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Superfluous   /sˈupərflwˌəs/   Listen
Superfluous

adjective
1.
Serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being.  Synonyms: otiose, pointless, purposeless, senseless, wasted.  "Advice is wasted words" , "A pointless remark" , "A life essentially purposeless" , "Senseless violence"
2.
More than is needed, desired, or required.  Synonyms: excess, extra, redundant, spare, supererogatory, supernumerary, surplus.  "Found some extra change lying on the dresser" , "Yet another book on heraldry might be thought redundant" , "Skills made redundant by technological advance" , "Sleeping in the spare room" , "Supernumerary ornamentation" , "It was supererogatory of her to gloat" , "Delete superfluous (or unnecessary) words" , "Extra ribs as well as other supernumerary internal parts" , "Surplus cheese distributed to the needy"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Superfluous" Quotes from Famous Books



... is divisible into three parts, thus giving a quickness and shortness where wanted. Take away, however, the first caesura, rest only on the second, (and then you have exactly one short measure, that of "Marmion,") and how superfluous the last division of the trimeter appears! as weak and ineffective as the latter part of our long measure, if we read it as wanting the additional foot of the hexameter. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... you about Delilah Jeliffe. She had a house-warming last week. The old house in Georgetown is a dream. Delilah hasn't a superfluous or gorgeous thing in it. Everything is keyed to the old-family note. Some of the things are even shabby. She has done away with flamingo colors, and her monkeys with the crystal ball and the peacock screen. She has little stools in her drawing-room with faded covers of canvas work, ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... Quick!" shouted Lieutenant Bishop. The brave tars seize the ropes, the trucks creak, and the great eleven-inch gun, already loaded, is out in a twinkling. Men are bringing up shot and shell. The deck is clearing of all superfluous furniture. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... sorry you could for a moment think that in printing rather than publishing Lord Fountainhall's Notes or rather Mr. Milne's, for that honest gentleman had taken the superfluous trouble to write the whole book anew, I meant to interfere with your valuable and extensive projected work. I mentioned in the advertisement that you were engaged in writing the life of Lord Fountainhall, and therefore declined saying ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... this well-known and universally used fruit is entirely superfluous, I will confine my remarks to the types of fruit grown, and their method of growth. Owing to the fact that our fruits ripen much earlier than similar varieties in more southern parts of Australia, we have gone in largely for early varieties ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson

... be superfluous to point out that Theophylact also,—like Victor, Jerome, and Hesychius,—is here only reproducing Eusebius. See above, p. 66, ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... luxuriously submitting to the skilful attentions of Pascherette; her wealth of lustrous hair enveloped her like a veil, rendering almost superfluous the filmy silken robe she had donned. But at sight of Milo all her feline contentment fled, and she thrust the maid from her and stood up to ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... (the author of Charles Lamb's favorite "Epistolae Ho-Elianae") advocated similar reforms, and, as far as the printers would let him, carried them out in practice. "The printer hath not bin so careful as he should have bin," he complains. He especially condemns the superfluous letters in many of our words, choosing to write don, com, and som, rather than done, come, and some. "Moreover," he says, "those words that have the Latin for their original, the author prefers that orthography rather than the French, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... implements requisite for the safeguarding of her existence, and for just as long as it is necessary for her to have them. Here, as elsewhere, Nature proceeds with her usual economy; for just as the female ant, after fecundation, loses her wings, which are then superfluous, nay, actually a danger to the business of breeding; so, after giving birth to one or two children, a woman generally loses her beauty; probably, ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer

... found that a petty larceny committed on the received text of the poet, by taking away a superfluous b, made all clear, perhaps I may be allowed to restore the abstracted letter, which had only been misplaced and read brags, with, I trust, the like success? Be it remembered that Pistol, a braggadocio, is made up of brags and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... almost superfluous to add, that the apparent sincerity with which the accommodation man pleaded, had its effect on the weak-minded man. He loved dearly the girl, but poverty hung like a leaden cloud over him. Poverty ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... internal Government and constitution are expected, and will certainly occur. Since the legislative corps has completed the Napoleon code of civil and criminal justice, it is considered by the Emperor not only as useless, but troublesome and superfluous. For the same reasons the tribunate will also be laid aside, and His Majesty will rule the French Empire, with the assistance of his Senate, and with the advice of his Council of State, exclusively. You know that the Senators, as well as the Councillors of State, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... calf of indifferent quality," and he was wont, while reading a book, to fill the margin with comments in pencil. Wherever he went he took a library of books with him, and these volumes he had deprived of all superfluous margin, so as to save weight and space. Not infrequently when hampered by the rapid growth of this travelling library he would toss the "overflow" of books out of his carriage window, and it was his custom (I shudder to record it!) to ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... eye or a limb: but could not obtain payment, for want of the formality of a certificate from the faculty, to