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Groundwork   /grˈaʊndwˌərk/   Listen
Groundwork

noun
1.
The fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained.  Synonyms: base, basis, cornerstone, foundation, fundament.
2.
Lowest support of a structure.  Synonyms: base, foot, foundation, fundament, substructure, understructure.  "He stood at the foot of the tower"
3.
Preliminary preparation as a basis or foundation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Groundwork" Quotes from Famous Books



... laying his hand kindly on Eddie's shoulder, "if you really are determined to become an artist, I will do all I can to assist you on certain conditions, and subject to the approval of your other guardian. You can come and live with me, and I'll teach you the groundwork and details of art: inspiration, genius, success are not mine to bestow; nor shall I send you to a university. In the first place, I can't afford it; in the next, I don't think it necessary; but if I see you have a ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... rose-petal colour, pale bright cerulean blue, and bright gold. Lastly, the immense variety of leaf-forms, based on the three, five, and seven-lobed groupings of the typical form. The coil and spiral are freely used as the groundwork, and the colours alternated as the coils or spirals change from front ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... faded by contrast. Across the gable end of it was the legend, "Philippa's Farm," emblazoned in huge black letters two feet long. All its surroundings were very neat. On the kitchen doorstep a patchwork cat was making a grave toilet. The groundwork of the cat was white, and its spots were black, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... hopeful business will be quickly spoiled, if I not take exceeding care of it.—Stay,—Towerson to be killed, and privately, that must be laid down as the groundwork, for stronger reasons than a young man's passion; but who shall do it? No Englishman will, and much I fear, no Dutchman ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... but a libretto and the pious books commended to her by her confessor, the artless babble of her talk every now and then flashed out with a quaint humour, lighting up terse fragments of the old Italian wisdom which had mysteriously embedded themselves in the groundwork of her mind. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Angel, an antagonism so inveterate that even if the temporary object of their struggle were removed, the strife would still break out again from the sheer viciousness of the Vices. This instinctive hostility between Virtues and Vices supplies the groundwork of the Interludes. They dismiss Humankind from the stage. He was always a weak, oscillating sort of creature. Sound, forceful Abstractions and Types were wanted, which could be worked up into thoroughgoing rascals or heroes, rascality having all the preference. ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... carpet that somewhat resembled in the pattern a piece of marbled paper, save that the circular or oval patches of which it was composed, and which had as their nuclei, stones, rocks, shell-fish, bunches of fuci, and fronds of laminaria, were greatly larger. There spread around a misty groundwork of green intensely deep along its horizon, but comparatively light overhead, in its middle sky, which had always its prodigy—wonderful circlets of light, that went widening outwards, and with whose delicate green there ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... nor'-west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of our Missis's eye—you ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... groundwork of civilization was threatened by the question, Rae Malgregor's hands went clutching at her breast. "Why, once!" ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... physical groundwork" which gives a reality and definiteness to the evanescent phantoms of sense, for, in their ceaseless change, they can not justify any title whatever. It alone can be styled "this" or "that" (tode or touto); they rise no higher than "of such kind" or "of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... "The groundwork of the Epos is Mycenaean, in the arrangement of the house, in the prevalence of copper" (as compared with iron), "and, as Reichel has shown, in armour. Yet in many points the poems are certainly later than the prime, at ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... Bilney, moved by a brotherly pity towards Mr. Latimer, begged to wait upon him in his study, and to explain to him the groundwork of his (Mr. Bilney's) faith. This blessed interview effected his conversion: the persecutor of Christ became his zealous advocate, and before Dr. Stafford died ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... his life, every Friday morning too, fanning the fire of his genius by pouring out his spirit in wonderful improvisations, which were often far more lofty in thought than many skilfully elaborated compositions. And here, too, he must have conceived the sublime melodies which afterward formed the groundwork of his 'Beatitudes.'" ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... truth has been discovered. Only a very foolish man would now uphold the Ptolemaic astronomy. But the Ptolemaic astronomy, when first invented, was based on real if incomplete observations, and formed a groundwork without which further progress in that science would have been probably impossible. The theories and ceremonials of the Catholic Church suited well with an age in which little was known and much was imagined: when superstition was active and science ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... we know about the originator, or originators, of this groundwork—of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in Paley's phrase) agree upon—that we should allow their mere statements to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... a doubt being entertained as to whether it has been deposited under water or by drippings. Here in Rainy Chamber it is fully explained. Near the center of