Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Mastery   /mˈæstəri/   Listen
Mastery

noun
(pl. masteries)
1.
Great skillfulness and knowledge of some subject or activity.  Synonyms: command, control.
2.
Power to dominate or defeat.  Synonyms: domination, supremacy.
3.
The act of mastering or subordinating someone.  Synonym: subordination.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Mastery" Quotes from Famous Books



... Faithful and demand my slave-girl." "Sleep till the morning," said the other, "and go not forth at the like of this hour." But he answered, "Needs must I go;" and the host said to him, "[Go] in the safeguard of God." So Noureddin went forth, and drunkenness had got the mastery of him, wherefore he threw himself down on [a bench before one of] the shops. Now the watch were at that hour making their round and they smelt the sweet scent [of essences] and wine that exhaled from him; so they made for ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... years, the melancholy years— Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, 'Guess now who holds thee?'—'Death,' I said. But there The silver answer ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... with that broad free force, whose fascination All felt, and artists most, that dexterous sleight Which gave our land the unchallenged consummation Of graphic mastery in Black-and-White. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... in writing this story, he heard from England that Lady Byron was ill, and, his heart softening at the intelligence, he threw the manuscript into the fire. So constantly were the good and evil principles of his nature conflicting for mastery over him.[124] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... discovered some notorious lies that I had framed, and taxed me with them in such a manner that I could in no wise get off. My cheek burnt, with offence, rather than shame; and he, thinking he had got the mastery of me, exulted over me most unmercifully, telling me I was a selfish and conceited blackguard, who made great pretences towards religious devotion to cloak a disposition tainted with deceit, and that it would not much astonish him if I ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... far off, though in this case it meant mastery. The day of the Moorish pirates was over; henceforth they might, and did, triumphantly assault and batter Spanish and Venetian ships, but they would do this under the captaincy of the allies they had called in, under the leadership of the Turkish Corsairs. The ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... Section, in galleries 109 to 111, has the appearance of belonging to an older period in the history of art than the present. One feels that the artists who show pictures here have not that mastery of light which marks the Nineteenth Century's greatest advance in painting. Certainly there is evidence of a general reliance on the older standards. Perhaps the best works are those of Columbano, in the central gallery. Here too, and in the next room, ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... mastery of France was revealed early in the year. On January 3, as the result of his restrictions of the liberty of the press, the Ministry had to resign. The President deprived General Changarnier, a pronounced Republican, of the command of the Paris garrison, ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... steal, to get the money which is wagered at these "combats," they will never evade a debt of honor thus incurred. Regarding gambling as a livelihood, or a profession in good standing, they devote their best hours to the study and the mastery of it. They, with their false philosophy, believe that wealth is thus produced, and that there is a gain for ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... one of his contemporaries and successors has aimed at attaining, even though they never hoped to succeed. Every Editor of Punch—except perhaps Stirling Coyne—delivered such lectures in his day. Henry Mayhew took for his subject that of which he had a complete mastery, "London Labour and London Poor." Mark Lemon, whose knowledge of the metropolis was probably even more extensive and peculiar than Sam Weller's own, lectured on it in "About London," and gave recitals of "Falstaff" with a certain measure of success. Shirley ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... stove Simeon Holly watched his son's face—and smiled. He saw amazement, unbelief, and delight struggle for the mastery; but before the playing had ceased, he was summoned by Perry Larson to the kitchen on a matter of business. So it was into the kitchen that John Holly burst a little ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... stretched on wattles, resembling enlarged coracles. Yet with such rude ships as they had, they reached Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland as hermits or missionaries.[10] In Norse times they never had the mastery of the sea, and the Pictish navy is a ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray

... more important passages are full and clear in matter, always well presented, often in a masterly mode.... Dr. Giles is in thorough possession of his materials and of his intention, which produces the clearness that arises from mastery; and he exhibits the same general bon hommie and chronicler disposition for minute and picturesque narrative which we noted in his 'Life of Becket,' with more ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various

... now, sir, because help came, and we were saved; but how would it have been if the Indians had got the mastery, as they nearly did? There is nothing that they stop at in the way of torture and murder, and it would have been a blessing for an end to have been made of ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... matters; you cannot conceive what strength, what self-denial, what energy I exert to make myself worthy of the pure, modest, and exalted love which Amelia has consecrated to me. You cannot comprehend how often my good and evil genius struggle for the mastery, how often I pray God to keep me from temptation. No, I have sworn that this love shall wave pure and unblemished, like a glorious banner over my whole life; come death rather than dishonor! And now, friend, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... confident air with which Trevanion approached the next tee. Although his position seemed almost hopeless, a feeling of confidence came into his heart. He had measured his opponent by this