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Specimen   Listen
noun
Specimen  n.  A part, or small portion, of anything, or one of a number of things, intended to exhibit the kind and quality of the whole, or of what is not exhibited; a sample; as, a specimen of a man's handwriting; a specimen of a person's blood; a specimen of painting; aspecimen of one's art.
Synonyms: Sample; model; pattern. Specimen, Sample. A specimen is a representative of the class of things to which it belongs; as, a specimen of photography. A sample is a part of the thing itself, designed to show the quality of the whole; as, a sample of sugar or of broadcloth. A cabinet of minerals consists of specimens; if a part be broken off from any one of these, it is a sample of the mineral to which it belongs. "Several persons have exhibited specimens of this art before multitudes of beholders." "I design this but for a sample of what I hope more fully to discuss."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Specimen" Quotes from Famous Books



... lunch one Sunday before I left London. A very vicious specimen. Writes books. She wrote a book on social conditions in India when she came back ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... the church we walked along the road a little way, and came in sight of a fine old house which had apparently fallen into ruin years before. The front entrance was a fine specimen of old-fashioned workmanship, with its columns and carvings, and the fence had been a grand affair in its day, though now it could scarcely stand alone. The long range of out-buildings were falling piece by piece; one shed had been blown down entirely by a late high ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... stumbled, and he did not puff so hard between grades. Claire felt the easier swing of his body when he walked, and noticed that he was growing surer of foot and more graceful in movement, and she realized that except for his eyes he was a splendid specimen of manhood. She now admitted all these things to herself, but they only added to her feeling against him. She wondered if he had been as indifferent to all women as he was to her, and was displeased ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... where she was. And that, of all persons in the world, her brother, her own Charles, with whom she had been one heart and soul all their lives—one so cheerful, so religious, so good, so sensible, so cautious,—that he should be the first specimen that crossed her path of the new ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... too, were to be seen numbers of little sheathbills—just like small bantams, similar to the specimen Frank Harness had shot, and which he was so sorry about. The little birds went about in pairs and appeared to act as the scavengers of the larger ones, for they haunted their breeding-places, scraping about the nests and dung, clearing out ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... rang through the group. In truth, if appearances make the gentleman, Adrian was then but a sorry specimen. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... you," he whispered, with another glance at the office door. Anderson recognized, with the dismay of a collector, a fine specimen, which he had sought in vain, made utterly worthless by ruthless handling, but he controlled himself. "Thank you," he said, and took the poor, despoiled beauty and laid ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... independence, and determined to defend it at all hazards." The British answer to utterances like these was to seize a farmer from the country, who had come to town to buy a firelock, tar and feather him, stick a placard on his back, "American liberty, or a specimen of democracy," and conduct him through the streets amid a mob of soldiers and officers, to the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... old Spanish galleon days. We went suddenly back to a savage life. We went down to bathe stark naked, with the sunset glowing orange on our sunburnt limbs. Here it was that Hawk proved himself a wonderfully good swimmer. He was lithe and supple and well-made—an extraordinary specimen of virile manhood—and he spent ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... meeting; which, if I recollect, is about the 9th, or the Lord Mayor's day, and on the whole better worth seeing. For anything we know, this may be a great day in the earth's earlier history; she may have put forth her original rose on this day, or tried her hand at a primitive specimen of wheat; or she may, in fact, have survived some gunpowder plot about this time; so that the meteoric appearance may be a kind congratulating feu-de-joye, on the anniversary of the happy event. What it is that the 'cosmogony man' in the 'Vicar of Wakefield' would have thought of such ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... plate of roast stuffed veal, with a specimen of all the vegetables on the bill of fare. Don't leave out any. If you leave out any of them, I will travel by railroad the next time I go ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... below C. windows (leather topped). On writing-table.—Specimen glass with flowers Writing materials. Matches in stand. Ash tray. Paper and ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne

