in the Cabinet; was accused of corruption by the opposite party when in power, and committed to the Tower; on his release after acquittal was re-elected for King's Lynn; in 1715 became First Lord of the Treasury, and in 1721 became Prime Minister, which he continued to be for twenty-one years, but not without opposition on account of his pacific policy; on being driven against his will into a war with Spain, which proved unsuccessful, he retired into private life; he stood high in repute for his financial policy; it was he ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Neaera; about the two heroes, Walter Lorraine and his rival the young duke—"and what good company you introduce us to," said the young lady, archly, "quel ton! How much of your life have you passed at court, and are you a prime minister's ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a long time for God to keep him in His school, a long time for a man to wait in the prime of his life, from forty to eighty. Moses had been brought us with all the luxuries that Egypt could give him, and now he was a shepherd, and in the sight of the Egyptians a shepherd was an abomination. I have ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... in mind the many Poets distinguished by this prime quality, whose names I omit to mention; yet justified by recollection of the insults which the ignorant, the incapable, and the presumptuous, have heaped upon these and my other writings, I may be permitted to anticipate the judgment of posterity upon myself, I shall declare (censurable, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... You'll know Monsieur Edouard!" The keeper shook my hand. "H'I'll was work for Monsieur Edouard manny tam hon hees boat, hon hees plantation, hon hees 'ouse. When I'll want some leetle money, s'pose those hrat he'll wasn't been prime yet, hall H'I'll need was to go non Monsieur Edouard, hask for those leetle monny. He'll han' it on me, yass, heem, ten dollar, jus' like as heasy Monsieur has gave it me hondred ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... by three influential chiefs, who are brothers DRISONG, KHOSHA, and GHALOOM: of these, DRISONG is the eldest and the most powerful, but he resides far in the interior. PRIMSONG is from a distant stock, and as the three brothers mentioned above are all passed the prime of life, there is but little doubt that he will soon become by far the most influential chief of his tribe. Both tribes appear to intermarry. The Mishmees are a small, active, hardy race, with the Tartar cast of features; they are excessively dirty, and have not the reputation of being ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... a man considerably past his prime, and his florid face and portly form indicated that he was in the habit of doing ample justice to the good cheer before him. Intense application to business in early years and indulgence of appetite in later life had seriously impaired a constitution naturally good. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... favourite pursuits in course of time, without hindrance to what is now the main object of my life. I tell Netty to look to being a "Frau Professorin" one of these odd days, and she has faith, as I believe would have if I told her I was going to be Prime Minister. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... made any difference in Beasley's fate, except mebbe to hurry it a little. My dad is old, an' when he talks it's like history. He looks back on happenin's. Wal, it's the nature of happenin's that Beasley passes away before his prime. Them of his breed don't live old in the West.... So I reckon you needn't feel bad or worry. You've ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... in which these two distinguished commanders had led opposing sides, had cost the nation not only thousands of men, the vast majority in the prime of their young manhood, but millions of dollars. But it had two striking results: it preserved the Union, for it was now clear that no State could secede at will; and it put an end to slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation had set free only those slaves in the States and ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... supports are of stone, and, being placed at considerable distances, have cast-iron pillars between them. The carriages are to be dragged along with a velocity hitherto unparalleled, by means of a rope drawn by a steam engine or other prime mover, a series being placed at intervals along the railway. From the construction of the railway and carriages the friction ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... alone would be much bruited through the city by the townsmen in strains clamorous and in wailings, of which may Jove prove rightly called the Averter to the city of the Cadmaeans.[83] And now it behooves you—both him who still falls short of youth in its prime, and him who in point of age has passed his youth, nurturing the ample vigor of his frame and each that is in his prime,[84] as is best fitting—to succor the city, and the altars of your country's gods, so that their honors may never be obliterated; your children too, and your ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... and Miss Hastings, and one each with a number of other young ladies whom he had met but vaguely, and one each with some whom he had not met at all. He dutifully went through the first dance with a young lady of excellent connections who would make a prime companion for any advancing young man with social aspirations; he went dutifully through the next dance with a young lady who was keen on intellectual pursuits, and who would make an excellent helpmate for any young ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It has already passed through some of the disorders to which children are liable; it succeeded ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... peril and mischief that fair trio inflicted upon Anne of Austria's great Prime Minister and the State he governed we have an interesting personal record. When, in 1660, Mazarin's policy, triumphant on every side, had added the treaty of the Pyrenees to that of Westphalia, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... pity, and, with the thoughtless and inconsiderate, it is but too often an object of ridicule and contempt. Many a great man has, ere