time, and he knew he had got to his old mastery of his clubs. He felt sure, too, that he could play the stronger game, even although he had lost hole after ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... else, and then arguing on this motley farrago, as if established on gospel evidence. And while expressing his wonder, 'at the age of eighty-eight, the strong passions of Mr. Adams should not have cooled '; that on the contrary, 'they had acquired the mastery of his soul,' (p. 100 ;) that 'where these were enlisted, no reliance could be placed on his statements,' (p. 104 ;) the facility and little truth with which he could represent facts and occurrences, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... distinguished at the university for philological scholarship and for linguistic talent—two things not always found in connection—and now during fourteen years he devoted such time as he could to acquiring a complete mastery of the Algonquin dialect spoken by the Indians of Massachusetts bay. To the modern comparative philologist his work is of great value. He published not only an excellent Indian grammar, but a complete translation of the Bible into the Massachusetts language,—a monument ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... had she struggled within herself for aid, but no response. Faint hope dawned in the form of appeal. She now resolved to go to her dear companion with all her trials and tale of suffering. At intervals this hope died away, but in the end gained the mastery. It was this resolve that kept Lady Rosamond from joining in the festive train that set off that morning. It was this resolve that detained Mary Douglas as well. It was this resolve that bade Lady ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... aside their lesser enmities and met in common cause against this terrible invader. The battle of Chalons, 451,[4] was the most tremendous struggle in which Turanian was ever matched against Aryan, the one huge bid of the stagnant, unprogressive races, for earth's mastery. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... describing a piece of antique sculpture he saw in Rome adds, "To express the perfection of learning, mastery, and art displayed in it is beyond the power of language. Its more exquisite beauties could not be discovered by the sight, but only by the touch of the hand passed over it." Of another classic marble at Padua he says, "This statue, when the Christian faith triumphed, was hidden in that place by ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... her to halt, then in a loud voice he informed her he had been ordered to turn her back from the gates. Was it then to witness this fresh insult that the people had now been brought together? Anger and apprehension struggled for mastery in her breast and choked her utterance when she attempted to speak. She could only turn to her men, and in instant response to her look they drew their swords and pressed forward as if about to force their way ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... her voice was audible in the street, as she poured forth torrents of furious reproach and menace; all the time Emma stood patient and undaunted, her own anger often making terrible struggle for mastery, but ever finding itself subdued. For she, too, was of a passionate nature, but the treasures of sensibility which her heart enclosed consecrated all her being to noble ends. One invaluable aid she had in a contest ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... upon my knee. In June I shook hands with him as he strained at his tether. In mid-September we nodded to each other from opposite sides of a barbed wire fence. Yet Isinglass retained the most complete mastery of his ferocious-looking protege, and beneath his skilful massage Hyldebrand would throw himself upon the ground and guggle in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various

... thrusting forth 450 'Gan lighten fear; for here to hope AEneas deemed it worth, And trust his fortune beaten down that yet it might arise. For there while he abode the Queen, and wandered with his eyes O'er all the temple, musing on the city's fate to be, And o'er the diverse handicraft and works of mastery, Lo there, set out before his face the battles that were Troy's, And wars, whereof all folk on earth had heard the fame and noise; King Priam, the Atridae twain, Achilles dire to both. He stood, and ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... nothing of all that is passing in our land. I understand your counsels but too well. I know well that our Danish lords have no true friend in you. It may be that you hate them; but your fear them too. When you gave Merete to Vinzents Lunge the Danes held the mastery on all sides throughout our land. Three years later, when you forbade Lucia to wed the man she had given her life to, though he had deceived her,—things were far different then. The King's Danish governors had shamefully misused the ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen

... of the brilliant goal whither he was leading her. She was the instrument, he was the hand that played upon it, and all that had happened from hour to hour in their mutual existence revealed in some new and unexpected way his mastery over life. She had seen great ladies bowing to him, smiling upon him in a way that told their intention to get him away from her. She had heard scraps of his conversation with the French and English noblemen who had stopped to speak to him; ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... haunt her marble portico, The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow; Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail, The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea, With him elected to their mastery. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... struggle between the wild, romantic, erratic, visionary, fighting Celt, with moods of love and hate, and the calmer, steady, tireless, lowland Scottish Saxon from the North who, far less gifted, had far more power and in the end had mastery; and having won control, built of his mingled heritages a rare, strong soul, so steadfast that he was a tower of strength for all who ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... not the only scene of the conflict between empire and the balance. Since the sixteenth century the European States have been contending for mastery, not only over one another, but over the world. Colonial empires have risen and fallen. Portugal, Spain, Holland, in turn have won and lost. England and France have won, lost, and regained. In the twentieth century Great Britain reaps the reward of her European conflicts ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson

... decent cook, and could sing a host of odd songs and snatches picked up in Austrian garrison towns. Otherwise he was a thorough Montenegrin, though he considered himself vastly their superior. His temper at other times would be vile, but the mastery over himself was really great, and after a sharp remonstrance he could change his ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... a man that hid not his passion or his feeling—one that could hide naught. Afterwards the very force of mastery and passion left their impress on William's face, but when I first saw him there, in the full glory of a man's honour and strength, I gave him my boyhood's worship, for that I knew he was a ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... I now felt torpidity—the torpidity that precedes dissolution to the strong swimmer who, sinking from exhaustion, must at last add a bubble to the wave as he suffocates beneath the element which now denied his mastery? If it were so, how fortunate was it that my floating rod at that moment attracted my attention as it dashed through the water by me. I saw on the instant that a fish had entangled itself in the wire noose. The rod quivered, plunged, came again to the surface, and rippled the water ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman

... is probable that such a one would have extorted from me a belief in her love for five minutes every day. Not for an instant could that delusion live with Elsa's openness. Yet perhaps she would learn the trick, and I watch her mastery of it in the growth. But at least she should not learn ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... held to be his crime in bringing his daughter to this awful place, and with terror for the fate that threatened her, that he could think of nothing else. In vain did she try to comfort him. He would only wring his hands and groan, praying that God and she would forgive him. Now, too, Meyer's mastery over him became continually more evident. Mr. Clifford implored the man, almost with tears, to unblock the wall and allow them to go down to the Makalanga. He even tried to bribe him with the offer of all his share of the treasure, if it were ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... admit the force of constitution, but people are very apt to blame that for many things they might readily avoid. Care, with a little reflection, will soon give you this mastery of your temper and your countenance. If you find yourself subject to sudden starts of passion, determine with yourself not to utter a single word till your reason has recovered itself; and resolve to keep your countenance as unmoved ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... people's heart As if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, — Gazing on thee, I mark that not alone, Ah, not alone, thou sittest: there, by thee, Beethoven's self, dear living lord of tone, Doth stand and smile upon thy mastery. Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow: He says, "From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call (For, where an artist plays, the sky is low): Yea, since my lonesome life did lack love's all, In death, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... her children seated themselves gratefully, and as they did so, a burst of music floated upon the air, several tunes struggling together for the mastery. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... herd. I learned—I know—I'm sure there was a deal between Tull and Oldring." He paused and shifted his position and his gaze. He looked as if he wanted to say something that he found beyond him. Sorrow and pity and shame seemed to contend for mastery over him. Then he raised himself and spoke with effort. "Jane I've cost you too much. You've almost ruined yourself for me. It was wrong, for I'm not worth it. I never deserved such friendship. Well, maybe it's not too late. You must give me up. Mind, I haven't ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... because they failed to make good use of their gold. Dante descries among the victims tonsured polls, proving that monks themselves are not exempt from these sins. Meanwhile Virgil expounds how the Creator decreed nations should wield the mastery in turn, adding that these people are victims of Fortune, whose proverbial fickleness ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... shock may be sufficient, when a liquid is saturated with some salt, to precipitate it at once in crystals, a slight effort may be perhaps all that is needed now that the truth already revealed to men may gain a mastery over hundreds, thousands, millions of men, that a public opinion consistent with conscience may be established, and through this change of public opinion the whole order of life may be transformed. And it depends upon us to make ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... in an hour or so, and there is hardly a more delightful hour's reading of anything like the same kind in the English language, either for the incidental strokes of wit and humour, or for the easy mastery with which the whole is hit off. It contains, moreover, another drinking-catch, "Seamen Three," which, though it is, like its companion, better known than most of Peacock's songs, may ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... prosper; but the King's financial methods were hardly more conducive to public industry and thrift than his personal example. Wolsey indeed was an able finance minister. In spite of the enormous expenditure on display, his mastery of detail prevented mere waste; and until the pressing necessities of a war-budget arose in 1523, enough money was found by tapping the sources to which Henry VII. had applied, supplemented by the ample hoards which that monarch had left behind. In 1523, the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... Cicero. None of his speeches have survived. We possess, however, his invaluable Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil wars. These works, though brief and in most parts rather dull, are highly praised for their simple, concise style and their mastery of the art ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Sigmund's visage but fierce did his eyen glow, "This is the deed of thy mastery;—we twain shall slay my foe— And how if the foe were thy father?"