... Each number contains 16 pages, printed in large type on fine tinted paper. Send stamp for a specimen copy. Address ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... who was a comfortable specimen of the easy-going country baronet and magistrate, "you keep to your opinion, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... merits and defects, are briefly considered. His "Reasons in Favor of a Protective Policy" leave, as it seems to us, very little to be said on the other side. From a multitude of passages which we have been tempted to quote, we select the following, as a not unfavorable specimen of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... write the book, I tried to realize to myself what the commonest type of English boy of the upper middle class was, so far as my experience went; and to that type I have throughout adhered, trying simply to give a good specimen of the genus. I certainly have placed him in the country, and scenes which I know best myself, for the simple reason, that I knew them better than any others, and therefore was less likely to blunder ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... infringe the monopoly of the government, they presented me with a petition entreating me to obtain this favor for them. The document was put together by a Filipino writer in so ludicrously confused a manner that I give it as a specimen of Philippine clerkship. [152] At all events, it had the best of results, for the petitioners were accorded twice as much as they had ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... the foreign press during this one week we have been able to collect the following specimen ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... consciousness upon the one man of all men upon earth whom he had wanted to meet. He had met the rustler. Venters recalled the smoky haze of the saloon, the dark-visaged men, the huge Oldring. He saw him step out of the door, a splendid specimen of manhood, a handsome giant with purple-black and sweeping beard. He remembered inquisitive gaze of falcon eyes. He heard himself repeating: "OLDRING, BESS IS ALIVE! BUT SHE'S DEAD TO YOU," and he felt himself jerk, and his ears throbbed to the thunder ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... He was a mean-looking specimen, this Simon Gillsey, and the Gornish Camp was not proud of him. His neck was long, his mouth was long and protruding, like a bird's beak, his hair was thin and colorless, his shoulders sloped in such a manner that his ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... presume Clarence Hervey stands at this instant, in your imagination, as the representative of all the gentlemen in England; and he, instead of Anacharsis Cloots, is now, to be sure, l'orateur du genre humain. Pray let me have a specimen of the eloquence, which, to judge by its effects, must be ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... afterwards Duc de Chatillon, who paid her assiduous court. The result was that Ninon conceived a violent passion for the Count, which she could not resist, in fact did not care to resist, and she therefore yielded to the young man of distinguished family, charming manners, and a physically perfect specimen of manhood. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... instance now, as a specimen of his character:—He and I, strolling one day on the side of a common, saw two boys picking hips and haws from the hedges; one seemed to be about five, and the other a year older; they were both barefoot and ragged, but at the same time fat, fair, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... harder, and pull as strong an oar as the best of them. He was the point of the flying wedge in the game of foot-ball, and woe be to the opponent against whom that point struck. To sum it all up, Tom was a mental and physical giant, as well as a superb specimen of what that college could make out of a young man. But unfortunately, it was one of those institutions that developed the mental, trained the physical, and starved the spiritual, and so it came to pass ere ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... see," smiled the mother indulgently, as the crowd broke up and departed, while Peace and Hector divided the spoils in the corner. "She surely is an interesting specimen, and it was worth ten times the money just to hear her squelch her ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... how to select or specify the miracles contained in the Vitae Patrum of Rosweyde, as the number very much exceeds the thousand pages of that voluminous work. An elegant specimen may be found in the dialogues of Sulpicius Severus, and his Life of St. Martin. He reveres the monks of Egypt; yet he insults them with the remark, that they never raised the dead; whereas the bishop of Tours had restored three dead ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... the successive charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event. It was refreshing to us correspondents, compelled as we were to listen to so much that was prosy and tedious, to hear this bright specimen of Western genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his reminiscences of the Black ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... the biggest kind of imbecile, you are the finest specimen! I told you truly how it would be. Ha, ha! you were bound to go to Africa, of course! Well, old merriman, now you are going to Africa, how do ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... standard of excellence as they are representative, or illustrative, of important truth. They are only great as they are good. If Mr. Foster's art embodied no higher idea than the vulgar notion of the negro as a man-monkey,—a thing of tricks and antics,—a funny specimen of superior gorilla,—then it might have proved a tolerable catch-penny affair, and commanded an admiration among boys of various growths until its novelty wore off. But the art in his hands teemed with a nobler