Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Specific   Listen
adjective
specific  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to a species; characterizing or constituting a species; possessing the peculiar property or properties of a thing which constitute its species, and distinguish it from other things; as, the specific form of an animal or a plant; the specific qualities of a drug; the specific distinction between virtue and vice. "Specific difference is that primary attribute which distinguishes each species from one another."
2.
Specifying; definite, or making definite; limited; precise; discriminating; as, a specific statement.
3.
(Med.) Exerting a peculiar influence over any part of the body; preventing or curing disease by a peculiar adaptation, and not on general principles; as, quinine is a specific medicine in cases of malaria. "In fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science."
Specific character (Nat. Hist.), a characteristic or characteristics distinguishing one species from every other species of the same genus.
Specific disease (Med.)
(a)
A disease which produces a determinate definite effect upon the blood and tissues or upon some special tissue.
(b)
A disease which is itself uniformly produced by a definite and peculiar poison or organism.
Specific duty. (Com.) See under Duty.
Specific gravity. (Physics) See under Gravity.
Specific heat (Physics), the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body one degree, taking as the unit of measure the quantity required to raise the same weight of water from zero to one degree; thus, the specific heat of mercury is 0.033, that of water being 1.000.
Specific inductive capacity (Physics), the effect of a dielectric body in producing static electric induction as compared with that of some other body or bodies referred to as a standard.
Specific legacy (Law), a bequest of a particular thing, as of a particular animal or piece of furniture, specified and distinguished from all others.
Specific name (Nat. Hist.), the name which, appended to the name of the genus, constitutes the distinctive name of the species; originally applied by Linnaeus to the essential character of the species, or the essential difference. The present specific name he at first called the trivial name.
Specific performance (Law), the peformance of a contract or agreement as decreed by a court of equity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Specific" Quotes from Famous Books



... wronged. Injustice may also be done by treating a person better than others; but the wrong in this case is to his competitors, who are also assignable persons. It seems to me that this feature in the case—a right in some person, correlative to the moral obligation—constitutes the specific difference between justice, and generosity or beneficence. Justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right. No one has a moral ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... will show how closely Aristotle held to the theory of Epigenesis; and in another place he says, "Not at once is the animal a man or a horse, for the end is last attained; and the specific form is the end of ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... those who could speak, would be little indeed removed from the brutes. And the moral and intellectual difference between them and ourselves would be practically infinite, though the naturalist should not be able to find a single shadow of even specific structural difference. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... superhuman intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance of its apparent products to those of human intelligence consists in a general approximation of method rather than in any precise similarity of particulars: the likeness is generic rather than specific. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