now, survived to reach this sad stage in his career; but it does not therefore follow that the glorious deeds of his prime are to be ignored or forgotten. As it has been with the distinguished warrior or statesman or author, so it is with the Long Parliament. England owes it a great debt of gratitude on many accounts, but the one ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... interested, and of which he supposed all educated women must by now have learnt the ABC. She could not have given him the simplest historical outline of the great war; he saw that she was quite uncertain whether Lloyd George or Asquith were Prime Minister; and as to politics and public persons in Canada, where she had clearly lived some time, her mind seemed to be a complete blank. None the less she had read a good deal—novels and poetry at least—and she took a queerly pessimistic ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... The moral tangle of it. You don't know how its possibilities and limitations are canvassed and schemed about, long before a single member is appointed. Old Cassidy worked the whole thing with the prime minister. I can see that now as plain as daylight. I might have seen it at first.... Three experts who'd been got at; they thought I'd been got at; two Labour men who'd do anything you wanted them to do provided you called ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... countries there is what might be called a summer sleep. Bears begin in the fall to look out for a soft nest; and if it's possible for them to eat more at one time than another they do it then, and when the cold weather sets in they are fat and in prime condition. According to some authorities, the fat produces the carbon that in some way tends to induce somnolency. The stomach of a bear at this time becomes empty, and naturally shrivels or draws into a very small space, and is rendered totally useless ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... course, that the marriage can be annulled. In the first place, you neither of you had the intention of being married to each other. In all the sacraments, the intention of those to whom they are administered is the prime consideration. It would only be necessary for you and the princess to swear that you had no intention of being married, and that it was, to the best of your knowledge, entirely an accident, and all difficulties ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... Chesterfield is gone into the country for it. At all which I am sorry; but it is the effect of idlenesse, and having nothing else to employ their great spirits upon. At night to my office, and did business; and there come to me Mr. Wade and Evett, who have been again with their prime intelligencer, a woman, I perceive: and though we have missed twice, yet they bring such an account of the probability of the truth of the thing, though we are not certain of the place, that we shall set upon it once more; and I am willing and hopefull in ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... a character. He was young, in the fairest prime of youth; but it was the face of an old man on young shoulders. His hair was long, thin, and prematurely streaked with gray; his face was pale and deeply furrowed; his eyes were hollow, and their stare gleamed, cold and stolid, under his bent and shaggy brows. The figure was at once fragile and ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... The terms explain themselves. An analytic language is one that either does not combine concepts into single words at all (Chinese) or does so economically (English, French). In an analytic language the sentence is always of prime importance, the word is of minor interest. In a synthetic language (Latin, Arabic, Finnish) the concepts cluster more thickly, the words are more richly chambered, but there is a tendency, on the whole, to keep the range of concrete significance in ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... workmanship, yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of their execution. Undertakings, any one of which singly might have required, they thought, for their completion, several successions and ages of men, were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man's political service. Although they say, too, that Zeuxis once, having heard Agatharchus the painter boast of dispatching his work with speed and ease, replied, "I take a long time." For ease and speed in doing a thing do ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... so no more was heard of her this night. Three or four of the frequenters of the public-house were on the spot; but though they lent a hand to throw fresh loads of fuel on the fire, they did not take their pipes from their mouths, nor seem to be prime movers in the riot. The yellow blaze lighted up a hundred faces, scowling with anger or grinning with mirth, but they were all strange—strange as the incidents of the day. A little retired from the glare of the fire, was a ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... fighting he got his place, and the habit being strong upon him, he was in eternal conflict. Some there be who are developed by sympathy, but Henri IV was developed by opposition, and thus it was that although opposed in the matter by his Prime Minister, Sully, he established factories for the weaving of tapestries in ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... way up the harbour, the Captain pointed out the long line of old hulks moored on either side of the stream that had once, when in their prime, been esteemed the ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... know it, cried Richard; and if it were in my power, Id make Duke a king. He is a noble hearted fellow, and would make an excellent king; that is, if he had a good prime minister. But who have we here? voices in the bushesa combination about mischief, Ill wager my commission. Let us draw near and examine a ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the marble that once faced the interior, and is like some monstrous oval shaped out of the earth, but near the imperial box lay some white slabs with initials cut in them which restored the vision of the "grandeur that was Rome" pretty well over the known world when this great work was in its prime. Our custodian was qualified by his toothlessness to lisp like any old Castilian the