significance. It dealt, in its simplicity, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... my good Ganz, that you do your best to thin them out! This specimen was too typical for me to be able to describe him. Younger than usual, possibly; yellow hair, blue eyes, constrained manner, everything to sample. He called himself Mark, or Matthew. Rather their apostolic ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... whose name, before she was married, was Lady Cecily Neville, was born into one side of this quarrel, and then afterward married into the other side of it. This is a specimen of the way in which the contest became complicated in multitudes of cases. Lady Cecily was descended from the Duke of Lancaster, but she married the Duke of York, in the third generation from the time when ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... catch sight of many a small being either on the seaweed or the rocky ledges, and even creatures transparent as glass become visible by the thin outline gleaming in the sunlight. Then I pluck a piece of seaweed, or chip off a fragment of rock with a sharp-edged collecting knife, bringing away the specimen uninjured upon it, and place it carefully in its own separate bottle to be ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... privileged to worship. The daimyos or nobles were lined up in the corridor, while the smaller nobles and chiefs filled the oratory. It would be tedious to describe these temples, but one will serve as a specimen of all. This is the temple of the second shogun, which is noteworthy for the beauty of the decoration of the sanctum ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... coming down to the boat at dusk, the officer left a man with a fire on the beach, to wait his arrival. At ten o'clock a gun was fired, and the boat sent back; but nothing had been heard of the naturalist, or the seaman who carried his specimen boxes, and some apprehensions began to be entertained. Soon after daylight [FRIDAY 28 JANUARY 1803] we had the satisfaction to see Mr. Brown on the shore. It appeared that from one of those mistakes which so frequently occur in thick woods and dull weather, when without a ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... This is a fair specimen of the way in which Miss Wilbur buzzed through that meeting—that wonderful meeting, that Flossy Shipley will remember all her life. She made no answer to Marion's comments after a little, and the pink ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... The only complete specimen of a trilogy extant is the "Oresteia" of Aeschylus, comprising the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe" (Mourners), and the "Eumenides" (Furies). In this series are presented the murder of Agamemnon on his return from the conquest ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... 'grace' states that the candidate has performed all the University requirements; that for the B.A. may be given as a specimen:— ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... fancies which signified the evolution of Man, the canny merchant prince promptly packed the Italians back again to their native land, lest other merchant princes should employ them to repeat the marvellous ceiling for their houses! By this thoughtful act, he secured for himself the one and only specimen of the kind; and to this day nobody has ever been able to copy it, though the attempt has often been made. The marvellous part is the startlingly high relief of the mouldings, and the quaintness of the evolutionary ideas, all those ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Some rude implements found in the hill gravels of Berkshire, England, have been offered as anterior to the paleolithic implements as usually classified.[198] Lubbock said that he could not find in the large Scandinavian collections "a single specimen of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... whirled over the leaves of Mr. Hawes's log-book for him, Mr. Lacy compared several pages of the two books. The following is merely a selected specimen of the entries that ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... absolute contentment and his face wore, continually, a complacent smile. What strange varieties of human destiny these men present, I thought as I surveyed them: the Indian and the Mexican stand for the hopeless Past; the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro for the active Present; while Sing Lee is a specimen of that yellow race which is embalmed in its own conservatism, like ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... like a modern Cockney-rendering of PHILIP HAMMOND, with the aspirate omitted and the final "d" dropped), of old Theon (who never appears but he is immediately sent away again, and therefore might be termed "The-on-and-off-'un"), and, finally, of even that charming specimen of a Girton Girl-Lecturer on Philosophy Hypatia herself, well—to adopt HOOD'S couplet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various