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

... mental disturbances, and the core and essence of his trouble was an intellectual distress. For the first time in his life he was really in doubt, about himself, about his way of living, about all his persuasions. It was a general doubt. It was not a specific suspicion upon this point or that. It was a feeling of detachment and unreality at once extraordinarily vague and extraordinarily oppressive. It was as if he discovered himself flimsy and transparent in a world of minatory solidity and opacity. It ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... been dazed by the cosmic torrent, but here was something specific;—and it was astounding. They regarded the speaker with awe. They wanted to be told how one could perform the feat, but dreaded to incur ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... "the difficulty of tracing the streams of porphyries to their ancient and doubtless numerous eruptive sources, may be partly explained by the very general disturbance which the Cordillera in most parts has suffered"; but, Darwin adds, "a more specific cause may be that 'the original points of eruption tend to become the points of injection'...On this view of there being a tendency in the old points of eruption to become the points of subsequent injection and disturbance, and consequently of denudation, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... but riding about, giving orders, and going to market; and he thought that a clergyman would give him a great many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospel and Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the Collect. But in the absence of specific information, it was impossible for him to imagine that school and a schoolmaster would be something entirely different from the academy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not to be at a deficiency, in case of his finding genial companions, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... supposed to have been sent over from America by friends of the Royalists. Among the emissaries captured he read the name of Cedric Ruskin, an old schoolfellow and great-grandson to an art critic of that surname who flourished in former days by force of his own specific gravity. Pained at the intelligence, he sighed heavily, and was on the point of sitting down upon a rustic bench close at hand when a melodious, gladsome voice hallooing his name broke in upon his meditation. He looked up and ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... to be such, not because I ignore the value of other uses, I venture to push aside all aims which seem secondary to this for later mention under specific heads. Here in the beginning of our consideration I wish to emphasise this element alone. A story is a work of art. Its greatest use to the child is in the everlasting appeal of beauty by which the soul of man is constantly pricked to new hungers, quickened ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... Pitch; Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the—which, Scabies or Psora, is thy chosen name Since Hahnemann's goose-quill scratched thee into fame, Proved thee the source of every nameless ill, Whose sole specific is a moonshine pill, Till saucy Science, with a quiet grin, Held up the Acarus, crawling on a pin? —Mountains have labored and have brought forth mice The Dutchman's theory hatched a brood of—twice I've well-nigh ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... where in fantastic vases wines of sorts I have described before were put out for all who came to try them. There was medicine here for every kind of dulness—not the gross cure which earthly wine effects, but so nicely proportioned to each specific need that one could regulate one's debauch to a hairbreadth, rising through all the gamut of satisfaction, from the staid contentment coming of that flask there to the wild extravagances of the furthermost vase. So my stripling told me, running her finger down the line of beakers carved with ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... fire and foxiness, or he may slide backward into cold and leaden dulness: all of which are extremes he must avoid. There are also other important prejudices to which the eye is liable in regard to colours individually, that demand his particular attention. These are occasioned by the various specific powers of single colours acting on the eye according to their masses and the activity of light, or the length of time they are viewed. By consequence, vision becomes over-stimulated, unequally exhausted, and endued, even before ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... we cannot stand upon trifles nor fret ourselves about such matters [as a few blemishes]. Time enough for that afterwards, when larger works come before us. Archimedes in the bath had many particulars to settle about specific gravities and Hiero's crown, but he first gave a ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... the early hours of Whit Monday, before Millie was hunted out for the day, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Their business there was of a private nature, and had something to do with the specific gravity of their beer. They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs. Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla from their joint-room. As she was the expert and principal operator in this affair, Hall very ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... is produced annually by the Central Intelligence Agency for the use of United States Government officials, and the style, format, coverage, and content are designed to meet their specific requirements. Comments and queries are welcome and may ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Theory, Oberlin Conservatory of Music; and Charles I. Rice, Supervisor of Music, Worcester, Mass., as well as to various members of the Music Teachers' National Association who have offered valuable advice along certain specific lines. ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... vice, in all ages, must differ from virtue. But in Vasari's sight they are alike; in ours, they must be so, as far as regards our present purpose. As men of a school, they are to be summed under the general name of 'Byzantines;' their work all alike showing specific characters of attenuate, rigid, and in many respects offensively unbeautiful, design, to which Vasari's epithets of "goffa, e sproporzionata" are naturally applied by all persons trained only in modern principles. Under masters, then, of this Byzantine race, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... beaten from any specific enterprise, was ever ready with a fresh one. During those days when, like a convalescing wolf, he lay hiding with his wounds from the sight and search of men, his disorderly and, one might say, his criminal, imagination busied itself in sketching ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... float, enabling the creature to move with ease under the weight of its shell. The various air-chambers, though the siphuncle passes through them, have no direct connection with one another; and it is believed that the animal has the power of slightly altering its specific gravity, and thus of rising or sinking in the water by driving additional fluid into the siphuncle or partially emptying it. The Orthoceras further agrees with the Pearly Nautilus in the fact that the partitions or septa separating the different air-chambers are simple and ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... mountains. These waters are freely drank, as well as bathed in, and are highly charged with sulphureted hydrogen, and contain sulphate of lime and carbonate of magnesia. There are some diseases of women for which the San Diego waters are considered to be a specific, and remarkable cures are authenticated. Rheumatism and skin diseases are specially treated by the local physician. There is a very fair hotel at San Diego, located near the baths, and many Americans speak warmly in praise of the place as a ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... Mitscherlich, communicated to the Academy of Sciences, set him on fire with curiosity. Mitscherlich declared: "The paratartrate and the tartrate of soda and ammonia have the same chemical composition, the same crystalline form, the same angles, the same specific weight, the same double refraction, and the same inclination of the optic axes. Dissolved in water, their refraction is the same. But while the dissolved tartrate causes the plane of polarized light to rotate, the paratartrate exacts ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... in surgery is well known; and it is also used, medicinally, being for this purpose lightly burned to powder, and given in small doses in scrofulous complaints. It has also been regarded as a specific in leprosy and hydrophobia. It is, however, needless to say that in these last it can have no ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... into its tanks a greater quantity of water ballast in the North Sea, to be properly weighted, than when diving into fresher waters. Even with small submarines of 400 tons displacement, there is the enormous difference of 10 tons between 1.025 specific weight in the intake of North Sea water and 1.000 specific weight of fresh water. On the other hand, if too much water is admitted into the tanks, the submarine may plunge with great velocity deeper and deeper beyond its appointed depth, and in such a case ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner

... would induce me to verify, as for example by any revisiting light; but it was going to be good for me, good, that is, for what I was pleased to regard as my intelligence or my imagination, in fine for my obscurely specific sense of things, that I should so have hung about. The name of the street was by itself of so gentle and intimate a persuasion that I must have been ashamed not to proceed, for the very grace of it, to some shade of active response. And there was always ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... minds are attached to worldly pleasures, they that regard (a) heaven (of pleasures and enjoyments) as the highest object of acquisition,—utter and promises birth as the fruit of action and concerns itself with multifarious rites of specific characters for the attainment of pleasures and power,—delude their hearts and the minds of these men who are attached to pleasures and power cannot be directed to contemplation (of the divine ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Council.] read his essay on the Miseries of Human Life, he had all the advantage of a gloomy, overcast day. And so the aspect of the external world was to the essay like the accompaniment in music to a song. The accompaniment, of course, has no specific meaning; it says nothing, but it appears to accord and sympathize with the sense conveyed by the song's words. But gloomy hills and skies and woods are to desponding views of life and man, even more than the sympathetic chords, in themselves meaningless. The gloomy world not merely accords ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... initiative, much facilitated the application of his plans, by committing the execution of major details to the two senior captains, Saumarez and Troubridge, each wielding a group of four ships. Among the provisions for specific contingencies was one that evidently sprang from the report that the enemy's fleet numbered sixteen or seventeen of the line,—an impression which arose from there being in it four Venetian ships so rated, which were not, however, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... wrenched them off to give ingress to the family on the day of recapture. He glanced around the room; nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Nevertheless he was uneasy. The suspicions of a frank, trustful nature when once aroused are apt to be more general and far-reaching than the specific distrusts of the disingenuous, for they imply the overthrow of a whole principle and not a mere detail. Clarence's conviction that Susy had seen Pedro recently since his dismissal led him into the wildest surmises of her motives. It was possible ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... The same can be done with the oil of jasmine. If the pomade is used, it must be cut up fine previously to being put into the spirit; if the oil is used, it must be shaken well together every two or more hours, otherwise, on account of its specific gravity, the oil separates, and but little surface is exposed to the spirit. After the extract is strained off, the "washed" pomatum or oil is still useful, if remelted, in the composition of pomatum for the hair, and gives more satisfaction ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... said equably. "In any case, to continue: this machine interprets those specific feelings as indications that ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... most interesting and valuable features of all national conventions are the reports of the work in the various States and yet because of the large number it is impossible to give specific mention or quotations. They were varied on this occasion by the reports from foreign countries—Venezuela, Chili, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Porto Rico, Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... are salubrious. Several are distinctly injurious. Men do not actually "die of a rose in aromatic pain," though many may become uncomfortable and fidgety by sniffing delicious wattle-blossom; and one of the crinum lilies owes its specific title, (PESTILENTIS) to the ill effects of its stainless flowers, those who camp in places where the plant is plentiful being apt to be seized with violent sickness. An attractive fruit with an exalted title (DIOSPYROS HEBECAPRA) scalds the lips and tongue with ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... all your reproaches, madam," said Wolsey, with feigned meekness; "and I will bear them without a murmur. But you have sent for me for some specific object, I presume?" ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... built consist wholly of these Shells. The fresh-water basins were filled with Helices, one of which is represented in the following wood-cut, with Planorbis, Limnaeus and other Shells resembling those now so common in all our lakes and rivers, and differing from the living ones only by slight specific characters. The Bivalves also have the same resemblance to the present ones, including fresh-water Mussels as well as the marine Clams and Oysters. Among Radiates, the higher Echini (Sea-Urchins) have become numerous, while the other Echinoderms ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... specific gravity of the urine of the horse is about 1.040. It is increased when the urine is scanty and decreased when the quantity ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... remind me," said the King hastily, "of one specific falsehood. You foretold yonder Scot should accomplish his enterprise fortunately for my interest and honour; and thou knowest it has so terminated that no more mortal injury could I have received than from the impression which the issue ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... and if you are anxious to come to an understanding with others who have also formed an opinion on the same subject, then all you need do is to communicate with your neighbours and send a delegate to come to an understanding with other delegates on this specific question; but you will certainly reserve to yourselves the right of taking an ultimate decision; you will not entrust your delegate with the making of laws for you. This is how scientists and business men act each time that they have to come to ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin

... Hecate. A black cat, sent with a prayer-book and a bag of sand into a new house, so as to precede the proprietor in possession, was formerly deemed essential to ensure prosperity to the person changing his abode. To steal a black cat, and bury it alive, is in the Irish Highlands, considered as a specific for a disorder in cattle, termed "blacklegs," which ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... people ride natural history hobbies as well as other kinds of hobbies? Almost all persons become interested in some special study, recreation, or pastime, and their choice is not always as profitable as the selection of a specific branch of nature lore would be. The writer confesses that he would rather pursue a bright, lilting bird or butterfly than a bounding tennis-ball or football, and he finds the chase every whit as exciting and the knowledge gained ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... hand in faint protest; but already she had set a glass before him. He knew the Fra Angelico of old. It was a specific against catarrh, and he had more than once prescribed ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... own part, I will own that since I have come to contemplate the specific differences such as they are, between Simple Repeal and Federalism, I do at present feel a preference for the Federative plan, as tending more to the utility of Ireland and the maintenance of the connection with England than ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

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

... generic property of man that he is mortal, which is a consequence of his animality. It is a specific property of man that he is progressive, which is a ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... can be given at any time; besides, there is too small a public for so big a speech. We'll take the trio—do, mi, sol, do. It is not as ideal as the aria, but it evinces greater familiarity with the specific conditions. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg

... the most interesting of any, as the first that has been seen with its scales perfect; and the naturalists here have availed themselves of the opportunity thus afforded them, to determine it by a specific character, and give it the ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... its effects banished. The Holy Spirit comes in, filling the nature of man with righteousness and purity. You must get your mind on the real work of sanctification, not on some of its special manifestations in some people's experiences. The manifestations of sanctification may be more specific for some people than others, because they ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress and housekeeping, I ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... your foreigner has the native-born Canadian beaten at the start. Where the Canadian earns ten dollars and spends eighty per cent. of it, your foreigner earns five dollars, and saves almost all of it. How does he do this? He spends next to nothing. Let me be perfectly specific on how he does it: I have known Russian, Hebrew, Italian families in the Northwest who sewed their children into their clothes for the winter and never permitted a change till spring. Your Canadian would buy half a dozen suits for his children in the interval. Your foreigner buys of furniture ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... has been represented at the annual conventions of the N. A. W. S. A. Its presidents have been: Mrs. Chapman, New York; Lucy Sutton, Baltimore; Mary Bentley Thomas, Ednor, Md.; Ellen H. E. Price, Philadelphia; Anne Webb Janney, Baltimore. The specific task of the association has been to get a clear utterance on woman suffrage from the different Yearly Meetings, representing in total membership about 20,000. Invariably they have endorsed the principle and any pending legislation in ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... itself direction from the faculty of judgement. Thus, it is evident that the understanding is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgement is a peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but only exercise. This faculty is therefore the specific quality of the so-called mother wit, the want of which no scholastic discipline ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... the form of exposition which still governs geometrical work, simply because it is dictated by strict logic. It is seen in Euclid's propositions, with their separate formal divisions, to which specific names were afterwards assigned, (1) the enunciation (προτασις {protasis}), (2) the setting-out (εκθεσις {ekthesis}), (3) the διορισμος {diorismos}, being a re-statement of what we are required to do or prove, not in general terms (as in the enunciation), but with reference ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... into a porcelain dish and left absolutely at rest for eight days. It is then decanted and filtered, left six days at rest, and again decanted (if necessary). The liquid should have a specific gravity of 5 deg. on the acid hydrometer. (If by this the Baume scale is intended, the corresponding specific gravity would be 1.037.) A second liquid is prepared by grinding up 25 grams of litharge with 25 grams of borate of lead and 8 to 10 grams of oil of lavender. The ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... it was too much to be feared, of the good, brave, intelligent boy, so far in advance of his years, and who was loved by all as their own child. The only remedy which existed against this terrible malignant fever, the only specific which could overcome it, was not to be found ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... the specific charge. Mr. South may be a man of unusual talent and strength. But—he has done what no other man has done—with you. He has caused club gossip, which may easily be twisted ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... reply; there is something in it, that is certain, but nothing yet sufficiently known to warrant any specific conclusions ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... of the man whom he treated so badly, but whose devotion to him it seemed that nothing could destroy. There arose the Popular Rebellion, and Warwick only arrived at Olney, where the king was sorely pressed, in time to save him and to secure, on specific terms, a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... desertions there is specific information regarding three years. Desertion was prevalent in the army at this time, and in order to provide methods of combating it the Secretary of War presented to Congress a great deal of information covering the years from 1823 to 1825.[241] During these three years there were stationed ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... intrigue or financial considerations have a sweeping way with them, and before a year was out the records of the council show clearly that it was rising to its enormous opportunity, and partly through its own direct control and partly through a series of specific committees, it was planning a new common social order for the entire population of the earth. 'There can be no real social stability or any general human happiness while large areas of the world and large classes of people are in a phase of civilisation different ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... arrived from England. This ship had sailed from the Downs so lately as the 25th of February, having been only four months and twelve days on her passage. She brought out convicts, by contract, at a specific sum for each person. But to demonstrate the effect of humanity and justice, of 144 female convicts embarked on board only three had died, and the rest were landed in perfect health, all loud in praise of their conductor. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... these three specific exhortations here, I wish to try to bring out their connection as well as the force of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... large quantities from coal tar besides existing in crystalline deposits," replied Luke Evans. "It is so volatile that I estimate that a single ton will darken all eastern North America for five days. Whereas the concentration would be made only in specific areas liable to attack. The gas is distilled with great facility from one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... should be withdrawn as unsuitable, and its use should not form part of the training. It requires, in order to attain its specific effect against rifle-pits, such accurate aiming as is very seldom possible in ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... boat were all forecastle hands, the one steering having the appearance of being either the boatswain or the carpenter of the ship, and this it was that gave me—and no doubt the skipper and mate also—the first specific hint of what was actually wrong aboard the stranger. Nothing, however, was said; and presently, when the boat came rounding under our stern, Captain Martin and Mr Bryce descended to the main deck and awaited our visitors at the gangway, our own steerage ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... in some cases the will of the owner, though directly only towards an uncertain person, transfers the ownership of the thing, as for instance when praetors and consuls throw money to a crowd: here they know not which specific coin each person will get, yet they make the unknown recipient immediately owner, because it is their will that each ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... imagine what valuable training such a practical environment furnished. Nobody nagged at the men, nobody drove them on. Each of the thirty or forty employees pegged away at his particular task, either doing work for a specific customer or trying to perfect some notion of his own. If you were a person of ideas, it was an ideal conservatory in which ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... to the national Whig convention of that year. I was an earnest advocate of General Scott, and rejoiced in his nomination. Here, again, the slavery question was obtruded into national politics. The clear and specific indorsement of the compromise measures, though supported by a great majority, divided the Whig party and led to the election of Franklin Pierce. In this canvass I took for the first time an active part. I was designated ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... show that he was ill-informed about the advances of knowledge in his own time. And his mind was often not clear when he came to deal with complex phenomena. Thus, though he constructed a table of specific gravities—"the only collection," says Mr. Ellis, "of quantitative experiments that we find in his works," and "wonderfully accurate considering the manner in which they were obtained;" yet he failed to understand the real nature of the famous experiment of Archimedes. And so ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... secondary schools offer have not been taken advantage of to induce the specific study of civics to any greater extent that in the elementary schools, although many schools are able to devote at least a period each week to the consideration of current events, and, naturally, the teaching of history ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... their fathers is He alone to whom prayers and praises are to be addressed. He is regarded as the Lord of all creation, both as a whole and in its specific parts. He is looked up to to make good the old promises (13), being full of mercy (19), as well as of power and glory (20, 22, 68). He is a king (33), just (4), and gracious (67), with an ear open to the addresses of his people. The righteousness of even His ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... because alike mortal and endowed with similar physical functions and organs, are considered more nearly related to man than are the gods; more nearly related to the gods than is man, because more mysterious, and characterized by specific instincts and powers which man does not of himself possess. Again, the elements and phenomena of nature, because more mysterious, powerful and immortal, seem more closely related to the higher gods than are the animals; more closely related to the animals than are the higher gods, ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing

... Also known as "canoe cedar," and described in Jepson's Silva of California under the more recent specific name ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... process not known to the law. For himself, he proclaimed with effective emphasis his allegiance to that great tribunal in the performance of its constitutional duties. Lincoln replied that he also bowed to the Dred Scott decision in the specific case; but he repudiated it as a binding rule in political action.[81] His point seemed more obscure than was usual with him, and not satisfactory as an answer to Douglas. But as matter of fact no one was deceived by the amusing adage of the profession: that the courts do ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

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

... throughout Italy, that Van Eyck not merely improved, but first introduced, the art of oil-painting, and that no mixture of color with linseed or nut oil had taken place before his time. We are only informed of the new and important part of the invention, under the pointedly specific and peculiarly Vasarian expression—"altre sue misture." But the real value of the passage is dependent on the one fact of which it puts us in possession, and with respect to which there is every reason to believe it trustworthy, that it was in search of a ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... the world, formerly inhabited by one stock, is now the dwelling-place of another, and we will prove the change to be the result of migration, or of intermixture, and not of modification of character by climatic influences. Finally, prove to us that the evidence in favour of the specific distinctness of many animals, admitted to be distinct species by all zoologists, is a whit better than that upon which we maintain the specific ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... the presence of the vast mass of incandescent material within the enclosure of each sphere-crust, it may reasonably be inferred, nay the very nature of human reason compels the decision, that they are placed there for some specific purpose, and that their operations are ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... moral powers, I have considered various feelings as distinct parts of our constitution, each intended to answer a specific purpose in the present scene of moral discipline. I am aware of an objection that may be urged against this mode of viewing the subject,—namely, that it is an unnecessary multiplication of original principles. I am not inclined ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

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

... supervise these payments. She further agrees to restore to the Allies cash and certain articles which can be identified. As an immediate step toward restoration, Germany shall pay within two years $5,000,000,000 in either gold, goods, ships or other specific forms of payment. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... here and there I must interrupt such special study by recurring to general principles, or points of wider interest. But the scope of such larger inquiry will be best seen, and the use of it best felt, by entering now on specific study. ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... limits of the species, even after the most prolonged selection—still less can it lead to the production of new, permanent characters." It has been the wont of Darwinians to base their speculations on the assumption that "an inconceivably long time" could effect almost anything in the matter of specific transformations. But the evidence which has been amassed during the past forty years leaves no doubt that there is a limit to individual variability which neither time nor skill avail to remove. As M. Blanchard asserts in his work, La vie des etres ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... with two flagella, one of which is usually trailed along under and behind the animal. The anterior end is usually pointed, with the flagella arising from a minute depression; the posterior end is rounded. Specific characters very difficult to analyze. ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins

... no enlightened Patriot will impute to me a wish to disparage the characters of men high in authority, or to detract from the estimation which is fairly due to them. My purpose is to guard against unreasonable expectations. That specific knowledge,—the paramount importance of which, in the present condition of Europe, I am insisting upon,—they, who usually fill places of high trust in old governments, neither do—nor, for the most part, can—possess: ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... charitable purposes and not for financial gain. For purposes of this section the social functions of any college or university fraternity or sorority shall not be included unless the social function is held solely to raise funds for a specific charitable purpose. ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... to cultivate cooperation among all Lutherans in the promotion of the general interests of the Church, to seek the unification of all Lutherans in one orthodox faith, and thus to develop and unfold the specific Lutheran principle and practise, and make their strength effective."—"Article VIII: Powers. . . . Section 6: As to the Maintenance of Principle and Practise. The United Lutheran Church in America shall protect and enforce its ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... therefore accommodate only about one sixth of the ship's company. As the "gig" would carry only five or six persons,—while the shallop was stowed between decks and could be of no service in case of need upon the voyage,—the inference is warranted that other boats were carried, which fail of specific mention, or that she was wofully lacking. The want of boats for unlading, mentioned by Bradford, suggests the possibility that some of the ship's quota may have been lost or destroyed on her boisterous voyage, though no such event appears of record, or is suggested by any ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... soldiers facing Joffre were acting on general orders printed for them eight years before, and under specific orders which had been worked out by their high command with the particularity of machine specifications. And all their presumptions were based on the French doing what Teutons would do in the same circumstances. Their extra-suspender-button ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