— Then he telleth him Siggeir's tale: And saith: "Now think upon it; how shall thine heart avail To bear the curse that cometh if thy life endureth long— ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... 'hi-ho-hum!' quite so vociferously as I do,—in fact, it might even be better to omit it altogether,—if possible,—when some one else is speaking. There are, I grant you, other ways of expressing one's complete mastery of the art of yawning, such as a prolonged but audible sigh, or a sort of muffled howl, or even a series of blissful little shrieks peculiar to the feminine of the species,—any one of these, I admit, is a trifle more elegant and up-to-date, but they all lack the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... 'No previous general had shown so great a mastery of the art of war and such care and interest for the welfare of the State, as distinguished from the success ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... were those who had been her nearest and dearest friends; and now she was alone except for Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Pillsbury. Even they were labored with, and besought to renounce one who seemed to have complete mastery over them and was leading them to destruction, but nothing could shake their allegiance. The excuse for this persecution was that the Equal Rights Association was injured by the publication of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... see any child of mine cringe, like an ill-treated dog, at every lift of the hand. There are better ways of controlling them, I begin to feel, than through fear. Their father, I know, will never agree with me on this matter. He will always insist on mastery, open and undisputed mastery, in his own house. He is the head of this Clan McKail, the sovereign of this little circle. For we can say what we will about democracy, but when a child is born unto a man that man unconsciously puts on the purple. He becomes the ruler and ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... strange interest in me, And doing for me many kindly deeds. I knew the nature of the sympathy That drew him to my side, better than he; Though I could see that solemn change in him Which every face will wear, when Heaven and Hell Are struggling in the heart for mastery. He was unhappy; every sudden sound Startled his apprehensions; from his heart Rose heavy suspirations, charged with prayer, Desire, and deprecation, and remorse;— Sighs like volcanic breathings—sighs ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness—and, still more, the faintness of heart—that was striving for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stept passionately forward a pace before the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... them. It might be for a moment only, but while his mastery lasted he would drink deeply of personal satisfaction. Now, however, there was no gloating in his face, for he realized, as Sarka had realized, the infinite gravity of the whole situation. If a mistake were made, the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... commenced. Each proved invulnerable to the other, for neither side had yet constructed pieces capable of piercing protection, but the victory was so far with the North that the hope that the Confederacy might obtain, by one bold and inventive stroke, the mastery of the sea was for the moment at ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... lands; full of perils and rescues, fresh with the air of mountain and of sea! Think of it for a moment by the side of Caesar's Commentaries; not to compare things incomparable, but in order to appreciate the perfect art which shines through Xenophon's mastery of language, his brevity achieving a result so different from that of the like characteristic in the Roman writer. Caesar's conciseness comes of strength and pride; Xenophon's, of a vivid imagination. Many a single line ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... Circus—spoke mutely of combats that had been fierce and bloody: but the people had remained victorious; the people held their ground. One hundred thousand fists and staves, a few agricultural and building implements had asserted their mastery over one thousand swords ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... war to end, when they shall return to their homes to embrace once more their wives and little children. Here you will be able to recognise many of your friends." A good propaganda to induce desertions and surrenders! The Italians generally had the mastery over the Austrians in the air. Their machines, and especially their Capronis, could always be distinguished from the Austrians' by the deeper ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... and bent with its motion as if they were a part of its own bounding body. Tuttle gave the animal its head just enough to allow it to work off its disapproval harmlessly, and for the rest, it did nothing that he did not allow it to do. Finally it recognized the mastery, and, pretending to be dreadfully frightened by a sudden vivid flash of lightning, it started off on ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... do anything wrong!' So without a word spoken, they rushed upon him; and although he was stronger than any of them, and struggled hard at first, yet they overcame him at last. Indeed some of them thought he yielded to their violence long before they had the mastery of him; and this very submission terrified the more tender-hearted amongst them. However, they bound him; carried him down many stairs, and, having remembered an iron staple in the wall of a certain vault, with a thick rusty chain attached ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... work he had chosen to master. The man's intense desire to succeed, his quick intelligence, with his instinct for acting without hesitation, and his reckless disregard for personal injury, together with his splendid physical strength, led him to a mastery of the details of a cowboy's work with ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... And technique and conception had worked well together; for in this year both came to their fulness in him who used both wonderfully, artistically, yet always with the restraint that can come only through absolute self-mastery. It is the great reward of him who has made complete sacrifice of all things else: the act without which genius comes not into ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... she could tell, in the firelight, with what eyes he watched her and listened to her! Probably not, for his back was towards the fire, and the changing light and shade on his face was a little concealed. But the light had the mastery. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... have, instead of smothering the reflex action, vigorously scraped their throats, and coughed with a persistence entirely unwise, inducing inflammation, from which they might date, perhaps, their subsequent bronchial troubles. It is not in coughs alone that the will exerts a mastery. In a case of fever, by which an elder brother was brought very low, scarce expected by either his friends or physician to survive, a neighbor calling, was allowed to enter the sick-room. The patient was too ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... angry lines and areas of white. In such trouble, for, after its own fashion, his heart was troubled, some temperaments might have found a kind of consolation in this sight, for while we witness them, at any rate, the throes and moods of Nature in their greatness declare a mastery of our senses, and stun or hush to silence the petty turmoil of our souls. This, at least, is so with those who have eyes to read the lesson written on Nature's face, and ears to hear the message which day by day she delivers with her lips; gifts ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... intelligent beyond all the other animals of earth. Physically he is but a mite amid the beast monsters that surround him, but by value of his brain he conquers them. He has begun his career of mastery. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... Army first came out to learn their lessons in the trenches in the long days before open warfare, the enemy had the best of it in every way. In gunpowder and in supplies of ammunition he was our master all along the line, and made use of his mastery by flinging over large numbers of shells, of all sizes and types, which caused a heavy toll in casualties to us; while our gunners were strictly limited to a few rounds a day, and cursed bitterly because they could not "answer back." In March of 1915 I saw the first fifteen-inch ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... Claire, too, was not like himself. Self-possessed always, with his native French grace and his inward spiritual calm, this evening he seemed to be holding himself by a mighty grip, rather than by that habitual self-mastery that kept ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... legal distinction was recognized between conqueror and conquered. There was, however, every element of confusion and perplexity in the theory and administration of the law itself, in the variety of systems which were contending for the mastery, and in the inefficiency of the courts in which they were applied. English law had grown up out of Teutonic custom, into which Roman tradition had been slowly filtering through the Dark Ages Feudal law still bore traces of its double origin in the system ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... in the reign of James the First consisted chiefly of the magnificent masques of Ben Jonson and others, who, by their training in the preceding reign, had acquired a mastery of the dramatic art. The company to which Shakespeare belonged (that of Lord Chamberlain's players) became the King's players on the accession of James, and several of Shakespeare's plays were produced at Court. But very early in this reign ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... shall be head, there is no choice But to devise some manner thing, Wherein ye all be like conning; And in the same who can do best, The other twain do make them prest, In every thing of his intent, Wholly[446] to be at commandment. And now have I found one mastery,[447] That ye can do indifferently; And is nother selling nor buying, But even on very lying. And all ye three can lie as well, As can the falsest devil in hell. And though afore ye heard me grudge In greater matters to be your ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... will and ability to move was gone. Ross could only lie there and endure. What had happened, he did not know save that what raged about him now was a warring of inimical forces, perhaps both feeding on each other even as they strove for mastery. ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... 'to subsist in bones and be but pyramidally extant'—'sad and sepulchral pitchers which have no joyful voices'—'predicament of chimaeras'—'the irregularities of vain glory, and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity'—are examples of this consummate mastery of language, examples which, with a multitude of others, singly deserve whole hours of delicious gustation, whole days of absorbed and exquisite worship. It is pleasant to start out for a long walk with such a splendid phrase upon one's lips as: 'According to the ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... firing, and he bent his head to look at her. The moonlight played upon her pallid, quivering face, and showed that in her eyes which no man could look upon and turn away. Once more—yes, even then—there came over him that feeling of utter surrender to the sweet mastery of her will which had possessed him in the sitting-room of "The Palatial." Only all earthly considerations having faded into nothingness now, he no longer hesitated, but pressed his lips to hers and kissed her again and yet again. It was perhaps as wild and pathetic ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... California had already made him a good rider, and even if the mustang had taken a fancy to buck he would have found it rather hard to dislodge our young hero. The animal he bestrode, however, was very well-behaved, especially when he felt that his rider had the mastery over him. Any horse, with any spirit, is apt to take advantage of a timid or unpractised rider, and the animal is very quick to learn when ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... heart. As the wild life sighed itself out, and vanished, Pete crouched down like an animal, and drank the warm, red fluid streaming from the victim's throat. As he did so, the ebbed tide of warmth, power, and mastery flooded back into his own veins. He drank his fill; then, burrowing half beneath the massive body, he lay down close against ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... separate particles of fiber in such quantities as, when gathered on the wire cloth and passed to a felt blanket and then pressed between rollers, to form in a second of time a broad web of embryo paper sufficiently strong and firm to take definite form. Man's mastery of the process by which this startling and wonderful change is effected has come as one of the rewards of his ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... over cheek and bosom flushed; I might have heard the beating of her heart, But that mine own beat louder; when she blushed, The hand within mine own I felt to start, But would not change my pitiless decree To strive with her for might and mastery. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... might, indeed it has, become a sufficiently perplexing question of casuistry, both as touches the punctilios of national honour and as regards an equitable division between rival Powers in respect of the material means of mastery. So in private life it may become a moot question—in point of equity—whether the craving of a kleptomaniac may not on occasion rise to such an intolerable pitch of avidity as to justify him in seizing whatever valuables he can safely lay hands on, to ease the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... associations, should attach to all that we learn. Better far a smaller amount of usable knowledge than any quantity of unorganized and undigested information, even if the latter sometimes allows us to pass examinations and receive honor grades. In short, real mastery demands that we think, that is relate and associate, instead of merely absorbing ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... and art can give you such mastery over the passions," continued the jester. "Which one of you would depose me? Who so ugly as I? Poets, philosophers! I snap my fingers at them. Poor moths! And you dare bait me with a new-comer! Let him look to ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... changed this before his death, and to have secured the enthusiastic approbation of every lover of the Union. His career had been stormy, his partisanship aggressive, his course often violent, his political methods sometimes ruthless. He had sought favor at the South too long to regain mastery of the North, and he had been defeated in the Presidential struggle of 1860,—a struggle in which the ambition of his life had been centred. But with danger to the Union his early affections and the associations of his young life had come back. He remembered that he was a native of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... at last to want is power, mastery; and, whether it be mastery over the subtleties of the intellect, as in Emerson himself, or over the passions and the springs of action, as in Shakespeare, or over our terrors and the awful hobgoblins of hell ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... multiplies to such an excess as to be a nuisance or inconveniency to the rest. If the species of lions, bears, and tigers multiplied to a certain excessive degree, they would not only destroy the species of stags, bucks, sheep, goats, and bulls, but even get the mastery over mankind, and unpeople the earth. Now who maintains so just a measure as never either to extinguish those different species, or never to suffer them ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... immediately to Boston University, where he took the medical course, and was graduated in 1890 as orator of his class. The entire time spent in primary, preparatory, college, and professional education, including the mastery of the English language, was seventeen years, or about two years less than is required by the average ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... land. Wherefore I, said Arthur, and for what cause? Sir, said Ector, for God will have it so; for there should never man have drawn out this sword, but he that shall be rightwise king of this land. Now let me see whether ye can put the sword there as it was, and pull it out again. That is no mastery, said Arthur, and so he put it in the stone; wherewithal Sir Ector assayed to pull out the sword ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... to the lake of Garda. This exploit, which had been loudly celebrated at the time, suggested to the Sultan the idea of transporting a number of vessels from the Bosporus into the port of Constantinople, where the smooth water and the command of the shore would secure to his ships the mastery of the upper half of that extensive harbor. The distance over which it was necessary to transport the galleys was only five miles, but a steep hill presented a formidable obstacle to the undertaking. Mahomet, nevertheless, having witnessed the transport ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... self-mastery, Ham came to his feet. "I'll go to bed now," he replied quietly, "because it would be a pity for us to quarrel—but I've got a few more things to say, and, after awhile, I guess you'll have to listen to 'em. We'll talk about ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... The air they breathed was still charged with the spirit poured into it by Christ; they were made great by the influence of His teaching and companionship; the power of the Holy Ghost, freshly descended, burned on their hearts; and they went forth on their mission with a force of conviction and a mastery of their task which ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... and reviewing each body of troops before he allowed it to draw its pay. Each man was to appear before him fully equipped and to show his proficiency with his weapon or weapons; horse soldiers were to bring their horses, and to exhibit their mastery over the animals by putting them through their paces, mounting and dismounting, and performing the other usual exercises. If any clumsiness were noted, or any deficiency in the equipment, the pay was to be withheld until the defect observed had been made good. Special care was to be taken ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... Ehrenbreitstein is noble in its mass, but so reduced by aerial perspective of color that it cannot contend with the tower, which therefore holds the eye, and becomes the key of the picture. We shall see presently how the very objects which seem at first to contend with it for the mastery are made, occultly, to increase ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... Donald Ward was no worse than his fellows. But the man whom he challenged was one of the few for whom the wine bottle had no attractions. He was also one of those—rare in any age—who had learnt the mastery of self, whom no words, even insulting words, can drive beyond the limits ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... to drown him in the deep