... popular imagination, a kind of glamour, some mysterious connexion of the thing with human fortunes, still attaches to the curious product of artistic hands, to the ring of Polycrates, for instance, with its early specimen of engraved smaragdus, as to the mythical necklace of Harmonia. Pheidon of Argos first makes coined money, and the obelisci—the old nail-shaped iron money, now disused- -are hung up in the temple of Here; for, even ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... "Let the specimen suffice to those who have ears. For it is not required to unfold the mystery, but only to indicate what is sufficient for those who are partakers in knowledge to bring it ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... traits in Hanks' character, because I shall now have to bid him farewell for a season. He was a worthy fellow, nevertheless; not without sense of a practical sort; a curious specimen of a school now rapidly ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... advised them to search with the greatest care, and to poke into places that they had not disturbed before. They returned an hour later with no further specimen of the blue and orange variety, although on a subsequent date they succeeded in unearthing one, but they were rejoicing over a number of very rare specimens that are now considered among the ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... he is so busy catching a new kind of flea, or a rare specimen of mud turtle, that he has forgotten all about writing," suggested ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... circumstances, to drink himself into apoplexy on the one hand, or debility on the other; but he is able, notwithstanding, to drink the clothes off his back, and the consequence is, that he stands before you as ragged, able-bodied, and thumping a specimen of ebriety as you could wish to see during a week's journey. There were, in fact, the vestiges of drunkenness in all their repulsive features, and ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... this, contrary to all natural expectation, by an extraordinary and divine influence, the nature of the water was changed into the quality of oil, and by most of the brethren a small quantity was preserved from that time until our own, as a specimen of the wonder then performed" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. vi., chap. 9). St. Augustine bears personal witness to more than one miracle which happened in his own presence, and gives a long list of cures performed in his time. "One ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... sat at one end of the long oak refectory table, Blanche Farrow at the other. But though the table was far wider than are most refectory tables (it was believed to be, because of its width, a unique specimen), yet Blanche, very soon after they had sat down, told herself that there was something to be said, after all, for the old-fashioned, Victorian mahogany. Such a party as was this party would have sorted ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... a specimen of decayed gentility, once called on Tammas with a hard-luck story and a Family Bible, and asked for a small ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard

... should tell you that he is a strong-built and very handsome middle-aged man, with eyes and nose like a fine hawk, and very bushy grey mustachios, generally splendidly dressed, but with no effeminacy of ornament, and looking and talking more like a favourable specimen of a French general officer than any other object of comparison which occurs to me. His son, Raja Seroojee (so named after their great ancestor), is a pale, sickly-looking lad of seventeen, who also speaks English, but imperfectly, and on whose account his father lamented, with much apparent ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... among the hills east of El-'Akabah, and Mr. Milne (Beke, p. 405) brought from the very summit of the "true Mount Sinai" (Jebel el-Yitm) a "fine piece of quartz, the same kind of stone as the Brazilian pebbles of which they make the best spectacles." We carried off a specimen of native copper from the Sinaitic Jebel and Wady Raddadi, some six hours to the north-west of the fort: it is found strewed upon the ground but not in veins (?). The stone looked so new that we concluded it to be the work of later generations; and the traces ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... of the final judgment, does our Savior teach us? By what standard must our character be estimated, and the retributions of eternity be awarded? A standard, which both the righteous and the wicked will be surprised to see erected. From the "offscouring of all things," the meanest specimen of humanity will be selected—a "stranger" in the hands of the oppressor, naked, hungry, sickly; and this stranger, placed in the midst of the assembled universe, by the side of the sovereign Judge, will be openly acknowledged as his representative. "Glory, honor, and immortality," will be the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... a pretty poor specimen of a modern building," said Mr. Keith. "You have offices here, haven't you?" he went on. "I remember to have seen ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... favourable specimen of his kind; strong, comely, frank of look and speech. Hilliard marvelled somewhat at his choice of the frail and timid little widow, and hoped upon marriage would follow no repentance. A friendly conversation between the two men confirmed ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... different sort of game to what it used to be when we got found out. Here's poor Mister Archie lying down below badly hurt, and me stretched on the top of this attap roof, pinned out like a jolly old cock butterfly meant for a specimen. Think of it," he muttered, as he sat up and began feeling down his leg. "Shied a spear at me. It hurts, too. Good job it didn't hit me in the middle. It's a bit wet, but it can't be bad. Scratted a bit, and then it went through the leg of my trousers. Well, I call ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... be noted that there are two varieties of the overprint on the SPECIMEN stamps of this series, one having the letters sloping upwards from left to right, the ...