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

... "Resolved, That by specific decree of this council, and under regulations hereafter to be made, the estates, both real and personal, of all those who have been, or hereafter may be, identified as tories, aiders and abettors of the enemy, within this state, be confiscated for the military defence thereof; and that so much ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... small bed in her mamma's room; for Mrs. Davilow's motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had been born in her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she found that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been forgotten, and begged Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her. That healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little couch, objected to step out into the cold, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... of infidel governments did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding,—the warm water of your mawkish police, and the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... hope, too, of helping to establish a much-desired standard of nomenclature, I have followed the generic names adopted by the authors of The Genera Plantarum, and the specific names and orthography, as far as I have been able, of the Index Kewensis; and where possible I have given the synonyms, the date of introduction, and the native country. The alphabetical arrangement that has been ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster

... investigations show that "not only do acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the unity of the human species, but this opinion is attended with fewer discrepancies, and has greater inner consistency than the opposite one of specific diversity."[2-1] And as to the religions of heathendom, the view of Saint Paul is but expressed with a more poetic turn by a distinguished living author when he calls them "not fables, but truths, though clothed in a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the notion of God, the ideal ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... eternally bubbling over with Compliments and Kind Wishes. Whenever he met an Acquaintance he handed him a rhetorical Yard of Daisies and then smeared him with Sweet Endearments. His talk never had any specific Purport. It was unadulterated Con. The Gusher should have been in the Diplomatic Service. One of his hot Specialties was to get up at Dinner Parties and propose Toasts. He would hot-air the Ladies until they flushed Crimson from the Joy of being hot-aired. Even ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... Cuvier's time has supplied far more striking examples of the long duration of specific forms of life than those which are furnished by the mummified Ibises and Crocodiles of Egypt. A remarkable case is to be found in your own country, in the neighbourhood of the falls of Niagara. In the immediate vicinity of the whirlpool, and again upon Goat Island, in the superficial deposits ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... aggression and violence, which even British sailors are apt to conceive themselves entitled to practise upon naked and unarmed savages, to make the fact of their perpetration a matter of surprise to us. We must refer to Mr. Nicholas's book[H] for many specific instances of such atrocities; but we may merely mention here that the conduct in question is distinctly noticed and denounced in the strongest terms, both in a proclamation by Governor Macquarie, dated the 9th of November, 1814, and also in another by Sir Thomas ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

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

... wickedly on a whim, you constructed one secretly in the woodshed, took out a part of the back partition, thus destroying property that did, not belong to you, and had the boat carted this morning to Logan's Pond?" I was silent, utterly undone. Evidently he had specific information.... There are certain expressions that are, at times, more than mere figures of speech, and now my father's wrath seemed literally towering. It ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... glittering bands of emerald green. The whole lower part of the body is rich buffy yellow, including the tuft of plumes which spring from the sides, and extend an inch and a half beyond the tail. When skins are exposed to the light the yellow fades into dull white, from which circumstance it derived its specific name. About six of the innermost of these plumes on each side have the midrib elongated into slender black wires, which bend at right angles, and curve somewhat backwards to a length of about ten inches, forming one of those extraordinary ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... is not the ursus arctos, americanus, or ferox. What then? Has he received no specific name from the naturalists? Not yet. Alexis, however, bestowed one upon him. He named him after the man who has given the clearest account of his country and his habits; and whom Alexis deemed most worthy of the honour. In his journal we find the record. There it is written, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... supported at the expense of the United States, and for fees to measurers, weighers, gangers, etc., who are paid by the United States, for which articles, among many others (light-house money excepted), duties are paid by us in the ports of France under their specific names. That Government has hitherto thought these duties consistent with the treaty, and consequently the same duties under a general instead of specific names, with us, must be equally consistent with it. It is not the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... right thigh, and for pain in the kidneys an amulet depicting Hercules overcoming a lion. To exorcise gout, he used incantations, these being either oral or written on a thin sheet of gold during the waning of the moon. Writing a suitable inscription on an olive leaf, gathered before sunrise, was his specific for ague. Alexander appears at times to have doubted the efficacy of such remedies as amulets, for he explains that his rich patients would not submit to rational treatment, and it was necessary, therefore, to use other methods ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... believe the trade-winds to be the most important agent in the matter. We venture to incline to the opinion that not only the Gulf Stream, but all the constant currents of the sea are due chiefly to difference of temperature and saltness. These conditions alter the specific gravity of the waters of the ocean in some places more than in others; hence the equilibrium is destroyed, and currents commence to flow as a natural result, seeking to restore that equilibrium. But as the disturbing agents are always at work, so the currents ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... one of these three classes to which any particular insect belongs, and for specific instructions on the application of a remedy, the reader is advised to write to his State Entomologist or to the U.S. Bureau of Entomology at Washington, D.C. The letter should state the name of the tree affected, together ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... boiling in the kettle, the amount of hops added and the point at which they were added, and the break[2] of the wort were all noted. After the wort had been pumped from the kettle its course was followed through the hop jack[3] over the coolers to the settling tank. The specific gravity or Balling[4] of the original wort, the temperature at which the product was pitched,[5] the aeration of the wort, the kind and amount of yeast added, as well as the time and maximum temperature of the primary fermentation, ...
— A Study Of American Beers and Ales • L.M. Tolman