testify that the sight was actually extinguished. Vexed, for a moment, at what he considered as a superfluous and almost impertinent requisition, it's loss being sufficiently notorious, though by no means apparent, he not only immediately procured the desired certificate; but, from whimsical pleasantry, humorously requested, and actually ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... mutual [attraction] rises very high. Then a paper is laid at the nearest end of the plate, over which the glass is slided till it lies upon the plate, having driven much of the quicksilver before it. It is then, I think, pressed upon cloths, and then set sloping to drop the superfluous mercury; the slope is daily ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... and do not relieve the straits of the treasury! The people, whom declaiming jurisconsults so vehemently but vainly incite to speak evil of lavishness, would be grieved if they saw any interruption in the expenditure which a silly parsimony calls superfluous." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of the hands calls the servants. The Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and they ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... chiefly of a blue or grey cloth, or else a blanket capote reaching below the knee, made much too loose for the figure, and strapped round the waist with a scarlet or crimson worsted belt. A very coarse blue striped cotton shirt is all the underclothing they wear, holding trousers to be quite superfluous; in lieu of which they make leggins of various kinds of cloth, which reach from a few inches above the knee down to the ankle. These leggins are sometimes very tastefully decorated with bead-work, particularly those of the women, and ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... New Sorrow rises as the Day returns, A Sister sickens, or a Daughter mourns. Now Kindred Merit fills the fable Bier, Now lacerated Friendship claims a Tear. Year chases Year, Decay pursues Decay, Still drops some Joy from with'ring Life away; New Forms arise, and diff'rent Views engage, Superfluous lags the Vet'ran on the Stage, Till pitying Nature signs the last Release, And bids afflicted Worth ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... one of those invitations which are given to be refused. I did not need Hilda's warning glance to tell me that my company would be quite superfluous. I felt those two were ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... from the very circumstance, that the transcendent rank of the sovereign, and the humble, nay, superstitious, devotion to his will make it superfluous to assert this will be acts of violence or rigor. The great mass of the people may have appeared to his eyes as but little removed above the condition of the brute, formed to minister to his pleasures. But, from their very ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... Jansenius's emigration fund readily enough, would call for the police, the military, and the Riot Act, if the people came to Brandon Beeches and bade you turn out and work for your living with the rest. Well, the superfluous proletariat destroyed, there will remain a population of capitalists living on gratuitous imports and served by a disaffected retinue. One day the gratuitous imports will stop in consequence of the occurrence abroad of revolution and repudiation, fall in the ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... of acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred pounds on security too lofty to be represented by parchment. Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a good-natured fibre in him, and did not like to give harsh refusals even to his sister, who had not only come in to the world in that superfluous way characteristic of sisters, creating a necessity for mortgages, but had quite thrown herself away in marriage, and had crowned her mistakes by having an eighth baby. On this point Mr. Tulliver was conscious of being ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... prose is the form, above all others, they prefer; handled by an alchemist of genius, it should contain in a state of meat the entire strength of the novel, the long analysis and the superfluous description of which it suppresses ... the adjective placed in such an ingenious and definite way, that it could not be legally dispossessed of its place, would open up such perspectives, that the reader would dream for whole weeks together ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... verbal beauty, the recognition of which in the mind of the child is fundamental to the plan of this work. The editors have felt that the inclusion of critical notes in these little books intended for elementary school children would be not only superfluous, but, in the degree in which critical comment drew the child's attention from the text, subversive of the desired result. Nor are there any notes on methods. The best way to teach children to love a poem is to read it inspiringly to them. ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... said Wilhelm, answering Dorfling's last remark. "I do not mean to say that your book is superfluous. You had every right to it, having made it the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... sterility, they could be kept from blending; but he continues: "After mature reflection, it seems to me that this could not have been effected through Natural Selection." And finally he concludes (p. 386): "But it would be superfluous to discuss this question in detail; for with plants we have conclusive evidence that the sterility of crossed species must be due to some principle quite independent of Natural Selection. Both Gaeartner and Kolreuter have proved that in genera including numerous ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... 