letters that other Andalusians hiss, but my own Spanish was so slight and his patois was so dense that the best we could do was to establish a ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... they can be better furnished; they being obliged to leave behind them the same Number of the same Animals. Some Glebes, as that at James Town, have this Convenience, and 'tis Pity but more Parishes followed such Examples: The prime Cost in stocking their Glebes by Degrees would be insignificant; and the chief Trouble would be for the Church-Wardens to receive the Stock from the Executors of one Incumbent, and deliver them again ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... north transept of Westminster Abbey, almost lost among the colossal statues of our prime ministers, our judges, and our soldiers, will be found a small group of memorials preserving the illustrious names of Darwin, Lister, Stokes, Adams, and Watt, and reminding us of the great place which Science has taken in the progress of the last century. Watt, thanks partly ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... of astonishment. Not only mentally, then, was the President of the P. and S. W. a giant. Seventy years of age and still at his post, holding there with the energy, with a concentration of purpose that would have wrecked the health and impaired the mind of many men in the prime ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... assurances of Lord Castlereagh the British representatives did not make their appearance for a month. Meantime the American commissioners made themselves at home among the hospitable Flemish townspeople, with whom they became prime favorites. In the concert halls they were always greeted with enthusiasm. The musicians soon discovered that British tunes were not in favor and endeavored to learn some American airs. Had the Americans no national ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... a bullet into the brain of Price; but John Stevens was a man of peace and not of blood. His days were few on earth; his race was almost run, and the prime and vigor of his manhood had been wasted on a desert island. His only desire was to hover unknown about those he loved, that they might not want or suffer while he lived, and he had already arranged his fortune so it would descend to Robert and ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... case?—Captain Dickens speeds silently with his Despatch; will find Lord Harrington, not Townshend any more; [Resigned 15th May, 1730: Despatch to Hotham, as farewell, of that date.] will copiously open his lips to Harrington on matters Prussian. A brisk military man, in the prime of his years; who might do as Prussian Envoy himself, if nothing great were going on? Harrington's final ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... time to keep his "Review" going. We see him "trimming" afresh, with masterly disregard to every appeal save that of his purse, when Godolphin surrendered the treasurer's staff, and Harley once more became prime minister. "My duty," says he, with that wonderful countenance of gravity, and that fine air of outraged honor, which express him in his political writings certainly, as the very prince of humbugs, "was to go along ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... creatures. We came out gipsies of the deepest dye, for we had got a pennorth of walnut stain from Mr. Jameson the builder, and mixed with water—the water we had brought in a medicine-bottle—it was a prime disguise. And we knew it would wash off, unlike the Condy's fluid we once stained ourselves with during a ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... through the dry and the wet season, with advancing age the human body undergoes like changes, and diseases assume certain characteristics, are also points that are overlooked; and nowhere is this latter view seen to be more neglected than in the relations the prepuce bears to infancy, prime and old age, as will be more fully explained in the chapters in this book which treat of cancer and gangrene. Admitting that Haviland has exaggerated the influence of climate as an etiological factor in its specific influence in producing ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... that the Academy presents of it, as I conceive, contradict me, when I say, that this first fury inspired by the son of Venus into the heart of the lover, upon sight of the flower and prime of a springing and blossoming youth, to which they allow all the insolent and passionate efforts that an immoderate ardour can produce, was simply founded upon external beauty, the false image of corporal generation; for it could not ground this love upon the soul, the sight of which as yet lay ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... degree of permanent humidity of the soil; and finally, the direct action of the oxygen of the air upon the strata of earth which contain the ferment. If a single one of these three conditions be wanting, the development of malaria becomes impossible. This is a point of prime importance in the natural history of malaria, and it gives us the key to most of the methods of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... Prime Minister has been in favour again. What was a virtue in May ought of this conference once, and he may be so not to be a crime for us in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... to learn, that virtue, knowledge, freedom, and prosperity must spring from themselves. Legislation can do very little for them: it cannot make them sober, intelligent, and well-doing. The prime miseries of most men have their origin in causes far removed from ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... and Saint Benedight Blesse this house from wicked wight; From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight good fellow Robin; Keep it from all evil spirits, Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: From curfew time To the next prime. CARTWRIGHT. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... well employed to study the character of both soil and subsoil. During the interval between visits some casual inquiries may be made among those who know the history of the farm in question, because the past history of the farm obtained from unprejudiced witnesses is of prime importance in arriving at ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... before the royal representative in Kensington Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs. In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... understand what they were saying, but did not even know what the language was. Then he was tried in Modern Greek, with the same result. The truth was that he knew a great deal, but did all in his power to make the world believe it was far more—like the African king, or the English prime minister, who, the longer his shirts were made, insisted on having the higher collars, until the former trailed on the ground and the latter rose above the top of his head—"when they came home from ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... only true faith of Congregationalism. For this reason, and for the further reason that at the tender age of seven years I publicly avowed my desire to become a clergyman, an ambition wholly sincere at that time—for these reasons was I duly installed as prime favorite in ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... "Beans—A prime factor in cold weather camping. Take a long time to cook ('soak all day and cook all night' is the rule). Cannot be cooked done at altitudes of 5,000 feet and upward. Large varieties cook quickest, but the small white navy ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... the better. These villainous old Turks won't be suspicious, and a mile isn't much for either of us, I think. I don't mind it, and we can answer for Tinker and his prime minister." ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... volume entitled Essays and Reviews. This work discussed sundry of the older theological positions which had been rendered untenable by modern research, and brought to bear upon them the views of the newer school of biblical interpretation. The authors were, as a rule, scholars in the prime of life, holding influential positions in the universities and public schools. They were seven—the first being Dr. Temple, a successor of Arnold at Rugby; and the others, the Rev. Dr. Rowland Williams, Prof. Baden ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... examination of those previously marked takes place: those in which no defect can be found receive a second mark, and the rest are condemned. A few months afterwards a third and last scrutiny is made; the prime rams and ewes receive a third and final mark, but the slightest blemish is sufficient to cause the rejection of the animal." These sheep are bred and valued almost exclusively for the fineness of their wool; and the result corresponds with the labour bestowed on their selection. Instruments have ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... or figure as a young saint in a Sunday-school memoir. She took a deep interest in chimney-sweeps from observing a den of little imps who swarmed in a cellar near her home, and on one occasion actually scrambled up a burning chimney, followed by this sooty troop. Her pets were numerous, the prime favorite being a cat named Ginger, from her yellow coat. Her mother, who was shocked by Sydney adding to her nightly petition, "God bless Ginger the cat!" did not share this partiality, as is seen in the young ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... she is young, and in youth sublime. Would gather flowers; My flower is past and my early prime; My locks has Time Besprinkled ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... painters, and too lazy to be engravers. The real copyists—the men who can put their soul into another's work—are employed at home, in their narrow rooms, striving to make their good work profitable to all men. And in their submission to the public taste they are truly national servants as much as Prime Ministers are. They fulfill the demand of the nation; what, as a people, you wish to have for possession in art, these men are ready to ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... Treasury' (Ib. p. 110), and 'the director or agent of all the King's secret counsels. His appearance was abject, his countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guilt; and, though his ambition and rapacity were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he really was, his very look would have encouraged opposition.' Ib. p. 135. The third Earl of Liverpool wrote to Mr. Croker on Dec. 7, 1845: —'Very shortly before George III's accession my ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... the womb of morning dew, And her conception of the joyous prime, And all her whole creation did her show Pure and unspotted from all loathly crime That is ingenerate in fleshly slime. So was this Virgin born, so was she bred, So was she trained up from time to time, In all chaste virtue and true bounti-hed, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... inirritable constitutions, are absorbed by the activity of the absorbents induced by the stimulus of the electric aura. For this operation the easiest method is to fix a pointed wire to a stick of sealing wax, or to an insulating handle of glass, one end of this wire communicates with the prime conductor, and the point is approached near the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... fellow, with a spirit as heavy as his feet. You think me broken and down and out." The hands spread wide again. "I—down and out? Why, Davy, I've been like this a score of times, and I am still game. You must not think that because of a little temporary embarrassment I am in prime condition to go crawling to Rufus and tell him that I have failed and need his help. I told Rufus that I would come back and claim Penelope when she could be proud to own me as her father." He brought his fist down on his knee again. "She couldn't be very proud ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... quiet and unfrequented street leading down to the boat- landing was presently thronged by Rivermouthians—men, women, and children. The arrival of a United States vessel always stirred an emotion in the town. Naval officers were prime favorites in aristocratic circles, and there were few ships in the service that did not count among their blue-jackets one or more men belonging to the port. Thus all sea-worn mariners in Uncle Sam's employ were sure of both patrician ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich



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