... Frequently it gazed eastward along the tiny beam of light which issued from the telespectroscope. For an interval, now, its recording mirror had been dark. But I think that Migul was seeing evidences of the other cage which was pursuing us, and planning to stop at some specific Time with whose condition it was familiar. Once already it had seemed about to stop, and ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... almost a specific for rheumatism, gout, and nervous indigestion. The most useful plants for this purpose are small, not too rapidly grown nor ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel

... diction continues to give scholars pause. Most often Johnson has been accused of a poor—or no— ear for poetry, since the only definition of "harsh" in his Dictionary which is applicable here is "rough to the ear." As no specific lines from the poem are labelled "harsh," one is forced to conclude that the whole poem is unmusical to Johnson's ears—if "harsh" means only "rough to the ear." But the notes to Shakespeare make it perfectly clear that "harsh" often means something ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... the location of the center boards, or other equivalent devices for the same specific purpose, in the extreme bow and stern of vessels, that is to say, the placing of the said boards forward of the foremast or aft of the mainmast, in two masted vessels, and forward of the foremast and aft ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... (3) Specific or idiopathic, in which there are no evident causes present; it is sometimes seen in cases of nephritis ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... and Moors paint an open hand as a specific against the evil eye. (Shaw's Travels ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various

... the mind the natural protector of the body? We cannot believe that the Creator has left the whole human race entirely at the mercy of only about half a dozen specific drugs which always act with certainty. There is a divine remedy placed within us for many of the ills we suffer. If we only knew how to use this power of will and mind to protect ourselves, many of us would be able to carry ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... all like a man.' It is impossible to open a page of 'The Lady Errant,' 'The Royal Slave,' 'The Ordinary,' or 'Love's Convert,' without feeling at once that we have to do with a man of a very different stamp from any (Massinger perhaps alone excepted) who was writing between 1630 and 1640. The specific gravity of the poems, so to speak, is far greater than that of any of his contemporaries; everywhere is thought, fancy, force, varied learning. He is never weak or dull; though he fails often enough, is often ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... these dances are so closely connected with human activity that a knowledge of their development broadens our horizon in many matters pertaining to social life and civilization in general. As to specific examples of the less usual dances, many of the quaintest are found in the works of the early English composers: Byrd, Bull, etc., in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, e.g., The Lord of Salisbury his Pavan. An excellent example of the Loure is the well-known arrangement from Bach's ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... no attempt to go into the very numerous minute details of this ceremony, such as the mixing of the liquid for snake washing, the making of the elaborate sand painting for the Snake altar, or descriptions of various kinds of prayer-sticks and their specific uses. Authorities differ greatly on these points and each village uses somewhat different paraphernalia and methods of procedure. These details occupy hours and even days and are accompanied by much prayer and ceremonial smoking, and the ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett



Words linked to "Specific" :   fact, generality, medicinal drug, proper, species, particular, particularized, medicament, medical specialty, general, special, particularised, specified, pathology, peculiar, specificity



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org