water. The King of Ireland's Son was near his death, but he broke away from the Fua, and when the creature caught him again, he dragged it up the bank and held it against a tree. "I will give you the mastery of all arts because you have mastered me," said the Fua. "I do not want the mastery of arts, but maybe you can tell me where to find the Sword of Light." "You want to know that—do you?" said the Fua, and then it twisted from him and went into ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... feet. Fear, that had made her lie to Ted, made her tell the truth to Hardy. That fear was deep-rooted; it dated from the days when they were children and Vincent had the mastery in all ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... Pausanias moreover, the circumstances which chafed his pride, also thwarted the satisfaction of his affections and his criminal ambition was stimulated by that less guilty passion which shared with it the mastery of a singularly turbulent and impetuous soul. Not his the love of sleek, gallant, and wanton youth; it was the love of man in his mature years, but of man to whom love till then had been unknown. In that ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... down immediately. I felt too unnerved to remain standing. I was giving way utterly to an imaginative horror that seemed to threaten my reason. In vain I tried to pull myself together. My body was in a cold sweat. All mastery ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... gratification its only use is to minister. But even if the love of money were the strongest human passion, who is simple enough to believe that it is all the time so powerfully excited, that no other passion or appetite can get the mastery over it? Who does not know that gusts of rage, revenge, jealousy and lust drive it before them as ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... quite understand me, I'll tell you this—to my mind, it's better to break stones on the highroad than to let a woman have the mastery of even the end of one's little finger. That's all ...' Bazarov was on the point of uttering his favourite word, 'romanticism,' but he checked himself, and said, 'rubbish. You don't believe me now, but I tell you; you and I have been in feminine ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... created the wildest confusion and retired to watch the fire-brand. The "wise men" of the nation had made possible a system of government in which robbery and murder were to contend for the mastery, in which organized ignorance and organized brigandage were to contend for the right ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... away; but David dared as soon have kicked the bull. Jacob was quiet as long as he was treated indulgently; but on the slightest show of anger, he became unmanageable, and was liable to fits of fury which would have made him formidable even without his pitchfork. There was no mastery to be obtained over him except by kindness or ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot

... the two main constituents of sound intellectual and moral action. Put him and his master together, and they form a perfect intellect; but they are separated and without cement; and hence each having a need of the other for its own completeness, each has at times a mastery over the other. For the common sense, although it may see the practical inapplicability of the dictates of the imagination or abstract reason, yet cannot help submitting to them. These two characters possess the world, alternately ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... chaos of conflicting emotions. Anger, disappointment, and an almost insane exultation fought together for the mastery. She longed to be rational, to think the matter out quietly and impartially, and decide how to treat it. But her most determined efforts were vain. The music disturbed her. She felt as if the chords were hammering upon her ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... possessor of a telescope can resist. You turn the glass upon him and he floats into the field of view, with his cortege of satellites, like a yellow-and-red moon, attended by four miniatures of itself. You instantly comprehend Jupiter's mastery over his satellites—their allegiance is evident. No one would for an instant mistake them for stars accidentally seen in the same field of view. Although it requires a very large telescope to magnify their disks to measurable dimensions, yet the smallest glass differentiates them at once from ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... warm brown silk.... It is one continuous landscape, in which the scenes melt into one another. Such rolls are not meant to be exhibited or looked at all at once, but enjoyed in small portions at a time, as the painting is slowly unrolled and the part already seen rolled up again. No small mastery is requisite, as may be imagined, to contrive that wherever the spectator pauses an harmonious composition is presented. One has the sensation, as the roll unfolds, of passing through a delectable country. In the foreground ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... forced to "drop out." They lack the technique to run through the modern repertoire, and the time to hear others in it. It hardly is necessary to point out what the pianola, which gives them complete technical mastery of the keyboard, should be ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... not thy name, nor yet even that of thy people," commenced the latter, after a long pause in which he seemed to study deeply the countenance of the lad; "but certain am I, though a more wicked spirit may still be struggling for the mastery in thy wild mind, that nobleness of feeling is no stranger to thy bosom. Speak; hast thou aught to impart concerning the danger that besets this family? I have learned much this night from thy manner, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... renunciation of the world and his return to his monastery. It is a theme which has engaged the pen of writers time out of mind—but it is safe to say that never has the theme been handled with such mastery, with such keenly sympathetic character delineation and analysis, as that with which Mr. Hichens has handled it. His craftsmanship, his insight into and understanding of human nature and the forces that mold it—the intangible forces of the earth ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... student who had gained an audience through popular and discriminating lives of Napoleon and Lincoln, published a history of the Standard Oil Company in McClure's Magazine during 1903. She showed conclusively the connection between transportation and monopoly in the oil industry, revealing the mastery of the tools of transportation, by rebates, by control of tank cars, or by pipe lines, that had enabled John D. Rockefeller to establish his great trust. She showed also the unlovely methods of competition, ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... demeanour, can deliver a good hard knock on occasion. He warned the House against indulging in a certain class of criticism, on the ground that there was no surer way of killing an airman than to destroy his confidence in the machine he was flying; and he asserted that the "mastery of the air" was a meaningless phrase impossible of realization. I think Mr. PEMBERTON-HICKS and Mr. JOYNSON-BILLING took the rebuke to heart, for they were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various