'it was superfluous to talk of his military achievements, but that he must express his admiration of his conduct in civil matters, especially in the House of Lords during the present session, when he had shown how superior he was to all party considerations and purposes, and when he had given ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... his house into a temporary fortress: the shutters of the upper windows had been loop-holed, double bars had been placed across the doors and windows on the ground floor, carpets had been taken up, superfluous furniture removed, and an air of thorough preparation imparted. A few of Mr. Walters's male friends had volunteered their aid in defence of his house, and their services had ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... alteration in one's way of living. Speculation and ideas did not affect social usage. The countless movements in which she and her friends were interested for the emancipation and benefit of others were, in fact, only channels for letting off her superfluous goodwill, conduit-pipes, for the directing spirit bred in her. She thought and acted in terms of the public good, regulated by what people of position said at luncheon and dinner. And it was surely not her fault that such people must lunch and dine. When her son had bent and kissed her, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... village without touching anything, for it was clear both from what he saw and from the crowd of buzzing flies that the man was dead, and gave information to the police. Then within a few minutes from that, Mr. Figgis had arrived from Brighton, to find that it was superfluous to look any further or inquire any more concerning the whereabouts of the missing man. All that was mortal of him was here, the head covered with a cloth, and bits of the fresh summer growth of fern and frond sticking to ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... not because I am tired of writing it, nor, as continuous testimony indicates, because a generous public is tired of reading. But I am not disposed to linger superfluous on the stage. So I withdraw, carrying with me my little bag of tricks, the sententious Dog, the cynical SARK and the rest of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various

... will soon disappear. Having long since resigned the place it held in the greater part of these words, as joye, ruine, and more recently in some others, it must finally quit the remainder where it is still found a superfluous letter, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... hundreds if not thousands. They were of all colors shades and sizes. Some were calmly lying down in happy rumination, others rapidly cropping the sweet grass, while the gay calves worked off their superfluous life and spirit in vigorous exercise or drew rich nourishment in the abundant mother's milk. All seemed happy and content, and such a scene of abundance and rich plenty and comfort bursting thus upon our eyes which for months had seen only ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... C. notes: "Not perhaps here, but towards, or as, the conclusion, to chastise the fashionable notion that poetry is a relaxation or amusement, one of the superfluous toys and luxuries of the intellect! To contrast the permanence of poems with the transiency and fleeting moral effects of empires, and what are ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... was an affair of the last importance, that would admit of no delay. He then called for some coffee, and launched out into the virtues of that berry, which, he said, in cold phlegmatic constitutions, like his, dried up the superfluous moisture, and braced the relaxed nerves. He told me it was utterly unknown to the ancients; and derived its name from an Arabian word, which I might easily perceive by the sound and termination. From this topic ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... of this obstacle comes simplicity of diction; to present the thought without superfluous words; to avoid the threadbare phrases and to put the idea in a new way and yet in plain speech. How far the verse maker will go in clearness and simplicity depends largely on his natural good taste and discrimination. The better ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow

... it. It has been said that no people in the world enjoy paying taxes like Americans, provided they are only indirect, sugar coated, and with some plausible pretense. It would seem, however, that even American dairymen could see that the maintenance of superfluous creameries, superfluous teams for hauling cream and milk, superfluous men for manufacturing and handling the product is an extra expense of which they will surely bear their full share; if not at once, they will do so ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... HONOUR H. FIELDING-HALL Fiction Short stories dealing with the spirit of England at war. "Admirably written without one superfluous word to mar the directness of their appeal."—New York ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... may be glued together with or without the aid of cramps or artificial pressure. If the joint is to be made without cramping, the two surfaces of the timber are warmed so as not to chill the glue. The surfaces are then glued and put together and rubbed backwards and forwards so as to get rid of the superfluous glue. They are then put ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... due to the bias of personal or professional inclination that the present writer believes that military history,—including therein naval,—simply and clearly presented in its leading outlines, divested of superfluous and merely technical details, would be found to possess an interest far exceeding that which is commonly imagined. The logical coherence of any series of events, as of any process of Nature, possesses an innate attraction for the inquisitive element ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... II. Sc. 3., the same "clever" authority changes "cride-game (cride I ame), said I well?" into "curds and cream, said I well?"—an alteration certainly not at odds with the host's ensuing question, "said I well?" saving that that, to liquorish palate, might seem a rather superfluous inquiry. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various

... Blair, however, seemed superfluous. So far as behavior went, Mrs. Maitland had no further occasion to increase his allowance. His remaining months in the university were decorous enough, though his scholarship was no credit to him. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... forfeited by the followers of Mazdak were distributed to necessitous cultivators. The water system was carefully attended to; river and torrent courses were cleared of obstructions and straightened; the superfluous water of the rainy season was stored, and meted out with a wise economy to those who tilled the soil, in the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... it not vexatious when all your efforts have been used to work up your surfaces and to round off and finish your edges, you must in a sense undo much of it, temporarily, by using a tool, or tools, to cut the narrow channel for the ornament, and using glue to finally fix it, when some of the superfluous purfling has either to be cut away by a gouge or scraper? And besides, and to me most important, glue, though wiped quickly away with a sponge and hot water, will leave a residue which can never be wholly got out of the pores; and this should not be if you want a brilliant varnish. ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson

... are human, and we need also the testimony of Poetry; and the priceless value of poetry for us lies in this, that it does not echo the Gospel like a parrot. If it did, it would be servile, superfluous. It is ministerial and useful because it approaches truth by another path. It does not say ditto to Mr. Burke—it corroborates. And it corroborates precisely because it does not say ditto, but employs a natural process of its own which it employed before ever Christianity was revealed. You may ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... various, to be sure, were the particular longings of the prince and the scholar, of knight, burgher, and peasant; but almost all were ready to consider, at least, the teachings of one who presented to them a new conception of salvation which made the old Church superfluous. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... avenue while the other women motored past me out for tea at the club. Yet those long walks were the best thing that ever happened to me. I had time to think, for one thing; and I gained splendid health, losing the superfluous flesh I was beginning to carry, and the headaches that usually came after days of lunching and bridge ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... in the last-mentioned report and in the letter of the General in Chief relative to the establishment of an asylum for the relief of disabled and destitute soldiers. This subject appeals so strongly to your sympathies that it would be superfluous in me to say anything more than barely to express my cordial approbation of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... "at my saying that we got along without money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show that trade existed and money was needed in your day simply because the business of production was left in private hands, and that, consequently, they are superfluous now." ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... Roman Prefect, or Governor. It had been the policy of Rome to exercise great tolerance in religious matters. There was a State Religion, to be sure, but it was for the nobility or those who helped make the State possible. To look after the thinking of the plain people was quite superfluous—they were allowed their vagaries. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... request was rather superfluous in view of the fact that the majority of the women in the Transvaal were already provided with arms. There was hardly a Boer homestead which was not provided with enough rifles for all the members of the family, and ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... are one of those who regard it as superfluous to learn about anything foreign. We have enough of our own, is it not so? It is a very widespread opinion, but it ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... Russian boats excited considerable interest among the natives and merchants, both British and indigenous. Comments are superfluous on the grant given by the Russian Government to further Russian trade, and the wavering attitude of the British Government in safeguarding ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the aspersions cast upon the Jewish physicians so pitilessly are not removed, every superfluous minute spent by them in serving this Department will merely add to their disgrace. In the name of their human dignity, they have no right to remain there where they are held ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... Ovid de Ponto in his stead. My master needed not the assistance of that preliminary poet to prove his claim: his own majestic mien discovers him to be the king amidst a thousand courtiers. It was a superfluous office, and therefore I would not set those verses in the front of Virgil; but have rejected ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... windows, was a couch; a heavy, wheezing, fat-armed couch decked out in white ruffled cushions. I suppose the mere statement that, in Chicago, Illinois, Martha Foote kept these cushions always crisply white, would make any further characterization superfluous. The couch made you think of a plump grandmother of bygone days, a beruffled white fichu across her ample, comfortable bosom. Then there was the writing desk; a substantial structure that bore no relation ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... would I taste thee like a sacrament, And pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell, Who, if a father's curses, as men say, Climb with swift wings after their children's souls, 85 And drag them from the very throne of Heaven, Now triumphs in my triumph!—But thou art Superfluous; I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine to-night. Here, Andrea! Bear ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... growing older day by day, becoming more and more anxious, more and more absorbed in the great struggle—not for life; that might exhaust a man, but at least it was energetic and noble—but for superfluous wealth, for vanity, for luxury, which, for his own part, he cared nothing for, and which he purchased dearly, spurred on to exertion by those near to ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... continued to draw upon his chief asset, which was Youth. King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed and his vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom born of the long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not alone had he learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had learned how to seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again and again, by feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle Sandel into leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he never permitted Sandel ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... Taylor