the room the fallen masses are heavily crystallized, much of the groundwork being fine box work and the crystals in perfect condition. On these crystals the pop-corn is being formed, and specimens can be seen in all stages of development, from the beginning to an approximate degree ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... Therefore, what the reader could not or has not chosen to do for himself we will do for him, at the same time congratulating him that there is now placed in his hands as complete and perfect a structure outwardly, in the work under notice, as the groundwork furnished by the old master was, in its subjective analysis, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... Plutarch, and Diogenes Laertius. Among the moderns, La Rochefoucauld, Saint-Evremond, and La Bruyere are admired by all judicious readers. From these French writers Boyer has selected materials for the groundwork of his collection. He has added passages from Antoninus, Pascal, and Gratian; from the English authors Bacon, Cowley, L'Estrange, Raleigh, Temple, Dryden, Wycherley, Brown and others; and from his own pen. They range from ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay

... as docile a pupil as any reasonable preceptor might have desired. But still, reading and writing—they are very uninteresting elements! Had the groundwork been laid, it might have been delightful to raise the fairy palace of knowledge; but the digging the foundations and the constructing the cellars is weary labour. Perhaps he felt it so; for in a few days Alice was handed over to the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mere fiction of poesy, but a daily fact. It was one of the loveliest of lovely spring mornings—the sky was clear as a pale, polished sapphire, and every little bib of delicate carving and sculpture on the Dom stood out from its groundwork with microscopically beautiful distinctness. And as his gaze rested on the perfect fairness of the day, a strange and sudden sense of rapturous anticipation possessed his mind,—he felt as one prepared for some high and exquisite happiness,—some ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... groundwork for mediaeval embroideries were rich in themselves. Samit was the favourite—shimmering, and woven originally of solid flat gold wire. Ciclatoun was also a brilliant textile, as also was Cendal. Cendal silk is spoken ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... that I saw farmers gathering their corn on sleds. The cheerful scene is often witnessed of the whole family— father, mother, and children— at work gathering the crops. These pictures of cottage life in the mountain glens, with the beautiful variegated foliage of October for groundwork, are objects which neither weary nor ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... various departments to which the vast building of the College of Sages was appropriated, that which interested me most was devoted to the archaeology of the Vril-ya, and comprised a very ancient collection of portraits. In these the pigments and groundwork employed were of so durable a nature that even pictures said to be executed at dates as remote as those in the earliest annals of the Chinese, retained much freshness of colour. In examining this collection, two things especially struck me:—first, that the pictures said ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... however, that America could not become a province in a one-world socialist system unless America's economy was first socialized. Consequently, House laid the groundwork for "positive" domestic policies of government too—policies which could gradually place government in control of the nation's economy until, before the public realized what was happening, we would already have ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... children. There is an odd mixture of eccentricity and good sense in all the opinions of my worthy host. His mind is like modern Gothic, where plain brick-work is set off with pointed arches and plain tracery. Though the main groundwork of his opinions is correct, yet he has a thousand little notions, picked up from old books, which stand out whimsically on ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... Memoriam, clearly have their link of connection in their common emotional tone, rather than in any logical continuity. Dreaming has been likened to poetic composition, and certainly many of our dreams are built upon a groundwork of lyrical feeling. They might be marked off, perhaps, as our ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... curiously in embryons and childhood, and among the illiterate, we always find the groundwork and start, of this great science, and its noblest products. What a relief most people have in speaking of a man not by his true and formal name, with a "Mister" to it, but by some odd or homely appellative. The propensity to approach a meaning not directly and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... convinced at last, or an Antilegon, who carps and cavils all the way; and there is not in Dent's book what there is in Bunyan's, a biographical narrative connecting the various parts of the dialogue; but the groundwork of each is the same—a searching manifestation and exposure of the nature and evils of various ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which we require them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so short, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... (as if destiny had intended, in assigning his birth-place—the ancient capital of Russia, and still the dwelling-place of all that is most intense in Russian nationality—to predict all the stuff and groundwork of his character) at Moscow, on the 26th of May 1799. His family, by the paternal side, was one of the most ancient and distinguished in the empire, and was descended from Ratcha, a German—probably a Teutonic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... and gaed us a twa-hours discourse on the system of banking in Scotland; wherein the superiority of the method adopted by his countrymen, to wring the last drop of interest out a shilling, was