... was yet awake. New feelings, vague and undetermined came into his mind but through them all went the feeling of mastery. He, though a boy, was in many respects the chief, and while he need not assert his leadership yet a while, he could never doubt ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... winged on Grecian words gained their natural mastery over terror; the brigantine held on her course, and reached smooth water at last. I landed at Limasol, the westernmost port of Cyprus, leaving the vessel to sail for Larnaka, where she was to remain ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... her decision she chose the better part some will doubt. The most common justification of our conduct is that we have followed the "dictates of our natures." But because those natures are double, and the good and evil perpetually struggle for the mastery, we are sometimes compelled to reverse their ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... seen him," I said. She started violently, but I laid my hand on hers, and by some self-mastery that was still in her she was silent. "I saw him in Louisville a month ago, when I returned from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... depending so often upon help from others to bring them to any conclusion, there was no sense of personal achievement in a work accomplished. Others planned, cut out and prepared the work, and the child came in as an unwilling and imperfect sewing machine merely to put in the stitches. The sense of mastery over material was not developed, yet that is the only way in which a child's attainment of skill can be linked on to the future. What cannot be done without help always at hand drops out of life, and likewise that which calls for ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... hast been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to thyself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts; for thou wilt have more mastery over the harmony ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... the apple of my eye, and possess my soul in patience until this tyranny be overpast." And so ended the interview, during which my heart was tossed to and fro with the utmost agitation, and my whole frame so troubled that I various times lost all mastery of myself, and only saw before me a great black gulf of ruin, into which some invisible power was pushing me and all my little ones. Great, therefore, was my delight, and sweet the relief to my soul, when the great lady left me unconnected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... to his feet, his arms outstretched, the look in his face changing, understanding, struggling for its place, memory fighting for its own, the soul contending for its mastery. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... achievements in the conquest and occupation of the West, the South was at last turned upon on every hand, rebuked, proscribed, defeated. The history of the United States, we have learned, was, from the settlement at Jamestown to the surrender at Appomattox, a long-drawn contest for mastery between New England and the South,—and the end of the contest we know. All along the parallels of latitude ran the rivalry, in those heroical days of toil and adventure during which population crossed ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... threefold: he felt more forcibly and more clearly than previous thinkers the need of a reform in science; he set up a new and grand ideal—unbiased and methodical investigation of nature in order to mastery over nature; and he gave information and directions as to the way in which this goal was to be attained, which, in spite of their incompleteness in detail, went deep into the heart of the subject and laid the foundation for ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... Munchausen of real life and the first appearance of the work in 1785, when Raspe was certainly in England, there seems to be little difficulty in accepting his authorship as a positive fact. There is no difficulty whatever, in crediting Raspe with a sufficient mastery of English idiom to have written the book without assistance, for as early as January 1780 (since which date Raspe had resided uninterruptedly in this country) Walpole wrote to his friend Mason that "Raspe writes English much above ill and speaks it as readily ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... is William's job, getting rid of them is the Babe's affair. William, like myself, has far too great a mastery of the patois to handle delicate situations with success. For instance, when the fanner approaches me with tidings that my troopers have burnt two ploughshares and a crowbar and my troop horses have masticated a brick wall I engage him in palaver, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various

... this time the facility in the use of the English and French languages which in after years was to be of great service to him. The education at school was of course chiefly in the classical languages; he acquired a sufficient mastery of Latin. There is no evidence that in later life he continued the study of classical literature. In his seventeenth year he passed the Abiturienten examination, which admitted him as a student to the university and entitled him to the privilege of serving in the army for one instead ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam



Words linked to "Mastery" :   ascendence, ascendancy, transcendency, dominance, master, superiority, transcendence, ascendency, ascendance, skillfulness



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org