System—as well as all progressive measures of capitalism—combine the refined cruelty of bourgeois exploitation and a number of most valuable scientific attainments in the analysis of mechanical motions during work, in dismissing superfluous and useless motions, in determining the most correct methods of the work, the best systems of accounting and control, etc. The Soviet Republic must adopt valuable and scientific and technical advance in this field. The possibility of Socialism will be determined by our success in combining the ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... light-headed, they had quite missed their path in the Wilderness, their stores were already running low. With the further horrors it is superfluous that I should swell this narrative, already too prolonged. Suffice it to say that when at length a night passed by innocuous, and they might breathe again in the hope that the murderer had at last desisted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to lead a life of leisure, from their patron. They become his courtiers or retainers, servants; and being fed and countenanced by their patron they are indices of his rank and vicarious consumer of his superfluous wealth. Many of these affiliated gentlemen of leisure are at the same time lesser men of substance in their own right; so that some of them are scarcely at all, others only partially, to be rated as vicarious consumers. So many of them, however, as make up the retainer ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... mueddin in the minaret overlooking the Tin House called the sleeping city to its earliest prayer.[47] I rose and waked the others, and we dressed by a candle-light that soon became superfluous. When the mueddin began the chant that sounded so impressive and so mournful as it was echoed from every minaret in the city, the first approach of light would have been visible in the east, and in these latitudes ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... this dangerous design. He had not asked the name of Josh's enemy, but the look of murderous hate which the dust-begrimed tramp of the railway journey had cast at Captain George McBane rendered any such question superfluous. McBane was probably deserving of any evil fate which might befall him; but such a revenge would do no good, would right no wrong; while every such crime, committed by a colored man, would be imputed to the race, which was already staggering under a load of obloquy because, in the eyes of a prejudiced ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... bolster of the saddle, and by it the horse may be fastened whenever the rider alights, without the use of the reins for that purpose. At first a foreigner is apt to regard the equipments of a Peruvian horse as superfluous and burthensome; but he is soon convinced of their utility, and, when the eye becomes familiar to them, they have ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... only asks that which it is God's will to give. It is God's will that we should be saved and that we should be perfect. He asks, then, for all that is necessary to our perfection. Why, after this, should we be burdened with superfluous cares, and be wearied in the greatness of our way, without ever saying, There is no hope in ourselves, and therefore resting in God? God Himself invites us to cast all our care upon Him, and He complains, ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... that, in order to spare the Emperor and themselves, they had not the courage to be harsh with him and tell him the truth to his face. These are not reproaches, but reminiscences which should not be superfluous at a time when the Emperor is to be made the scapegoat of the whole world. Certainly, the Emperor, being such as he is, the experiment would not have passed off without there being opposition to encounter and overcome. ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... back from Dulwich unrequited for all the pains they had taken, and pouting that Venus should ever send them on so hard an errand. But a day in this garden is always for them a dear holiday. They live in dread lest Venus discover how superfluous they are here. And so, knowing that the hypocrite's first dupe must be himself, they are always pretending to themselves that they are of some use. See that child yonder, perched on the balustrade, reading aloud from a scroll ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. Now let every young man ask—how was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? Neither he, nor any of his relations, ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office? He held but one, and only for a few years, of no influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm, good taste, without ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... furnished an almost superfluous corroboration. She could not control her voice. She tried to be as casual as her brother, and failed lamentably. "Brenda was here just now," she said. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... impressions of leaves and plants, oil a sheet of fine paper, dry it in the sun, and rub off the superfluous moisture with another piece of paper. After the oil is pretty well dried in, black the sheet by passing it over a lighted lamp or candle. Lay the leaf or plant on the black surface, with a small piece of paper over it, and rub it carefully ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... the dialogues of Plato, let us in the next place consider their preambles, the digressions with which they abound, and the character of the style in which they are written. With respect to the first of these, the preambles, however superfluous they may at first sight appear, they will be found on a closer inspection necessary to the design of the dialogues which they accompany. Thus the prefatory part of the Timaeus unfolds, in images agreeably to the Pythagoric custom, the theory ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... found the root of the defect which rendered the Newcomen engine impracticable for general purposes, he promptly formulated the one indispensable condition which alone met the problem, and which the successful steam-engine must possess. He abandoned all else for the time as superfluous, since this was the key of the position. This is the law he then laid down as an axiom—which is repeated in his specification for his first patent in 1769: "To make a perfect steam engine it was necessary that the cylinder ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... utterly useless, for the credibility of a teacher rests on the morality that he teaches, and if this is good, it is accepted without a miracle to attest its goodness, so that the attesting miracle is superfluous. If it is bad, it is rejected in spite of a miracle to attest its authority, so that the attesting miracle is deceptive. The only use of a miracle might be to attest a revelation of otherwise unknowable facts, which had nothing to ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... said, when breakfast was over. 