pertinaciously and dogmatically argued, upon the great groundwork of "the general and aibstract preencepels ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... channels led, Yet by their parent still supplied and fed, That Government, (though branch'd out far and wide, In various modes to various lands applied) Howe'er it differs in its outward frame, In the main groundwork's every where the same; The same her view, though different her plan, Her grand and general view—the good of man. Let me find out, by Reason's sacred beams, What system in itself most perfect seems, 550 Most worthy man, most likely to ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... social much higher than she did her physical head, while there was a kind of nose-in-the-air bearing in both cases. She had beautiful, wavy black hair, a clear complexion, black eyes, and narrow, thin lips, which were always slightly pursed up, as the groundwork or main support of a kind of cast-iron smile that never left her face for a moment while she was awake. Her dresses always fitted her perfectly, and her skirts trailed at the proper angle, but yet there was a feeling, all ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... the dependence of tragedy and comedy on one another, of which he gives the reason in the Laws—'For serious things cannot be understood without laughable, nor opposites at all without opposites, if a man is really to have intelligence of either'; here he puts forward the principle which is the groundwork of the thesis of Socrates in the Symposium, 'that the genius of tragedy is the same as that of comedy, and that the writer of comedy ought to be a writer of tragedy also.' There is a truth and right ...
— Laws • Plato

... blue-eyed and yellow-haired, would remind one instantly of Henrietta, an olive brunette with large, languishing dark eyes and hair that was blue-black. The hint of resemblance that ran through them all, reconciling every differentiation, was Ah Chun's contribution. He had furnished the groundwork upon which had been traced the blended patterns of the races. He had furnished the slim-boned Chinese frame, upon which had been builded the delicacies and subtleties of Saxon, ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... of this medium new possibilities came into the world, and a continual succession of painters have been inventing ways of putting on paint, the result being the stock of methods and processes of handling which are the groundwork of the art of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... secured, Spurius Posthumius and two other citizens were, by general consent, despatched to Athens to procure copies of the laws which Solon had drawn up for the Athenians, to the end that these might serve as a groundwork for the laws of Rome. On their return, the next step was to depute certain persons to examine these laws and to draft the new code. For which purpose a commission consisting of ten members, among whom was Appius Claudius, a crafty and ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... that the three synoptic Gospels are the works of three independent authors, each prompted by Divine inspiration, has steadily accumulated, until, at the present time, there is no visible escape from the conclusion that each of the three is a compilation consisting of a groundwork common to all three—the threefold tradition; and of a superstructure, consisting, firstly, of matter common to it with one of the others, and, secondly, of matter special to each. The use of the terms "groundwork" and "superstructure" by no means implies that the latter must be of later date than ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... the last-mentioned author's explanation of such serial homology as exists in the centipede and its allies, the very groundwork is open to objection. Multiplication by spontaneous fission seems from some recent researches to be much less frequent than has been supposed, and more evidence is required as to the fact of the habitual propagation of any planariae in this fashion.[169] But even if this were as asserted, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... The groundwork of the following pages,— This Romance, undertaken at his suggestion, is inscribed by his old, and sincerely attached friend, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... very ruinous condition three hundred and forty years ago. They were described by Cieca de Leon, who accompanied Pizarro, and also by Diego d'Alcobaca. Cieca de Leon mentions "great edifices" that were in ruins, "an artificial hill raised on a groundwork of stone," and "two stone idols resembling the human figure, and apparently made by skillful artificers." These "idols" were great statues, ten or twelve feet high. One of them, which was carried to La Paz in 1842, measured "three and ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... spoliation forms the groundwork of human savagism. To retrace its history would be to reproduce almost entire the history of all nations—Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Franks, Huns, Turks, Arabs, Moguls, Tartars—without ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... well say we must be sorry for it, having so lately seen it in all its gay spring beauty—and though no doubt the surface, which is all we saw of its inhabitants, is better than the groundwork, how much of good and great it contains! How the best Frenchmen everywhere, and the best Parisians in particular, must grieve over the deep corruption which has done much to bring their country to its present dreary prospects. I did not mean that any mediation ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... psychological? Is there not in them all that constitutes an intelligent act—adaptation of means to ends; not a general and vague adaptation, but a determinate adaptation to a determinate end? In the reflex action we find all that constitutes in some sort the very groundwork of an intelligent act—that is to say, the same series of stages, in the same order, with the same relations between them. We have thus, in the reflex act, all that constitutes the