— Gambia • Frederick John Melville

... in the Language spoke by the Aeheinomoweans and those of Tovy Poenammu; but this differance seem'd to me to be only in the pronunciation, and is no more than what we find between one part of England and another. What is here inserted as a Specimen is that spoke by the People of Aeheinomouwe. What is meant by the South Sea Islands are those Islands we ourselves Touched at; but I gave it that title because we have always been told that the same ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... Logic's countenance and attitude with the splendid elegance of Tom!* Now every London man is weary and blase. There is an enjoyment of life in these young bucks of 1823 which contrasts strangely with our feelings of 1860. Here, for instance, is a specimen of their talk and walk. "'If,' says LOGIC—'if ENJOYMENT is your MOTTO, you may make the most of an evening at Vauxhall, more than at any other place in the metropolis. It is all free and easy. Stay as long as ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... selection shows some of the curious rules for the guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... nose, small, beadlike eyes, and sensual lips. He was clad in a black frock-coat, buttoned tight to the throat, and he wore a fez. This costume gave him the appearance of a chunky bottle, sealed with red wax. Such, indeed, was Kami-Bey, a specimen of those semi-barbarians, loaded with gold who are not attracted to Paris by its splendors and glories, but rather by its corruption—people who come there persuaded that money will purchase anything and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... seen here a splendid specimen of gold, which is to be sent to the Exposition at Paris. It is granulated, and sparkles as I never saw gold before. Some one suggests that a thin film of quartz may be crystallized ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... said, grimly. 'It's no use; it's accident when a ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are teeming with ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... "A capital specimen of a historical tale, and a well-told chapter in English life and manners in the days of Henry of ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... called in Betty, Joe, and Uncle Sam while she read, and after Mr. Philbrick had repeated the Lord's Prayer, Uncle Sam of his own accord offered a very simple, touching prayer. He is an Elder, and as honest and true as "Uncle Tom" himself—a genuine specimen of that class among the negroes, which exists in reality as well as in story. The younger ones do not seem to be quite so religious a class, though perhaps they are too young to tell, for young married men like Joe and Cuffy seem to have genuine ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... are rather Apologies for the Works to which they are prefix'd, than written for Instruction; and generally a ludicrous Scene is expected, if the Performance be of an airy Nature; or, if not, at least an introductory Specimen of what the Reader may hope for in the Body ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob

... once). I don't mind telling you he moved me, partly because I had wondered about him from that night, and partly because of all I had come to feel about this new place and the new people, and because he seemed such a fine, active specimen of Western manhood. I won't tell you all the wild, lawless thoughts that scurried and sneaked through my mind—they don't matter now—for all at once it came out that he was the only son of that wealthy Bines who died awhile ago—you remember ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... and Hume cor. "Developing the differences of the three."—James Brown cor. "When the singular ends in x, ch soft, sh, ss, or s, we add es to form the plural."—L. Murray cor. "We shall present him a list or specimen of them." "It is very common to hear of the evils of pernicious reading, how it enervates the mind, or how it depraves the principles."—Dymond cor. "In this example, the verb arises is understood before 'curiosity' and before 'knowledge.'"—L. Murray et al. cor. "The connective is ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... ordinary suit was covered with a braided livery, and I accompanied Rudolph to the council-chamber. We placed the table, chairs, pens, ink, paper, etc., in order. Watching our opportunity, we drew aside a heavy box in which grew a noble specimen of the cactus grandiflorus in full bloom, the gorgeous flowers just opening with the sunset, and filling the chamber with their delicious perfume. I crawled through the opening; took off my liveried suit; handed it back to Rudolph; he pushed ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... right as to his grandson's illness, convinced him that it was an ague, and promised him a charm for it; and he, in return, had shewn her all his choicest nursery of plants, and actually presented her with a very curious specimen of heath. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... on bagging a fine cripple as another man might on bagging a fine tiger," he said. "The whole matter at bottom, I suspect, turns on the instinct of sport.