psychological act except consciousness. The reflex act, which is physiological, differs in ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... brought inflation down from a monthly average of around 14% in first half 1993 to an average of 3.1% in 1994. Nevertheless, the process has been painful with industrial output in 1993 less than half the 1991 level. The economy appeared to have bottomed out in 1994, and Vilnius's policies have laid the groundwork for vigorous recovery over the next few years. Recovery will build on Lithuanian's strategic location with its ice-free port at Klaipeda and its rail and highway hub in Vilnius connecting it with Eastern Europe, Belarus, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... which are the groundwork of modern constitutions—principles which were imperfectly known in Europe, and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, in the seventeenth century—were all recognised and determined by the laws ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... throats with an intolerable decoction called coffee extract. The figure of an imperious guard with a waving lamp. The vision of a stampede. Gone. Then an interlude of sleep, during which an orchestra plays dream music, with a roll, roll, roll of wheels as a musical groundwork to the theme. Then Paddington, in a fog—a real London particular, now for the first time seen, felt, tasted, sneezed at, coughed at, wept over. Distracted biographic figures rampant everywhere. Gone. A vision of streets, populous, and full of movement, but half-invisible ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... all or nearly all those who were to found additional colonies in New England; and from that portal, willingly or unwillingly, men and women journeyed north, south, and west, searching for favorable locations, buying land of the Indians, and laying the groundwork for permanent homes and organized communities. In this way were begun the colonies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Haven, and New Hampshire, each of which sprang in part from the desire for separate religious and political life and in ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... the present administration the United States, having fully entered upon its position as a world power, with the responsibilities thrust upon it by the results of the Spanish-American War, and already engaged in laying the groundwork of a vast foreign trade upon which it should one day become more and more dependent, found itself without the machinery for giving thorough attention to, and taking effective action upon, a mass of intricate business vital to American interests ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft

... fine silken meshes and rich gold and silver embroidery; that of Italy, by the varied size and shape of its meshes and a resemblance in the style of its embroidery to the Punto tagliato; whilst the netting of France, known by the name of Cluny guipure, consists of a groundwork of fine meshes with stiff close designs embroidered upon it, outlined ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... telegraph through portions of the country where private enterprise will not construct it. Commerce, trade, and, above all, the efforts to bring a people widely separated into a community of interest are always benefited by a rapid intercommunication. Education, the groundwork of republican institutions, is encouraged by increasing the facilities to gather speedy news from all parts of the country. The desire to reap the benefit of such improvements will stimulate education. I refer you to the report of the Postmaster-General ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... feet deep at right angles with the line of march, and screens of cotton cloth edged at the bottom with oil-skin were arranged something after the fashion of stop-nets for ground game in covert-shooting in England. This wall, with a slippery groundwork, prevented the insects from proceeding. As they never turn back, they were obliged to search sideways for a passage, and were thus led into the pits in millions, where they were destroyed by burying the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... tenth-magnitude stars, for example, may be scattered throughout the spheres which HERSCHEL would assign to the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth magnitudes. However this may be, the fact remains that it is from HERSCHEL'S groundwork that future investigators must build. He found the whole subject in utter confusion. By his observations, data for the solution of some of the most general questions were accumulated, and in his memoirs, which STRUVE ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... class of narratives especially, to which this principle must necessarily be applied. Such are narratives of supernatural events. To seek to explain these, or to reduce them to legends, is not to mutilate facts in the name of theory; it is to make the observation of facts our groundwork. None of the miracles with which the old histories are filled took place under scientific conditions. Observation, which has never once been falsified, teaches us that miracles never happen but in times and countries in which they are believed, and before persons disposed to believe them. No miracle ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... the following summer, I found that my father, who knew perfectly the thorough groundwork I had received in Greek and Latin, had insisted on my being given a remove into the lower fifth form "in absentia." Both he and I were aware that I could do the work easily; but the form master resented it, and had already protested in vain. I believe he was a very good man ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... century has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style.... From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's Works, v. pp. 31, 39. See post. May ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... public judgment. How far they may coincide with those advanced by others I cannot say, and have not been careful to inquire. The mere fact of coincidence