—Only the week before last I acquired a rather terribly superior specimen. A lad of eighteen, a factory hand in Westchurch. He was caught by some loose gearing and swept into the machinery. What is left of him—if it survives, which it had much better not, and I can't help hoping it will, he is such a plucky, sweet-natured fellow—will require a nurse ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... they were addressed—and the nature of the promotion obtained. They were persons who could have had no claim upon an honest minister. His lordship left a list of them with Mr. Temple—also the cover of the letter, on which was a specimen of the forged writing and the ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... subsequently became the property of the present editor, but it is not considered just to the poet's memory to publish it. The work is a hasty and unrevised production of its author's earlier days of literary labor; and, beyond the scenes already known, scarcely calculated to enhance his reputation. As a specimen, however, of the parts unpublished, the following fragment from the first scene of Act II. may be offered. The Duke, it should be premised, is uncle to Alessandra, and father of ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... ceased at Carlstad on Lake Wener, which gave us a day's drive to Arvika to strike the track again; and while we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, and whether we should go directly on, there came up a flourishing specimen of the genus valet de place, who took possession of us and laid out a plan that he had apparently prepared over night for our especial benefit. It is a way those persons have, and one that gives them a tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long journey, that they act ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... draughts of fishes. In 1539 he had to order a chest at Torgau for his 'lord Katie,' for their store of house-linen. Of the handsome and elaborate way in which Catharine thought of ornamenting the exterior of their house—the home of her illustrious husband—a fine specimen remains in the door of the Luther-haus at Wittenberg. Luther wrote, by her wish, to a friend at Pirna in 1539, pastor Lauterbach, about a 'carved house-door,' for the width of which she sent the measurement. The ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... face in the bottom lay a magnificent specimen of savage manhood. His height, when standing, could not have been less than six feet three. His shoulders were broad and clothed with great, powerful muscles. His body sloped away gracefully to a slim waist and straight, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... four women ceased from groaning and sighing to stare at the intruders. Two were young, thin-faced creatures, the third was an elderly and very stout woman, and the fourth, the one whom Smoke identified by her voice, was the thinnest, frailest specimen of the human race he had ever seen. As he quickly learned, she was Laura Sibley, the seeress and professional clairvoyant who had organized the expedition in Los Angeles and led it to this death-camp on the Nordbeska. The ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... treatise on the "Care and Feeding of Infants," has been published by Doliber, Goodale & Co., Boston, who will send a specimen copy free to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... finest physical specimen of a man she knew. He was good looking also, and spoke as well as the average, better in fact, for from the day of their marriage, Agatha sat on his lap each night and said these words: "My beloved, to-day I noted an error in your speech. It would put a former teacher to much embarrassment ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... before the birth of Plato, Socrates being then in all the impressibility of early manhood, Parmenides, according to the witness of Plato himself—Parmenides at the age of sixty-five—had visited Athens at the great festival of the Panathenaea, in company with Zeno the Eleatic, a characteristic specimen of Greek cleverness, of the acute understanding, personally very attractive. Though forty years old, the reputation this Zeno now enjoyed seems to have been very much the achievement of his youth, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... which accompanied it. The cardinal was a man of details. He thought it possible that the document might be returned open for lack of the means to seal it. He did not choose that his secrets should become the property of the people about the Holy Office. It was a specimen of his forethought in small things which might have an influence ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... of Baudin's character should be conveyed—that he seems to have made an excellent impression upon the English in Sydney. Governor King treated him as a friend; and the letter of farewell that he wrote on his departure was such a delicate specimen of grace and courtesy, that one would feel that only a gentleman could have written it, were there not too many instances to show that elegant manners and language towards strangers are not incompatible with the rough ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... a dour, silent, earnest specimen, whose name, incredible as it may appear, is M'Ostrich. He keeps himself to himself. He never smiles. He is not an old soldier, yet he performed like a veteran the very first day he appeared on parade. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... west of the town, is Hills place, or rather the remains of an elegant residence, so called; it was formerly the property of the lords Irvine, and was considered a very handsome specimen of the domestic architecture of the age, in which it was erected. It was taken down a few years since, and no vestige left to mark its site, save the remnants of a farm house in existence before ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley

... here," she managed to whisper to Blazius, who was playing Pandolphe; "just look at him! how delighted he is, and how he applauds me—till he is actually red in the face, the dear man! So he admires my acting, does he? Well, he shall have a spicy specimen of ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... combinations. At his hands anatomy and markings become lost in a scientific jargon of patagia, jugum, discocellulars, phagocytes, and so on to the end of the volume. For one who would be a Naturalist, a rare specimen indeed, there are many volumes on the market. The list of pioneer lepidopterists begins authoritatively with Linnaeus and since his time you can make your selection from the works of Druce, Grote, Strecker, Boisduval, Robinson, Smith, Butler, Fernald, Beutenmuller, Hicks, ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Barnabas, in that to the Hebrews, and elsewhere among the old Jews. Accordingly when Josephus wrote his books of the Jewish War, for the use of the Jews, at which time he was comparatively young, and less used to Gentile books, we find one specimen of such a Jewish interpretation; for there [B. VII. ch. 5. sect. 5] he makes the seven branches of the temple-candlestick, with their seven lamps, an emblem of the seven days of creation and rest, which are ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... even this brief specimen is enough to show the main line of improvement. The framers of the latter had realized the fact that the vocabulary is the first and paramount consideration for an artificial language. It is hopeless to expect people to learn strings of words ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... successful in saving the ship, and probably the lives of his mates—for it was a desolate isle, far out of the tracks of commerce—was standing in the bow of the vessel, watching the shore with his companions as they drew near. He was a splendid specimen of manhood, clad in a red shirt and canvas trousers, while a wide-awake took the place of the usual seafaring cap. He stood head and shoulders above ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... Canongate. I went to him directly. He embraced me cordially; and I exulted in the thought, that I now had him actually in Caledonia. Mr Scott's amiable manners, and attachment to our Socrates, at once united me to him. He told me that, before I came in, the Doctor had unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish cleanliness. He then drank no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made sweeter; upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump of sugar, and put it into it. The Doctor, in indignation, threw ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... to this election and all subsequent thereto in each district. The conduct of the election in the second district, held at the village of Douglas, nearly fifty miles from the Missouri line, is a fair specimen of all the elections in Kansas. The ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... the taste of the multitude. Scholars turned their backs on him, and we find him only among tipplers and associates of the lowest kind. At one of their carousals his half-intoxicated companions asked him for a specimen of his witchcraft. He declared himself willing to gratify them in any request. They then demanded that he should make a grape-vine full of ripe fruit grow out of the table around which they sat. Faustus enjoined complete silence, ordered them to take their knives and keep themselves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... stag. Some indistinct traces of engraving have been made out on the bones found in the Altamira Cave, near Santander, and recently a bone on which a kind of horse was engraved, was picked up at Cresswell's Crags, Derbyshire, in a cave known in the district as MOTHER GRUNDY'S PARLOR. This specimen, as were those of Thayngen, was associated with numerous bones of Quaternary animals, amongst which those of the hippopotamus were ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... pleasing duty of describing such a 'character' (meaning the personal character of Mr. BLOOMFIELD) let us now turn our attention to the species of composition of which his Poem is so perfect a specimen. It has been observ'd in my sixteenth number that PASTORAL POETRY in this country, with very few exceptions, has exhibited a tame and servile adherence to classical imagery and costume; at the same time totally overlooking that profusion ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... for publication, because of the numerous sketches contained in them of various friends or connections, which were drawn with a wit and precision worthy of Miss Austen herself in her least merciful moments. One specimen, however, may be given without compunction. She was describing a visit paid by her to a well-known country house, and mentioned that among the company were a prominent statesman and his wife, the former of whom was dear to caricaturists on account of his superabundant ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... we held a concert in the saloon and I sang 'The Kerry Dance'—I'm an Irishwoman—and next morning a big man named O'Hagan, one of the steerage passengers, came up and asked me if I would 'moind acceptin' a wee bit av a stone,' and he handed me a lovely specimen of quartz with quite two ounces of gold in it. He told me he had found it on the Shotover River, in New Zealand. I didn't know what to say or do at first, and then he paid me such a compliment that I fairly tingled all over with vanity. 'Sure an' ye'll take the wee bit av a stone from me, miss,' ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke

... though as the famous Major Kincaid of Kincaid's Battery (the latter at Mobile with new guns), all July and August he had been of those who looked down from such windows; looked down often and long, yet never descried one rippling fold of one gossamer flounce of a single specimen of those far-compassionated "ladies of New Orleans," one of whom, all that same time, was Anna Callender. No proved spy, she, no incarcerated prisoner, yet the most gravely warned, though gentlest, suspect in all ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... I thought he would have died with laughing. You are aware that there is a species of bird here which they call the honey-bird,—by naturalists, the Cuculus indicator; do you not remember I showed you a specimen ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... an opinion as to the exact size of the above, as compared with the Golden-crested Wren, I should much like to ascertain where I am likely to meet with a faithful specimen of the latter? The Myrtle Bee is about half the size of the common Wren, certainly not larger: and I always took it for granted, the bird derived its name from its diminutiveness and the cover it frequented. I cannot say the bird was generally known in the neighbourhood, having ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various