or of dissent on such a question is of less importance than the principle accepted by either student as the groundwork of his theory, the mainstay of his opinion. It is no part of my project or my hope to establish the actual date of any among the various plays, or to determine point by point the lineal order of their succession. I have examined no table or catalogue of recent or of earlier date, from the time ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... party platform. He walked on his own legs, and was not afraid to be called a deserter by more thoroughgoing partisans. The principles which he most ardently supported were those of religious toleration and hatred to every form of arbitrary power. Now, the intellectual groundwork upon which such a character is formed has certain conspicuous merits, along with certain undeniable weaknesses. Amongst the first may be reckoned a strong grasp of facts—which was developed to an almost disproportionate degree in De Foe—and a ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... note Gibbon adds, referring to the Roman and Oriental part of the legend: 'This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by deducing the enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot safely be received as authentic history. According to the obvious sense of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful critics, Asgard, instead of denoting a real city of the Asiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... contending passions. At length his attachment to the feigned Rosario, aided by the natural warmth of his temperament, seemed likely to obtain the victory: The success was assured, when that presumption which formed the groundwork of his character came to Matilda's assistance. The Monk reflected that to vanquish temptation was an infinitely greater merit than to avoid it: He thought that He ought rather to rejoice in the opportunity given him of proving the firmness of his virtue. St. Anthony had withstood all seductions ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... effect; and whether the ultimate roots of success do not lie in that 'kind of force' which is called 'persuasion'; and to which nobody can object. If coercion be taken to include enlightenment, persuasion, appeals to sympathy and sentiment, and to imagination, it implies an ultimate social groundwork very different from that generally suggested by the word. The utilitarian and individualist point of view tends necessarily to lay stress upon bare force acting by fear and physical pain. The utilitarian 'sanctions' of law must be the hangman and the gaoler. So long as society includes unsocial ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... and birch, all have yellow spots, while retaining their groundwork of green. Oaks are often much browner, but the moisture in the atmosphere keeps the saps in the leaves. Even the birches are only tinted in a few places, the elms very little, and the beeches not much more: so it would ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... the groundwork of the reports, or more correctly, the bills of indictment in which the members of the Committee charged the Jews with the terrible crime of constituting "a religio-political caste," in other words, a nationality. Following ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... recorded, the brazen circle with which that useful work was done may moulder, the marble pillar may totter on its base, and the astronomer himself survive only in the gratitude of posterity; but the record remains, and transfuses all its own exactness into every determination which takes it for a groundwork, giving to inferior instruments—nay, even to temporary contrivances, and to the observations of a few weeks or days—all the precision attained originally at the cost of so ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... on; far past the town, now; the sun high in the sky; dew sparkling like prisms innumerable; the prairie colorings soft as a rug—its varied greens of groundwork blending with the narrow line of fresh breaking rolling ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... and he proved to demonstration that the negroes, if free, would work more cheerfully than while enslaved. He moved that the resolution be rejected. He was supported by Mr. Halcomb and Buford Howick, the latter of whom said that it was not necessary as a groundwork for future proceedings; and that, on the other hand, if the house agreed to it, they would pledge themselves to a system of apprenticeship of which they did not yet know the full effect. This was dealing rather hardly ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Universalism. They prove that Theists set at nought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the greater of two difficulties. Their system compels them to do so; for having no other groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was when there was no time—something existed when there was nothing, which something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly regarding rules of philosophising which ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... is mythological in the history of AEsculapius, there is a groundwork of facts. Splendid temples were built to him in lovely and healthy places, usually on a hill or near a spring; they were visited by the sick, and the priests of the temples not only attended to the ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... were truly feudal, and only applied to others for the purposes of illustration. Feudal holdings were, therefore, but exceptions out of the Saxon laws of possession, under which all lands were held in absolute right. These, therefore, still form the basis or groundwork of the common law, to prevail wheresoever the exceptions have not taken place. America was not conquered by William the Norman, nor its lands surrendered to him or any of his successors. Possessions ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... he, "is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... mind, which is one great step towards the attainment of knowledge, and you are sincere and open-hearted, which enables your friends to see what is the real bent of your disposition, and to give you the advice really necessary; and I hope, with this groundwork of good, you will be a very different girl when your ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... his companions, with the twelve peers of France, and Turpin, the historian. These gentlemen we will condemn only to perpetual exile, as they contain something of the famous Bojardo's invention, whence the Christian poet Ariosto borrowed the groundwork of his ingenious compositions; to whom I should pay little regard if he had not written in his own language [Italian]."—Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... the plate with some water-color and sugar; then when the oil is partly dry, he dusts on the color in the form of powder. A plunge into water will wash away the water-color and leave the oil with the powder sticking to it. Shaded groundwork is made with an atomizer. Indeed, there are almost as many methods of decorating wares of clay as there are persons who work at it. The results are what might be expected from the prices; some articles ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... activity in the years immediately preceding; such at least is the case in similar works. In these compositions the artist has already attained great and peculiar excellence, but in these, as might be expected from the subject, the fantastic element forms the groundwork of the whole. These mystical subjects are conceived in a singularly poetical spirit; the wonderful and monstrous meet us in living bodily forms. Some of them exhibit a power of representation to the eye, and a grandeur of conception the more surprising, since the shapeless ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... persons and birds. The most prominent figures were the King, seated in a chair, and seven wives standing in a row before him, most of them with pipes in their mouths. Black, red, and white, were apparently the only colors that the painter's palette supplied. The groundwork was the natural color of the clay, which had been plastered ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... his morality, and lifted it far above the sphere of legality or conformity to law. Every moral action in him proceeded from supreme love to God, and looked to the temporal and eternal welfare of man. The groundwork of his character was the most intimate and uninterrupted union and communion with his Heavenly Father, from whom he derived, to whom he referred, everything. Already in his twelfth year he found his life element and delight in the things of his Father. It was his daily ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... much of Corsican eeriness as to chafe at the unknown,[58] and to lose for the moment the faculty of forming a vigorous resolution. Like the python, which grips its native rock by the tail in order to gain its full constricting power, so Bonaparte ever needed a groundwork of fact for the due exercise of his ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... itinerating throughout Galilee or Judea; neither are we sure that He always journeyed on foot, or that He adhered to a uniform mode of travelling. It is most singular that the inspired writers throw out no hint on which an artist might seize as the groundwork of a painting of Jesus. As if to teach us more emphatically that we should beware of a sensuous superstition, and that we should direct our thoughts to the spiritual features of His character, the New Testament never mentions either the colour of His hair, or the height of His stature, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... many particulars with such striking accuracy, offered an excellent groundwork for a political play, and the "Duke of Guise" was composed accordingly; Dryden making use of the scenes which he had formerly written on the subject, and Lee contributing the remainder, which he eked out by some scenes and speeches adopted ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... arrived;(212) I have seen her; I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity, are all increased. Her dress, like her languages, is a gralimatias of several countries; the groundwork rags, and the embroidery nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old black-laced hood represents the first; the fur of a horseman's coat, which replaces the third, serves for the second; a dimity petticoat is deputy, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... endeavoured to obtain some information concerning his new adversary. Kutusof was described to him as an old man, the groundwork of whose reputation had been formerly laid by a singular wound. He had since skilfully profited by circumstances. The very defeat of Austerlitz, which he had foreseen, added to his renown, which was further increased by his late campaigns ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... brown beside it was but the work of a few seconds: the eye of an accomplished artist determined the attitude of the original, and the light reflected from the form and features accomplished the rest. Were that sketch in brown to be sent to a skilful engraver, he would render it the groundwork of by far the most faithful print which the public has yet seen. And how interesting to have bound up with the writings of this distinguished divine, not a mere print in which there might be deviations from the truth, but the calotype drawing ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... is essentially a priestly book; but it is not entirely a priestly book. Much of the thought to which it gives utterance is popular in origin and sentiment, and is by no means of the lowest order. On this groundwork the priests have built up a system of hieratic thought and ritual of their own, in which there is much that deserves a certain respect. There is a good deal of fine poetry in it. There is also in it some idea of a law of righteousness: ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett

... troop, when the part of clown was entrusted to the famous Grimaldi, "the Garrick of clowns," as Theodore Hook called him. This great comic artist devised the eccentric costume still worn by clowns—the original whiteness of the Pierrot's dress being used as a groundwork upon which to paint variegated spots, stars, and patches; and nearly all the "comic business" of modern harlequinades is of his invention. The present dress of the harlequin dates from the beginning of the century only. Until then the costume had been the loosely fitting ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... greyhound, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed; no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the results of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray, in his belief 'that variations have been led ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... to find any groundwork of history in these narratives. We must turn away from the "shadow-land" which the Egyptians called the time of the gods on earth, if we would find trace of the real doings of men in the Nile valley, and put before our readers actual human beings in the place of airy phantoms. ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... struggle close, complex; Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks Arching high; spear, shield, and all The panoply that doth recall Mighty war; such war as e'en For Helen's sake is waged, I ween. Purple is the groundwork: good! All the field is stained with blood— Blood poured out for Helen's sake; (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!) But the shapes of men that pass Are as ghosts within a glass, Woven with whiteness of the swan, Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan From the garment's purple fold ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... later letter to Stockmar the Prince writes: "An individuality, a character which shall win the respect, the love, and the confidence of the Queen and of the nation, must be the groundwork of my position.... If therefore I prove a 'noble' Prince in the true sense of the word, as you call upon me to be, wise and prudent conduct will become easier to me, and its results more rich in blessings;" and to his stepmother ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... introduced into a letter of Philip's, and that, too, simply as an image of his own mental condition. There are but few poets for whom it would be superfluous to reflect whether pieces of such-like mere poetry might not more properly form part of the descriptive groundwork, and be altogether banished from discourse and conversation, where the greater amount of their intrinsic care and excellence becomes, by its position, a proportionally increasing load of ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... attending, the introduction of physiological life, there appeared signs of sentient life. The preservation of certain of the sense organs, taken together with the collateral evidences of sense action, as early as Cambrian times, furnish the groundwork for a historical study of the progress of sentient life, eventuating in the higher forms of mental life. Here the problems of geology run hand in hand with the problems of psychology. The limitations of the evidence bearing on psychological phenomena, while regrettable, are not ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... groundwork for his history, and his researches in making it thorough, were such as to have liberated him to the knowledge of other manners and ideals, but he remained strictly a Bostonian, and as immutably of the Boston social and literary faith as any I knew in that capital of accomplished ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... that the shingles might have been veritable slates. Resemblance to the lime-washed houses of home was Robert's fancy; which, in Zack Bunting's mind, was a perverted taste, as he recommended a brilliant green groundwork, picked out with yellow, such canary-bird costume ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... through Syria found the Eastern Gnostics of whom Simon Magus is alleged to have been the first. The other stream passed through Rome and found Adoptionism. The combination with this strengthened the belief in the true humanity of Jesus, and in his {126} real divinity, thus providing the groundwork for the Christological development of Irenaeus and his successors in ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake

... apparent primary carelessness of the terns in depositing their eggs is shown, when the chicks are hatched, to have been artfulness of a high order. At least a dozen, if not more, young birds were sharply focused by the camera, but so perfectly do their neutral tints blend with the groundwork of coral, shells and sand that only three or four are actually discernible, and these are perplexingly inconspicuous. A microscopic examination of the photograph is necessary to differentiate the helpless birds ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... Genius spreads its wings And soars beyond itself, or selfish things. Talent has need of stepping-stones: some cross, Some cheated purpose, some great pain or loss, Must lay the groundwork, and arouse ambition, Before ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... For the groundwork of the following Poem I am indebted to a memorable Fete, given some years since, at Boyle Farm, the seat of the late Lord Henry Fitzgerald. In commemoration of that evening—of which the lady to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... would have been cloyed and tired with uniformity of adventures and expressions, inseparable from a subject of this sort, whose bottom, or groundwork being, in the nature of things eternally one and the same, whatever variety of forms and modes the situations are susceptible of, there is no escaping a repetition of near the same images, the same figures, the same expressions, with this further inconvenience ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... and we had the satisfaction of seeing the very window from which the father with his own hands hung his own son, and the black marble marrowbones and death's head, and inscription and date, 1493. I daresay