... not quite sure what is here meant by "a leading idea." If it be that some abstract idea is to be developed or illustrated, we can neither subscribe to the canon nor discover the leading idea of this specimen of the author's productions; but we rather suppose that he only means to say that there should be a main stream of interest running through the whole story, to which the others are tributary—and in this sense he has acted on the rule; for the heretic, from his birth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... that its commercial value is naught, or something infinitesimal; which is doubtless true enough, as tens of thousands of tons of the same material lie close to the surface under the green turf and golden blossoming furze at the spot where I picked up my specimen. The lapidary would not look at it; nevertheless, it is the only article of jewellery I possess, and I value it accordingly. And I intend to keep this native ruby by me for as long as the lords of Abbotsbury ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... the margin of the hemisphere, but, in others, it extends for some distance more or less transversely outwards. I saw it in the right hemisphere of a female brain pass more than two inches outwards; and on another specimen, also the right hemisphere, it proceeded for four-tenths of an inch outwards, and then extended downwards, as far as the lower margin of the outer surface of the hemisphere. The imperfect definition of this fissure in the majority of ...
— Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the Development of Brain in Man and the Apes • Thomas Henry Huxley

... the forehead which she mopped softly with a specimen from Margot's Parisian consignment. He closed his eyes. His features relaxed to an expression of relief. Relief gave place to repose when he felt her hand with the cool scented essence on his brow. It passed and passed again, lightly, soothingly, consolingly. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... digestive organs. It is certain that he committed an error of judgment, but that error may be traceable to the subtilty of his taste rather than to its obtuseness. We throw out this suggestion as a specimen, if nothing better, of what contradictory inferences may be drawn from a single fact, and as a hint of how much caution is necessary in arriving at absolute opinions, even when the evidence ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... in Chrysostom this word, which signifies a couple or pair, he mistook it for the name of a saint, and contrived to give the most authentic biography of a saint who never existed![39] The Catholics confess this sort of blunder is not uncommon, but then it is only fools who laugh! As a specimen of the happier inventions, one is given, embellished by the diction ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... priceless historical relics to be found upon the earth. It contains, for instance, the famous Papyrus Manuscript of Thotmes II of the first Egyptian dynasty—a thing known to scholars all over the world as the oldest extant specimen of what can be called writing; indeed one can here see the actual evolution (I am quoting from a work of reference, or at least from my recollection of it) from the ideographic cuneiform to the phonetic syllabic script. Every time I have read about that manuscript and have happened to be in ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... the flag of the United States was finally decided upon. Captain S. C. Reid designed it, and his wife made a specimen flag, which was hoisted on the flagstaff of the House of Representatives a few days after the law legalizing it was passed. Forty-one years later, in 1859, Congress formally thanked Captain Reid. The one weak point in this law was ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... duller than need be. They run away, leaving the first wife well enough dowered. They are never intentionally unkind to women, and in the end they usually make the mistake of thinking they have had their money's worth of life. Here was Mr. Harvey Malone, a young specimen in an earlier stage of development, trying to marry Henrietta Lamb, and now sauntering over to speak to Alice, as a time-killer before his ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... a ward or district assigned to him, of which it was his duty to take a particular superintendence. It was hardly possible, therefore, that any irregularity of which a parishioner was guilty could be concealed, and consequently, what is recorded in the register is to be regarded, not as a specimen, but as the gross amount of the immorality of the parish. Some may affect to ridicule the severe notice that was taken of particular instances of misconduct. But the cognizance that was taken of such things is a proof of the high tone of moral and religious feeling ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... to start a public discussion with half a dozen of them. My chance came from another direction. It was half-time and a certain player limped out of the field and sat down on the grass. I was beside him before his friends had time to come up. A superb specimen, all ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas



Words linked to "Specimen" :   illustration, example, cytologic specimen, specimen bottle, instance



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