you know the story; it formed the groundwork very lately of a tragedy. The son had—from jealousy as the tragedy has it, from avarice according to the vulgar version—killed a Spanish friend; and the father, a modern Brutus, condemns him, and then goes to comfort him. I really thought it worth while to wade through ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Austria), with statistical calculations and charts of the largest vaulted bridges ever built, and photographic views of the working in the Karawanken and Wocheiner tunnels. Among the other exhibits in this department may be mentioned a model of the groundwork of the Austrian State railways for express trains, photos of the imperial court train and of the newest locomotives and passenger carriages of the Austrian State railways, as well as plans for iron bridges, groundwork, locomotives, and passenger ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... the branches, huzzaing to us. Fritz secured the ladder so firmly to the branch, that I had no hesitation in ascending myself. I carried with me a large pulley fixed to the end of a rope, which I attached to a branch above us, to enable us to raise the planks necessary to form the groundwork of our habitation. I smoothed the branches a little by aid of my axe, sending the boys down to be out of my way. After completing my day's work, I descended by the light of the moon, and was alarmed to find that ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... bound to assert its superiority. About the close of the eleventh century, there was a great revival in the study of the Roman law as embodied in the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian (see p. 358), and in the course of a century or two this became either the groundwork or a strong modifying element in the jurisprudence of almost all the peoples ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... present name, the American Federation of Labor. It was built up by trade-union members of the skilled trades, and to them trade qualifications and trade autonomy were essential articles of faith. This was a much more solid groundwork upon which to raise a labor movement. But at first it worked none too well for the women, although as the national organizations with women members joined the Federation the women were necessarily taken in, too. Likewise ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... addressed "To the Editor of the People's Banner" in the printed slip which Mr. Slide had shown to Phineas Finn, though Kennedy himself had not prefixed to it any such direction. And the letter, in the hands of Quintus Slide, would not simply have been a letter. It might have been groundwork for, perhaps, some half-dozen leading articles, all of a most attractive kind. Mr. Slide's high moral tone upon such an occasion would have been qualified to do good to every British matron, and to add virtues to the Bench ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... collections. There was no material change, if any at all, made in their general system by the Danish conquest. They were of the original country of the Saxons, and could not have differed from them in the groundwork of their policy. It appears by the league between Alfred and Guthrum, that the Danes took their laws from the English, and accepted them as a favor. They were more newly come out of the Northern barbarism, and wanted the regulations necessary to a civil society. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... to be found. It is the pure essence of English conversational style. His works consist only of morceaux—of brilliant passages. I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to have known better, should call him "a dull fellow." His wit is poignant, though artificial; and his characters (though the groundwork of some of them had been laid before) have yet invaluable original differences; and the spirit of the execution, the master-strokes constantly thrown into them, are not to be surpassed. It is sufficient to name them;—Yorick, Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy; My Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... every mother's heart where they might teach their silent lesson! If only mothers might see how powerful for good or evil is their influence; how the affections and the mental powers may be moulded by prayer and maternal love, and how the groundwork for the future of the child may be ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum

... also been frequently alleged in England, and always seems to be taken as the groundwork of argument in the matter of the Annexation, that the Special Commissioner represented that the majority of the inhabitants wished for the Annexation, and that it was sanctioned on that ground. This ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... our spirits a little, we called on Madame D'Aublay, sister-in-law to Brissot, who was executed in the time of Robespierre. She is a Roman Catholic, and thinks the groundwork of true religion to be in their church, but that their customs and the mass are nothing worth. We left her some tracts, and amongst them one of Judge Hale's, which struck her so forcibly on reading it, that she followed us ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... can scarcely see any trace of their existence except in certain relics which have been borrowed from true poetry and converted into the half fabulous history of the infant ages of Rome. That the Romans, as a people, had no great national drama, and that their poems never became the groundwork of a later polished literature was due to the incorporation of foreigners into their nation who took little interest in the traditions of their earlier achievements. Father Ennius (239-169 B.C.), as Horace calls him, was the true founder of Latin poetry. He enriched the Latin language, gave ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis



Words linked to "Groundwork" :   readying, supposition, preparation, assumption, raft foundation, support, supposal, meat and potatoes, bed, structure, construction, explanation



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