'I am going to do the work, washing and all. I must do something to work off my superfluous health, and strength, and muscle. Look at that arm, will you?' and she threw out her bare arm, which for whiteness and roundness and symmetry of proportion, might have been coveted by the most fashionable lady in the land. 'Go ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... wise? Famine, plague, war, and an unnumber'd throng Of guilt-avenging ills, to man belong: What black, what ceaseless cares besiege our state! What strokes we feel from fancy, and from fate! If fate forbears us, fancy strikes the blow; We make misfortune; suicides in woe. Superfluous aid! unnecessary skill! Is nature backward to torment, or kill? How oft the noon, how oft the midnight, bell, (That iron tongue of death!) with solemn knell, On folly's errands as we vainly roam, Knocks at our hearts, and finds our thoughts from home! Men drop so fast, ere life's mid stage ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... 135 with a poem by Gaguin, the colophon and two panegyrics by Faustus Andrelinus and another humanist. Even then there was need of matter, and Erasmus dashed into the breach and furnished a long commendatory letter, completely filling the superfluous blank space of folio 136.[2] In this way his name and style suddenly became known to the numerous public which was interested in Gaguin's historical work, and at the same time he acquired another title to Gaguin's ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... possible for the discussion to point out factors which the other party may have overlooked, thus giving a chance for changes of mind. All these demands must be fulfilled if the experiment is really to picture the jury function. But it would be utterly superfluous and would make the exact measurement impossible if the material on which the judgment is to be based were of the same kind of which the evidence in the courtroom is composed. The trial by jury in an actual criminal case may involve many ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... fashions, naked breasts and arms, and pinioned superfluous ribbands on hair and apparel. The Court to fine offenders ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... is now superfluous, as the matter is decisively disposed of by the publication at Pretoria of Lord Derby's telegram of February 27th, 1884, in which the effect of the London Convention of that date was stated in the following words: 'There ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... that this would be so, more or less, everywhere; but in how extreme a degree must it hold good amongst us! Even in poverty, in sickness, and old age, where this life would seem to be nothing but a burden, and the command to "set the affections on things above" might appear superfluous, still the known so prevails over the unknown, the familiar over the incomprehensible, that hope and affection find continually their objects in this world, there is still a clinging to life, and an unwillingness to die. But in a state the very ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... they show the use made of false news in bolstering up the Insurgent cause, and might with propriety have been included in the chapter on "The Conduct of the War." I have thought it best to keep them by themselves. Further comment on them would seem to be superfluous. ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... that it is facts in the book. The | strict and detailed. We| unnecessary to take conscientious and | had to know all the | notes. He talks well capable student finds | fifteen qualities of | and makes things clear. him superfluous; the | Macaulay's style. "No, | We are given assignments indifferent student | we did not read | in S——'s "Elements of remains unmoved by his | Macaulay this term: we | Economics," on which we phlegmatic | study from a history of| are questioned by presentation; ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been superfluous; he looked all the ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... that had a roguish trick of quizzing—eyes that had borrowed their hue from the summer sky, with lashes like her sister's, and an indefinable little nose, made up a whole which was positively unfair to the rest of her sex, judging from the fact that every other girl was superfluous when Kitty was on the scene. And she was not blind to her own success, yet she was merciful out of the tenderness of her naturally good heart that never inflicted suffering wantonly; and if it happened that, owing to her irresistible ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... destroyed the entire Spanish fleet off Passaro: "Sir,—We have taken or destroyed all the Spanish ships on this coast; number as per margin.—Respectfully yours, G. Walton, Captain." Says Baden-Powell, "There is no superfluous verbosity there." ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... communication between distant parts of the city, and as relief channels for the inundating waves of the Gulf of Finland, which rise, more or less, every year, from August to November, at the behest of the southwest gale. That this last precaution is not superfluous is shown by the iron flood-mark set into the wall of the Anitchkoff Palace, on the southern shore of the Fontanka, as on so many other public buildings in the city, with "1824" appended,—the date of one celebrated and disastrous inundation which attained in some places the height ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... intellectual or moral. But religion is not an intellectual virtue, for its perfection does not consist in the consideration of the truth. Neither is it a moral virtue, for the property of the moral virtues is to steer a middle course betwixt what is superfluous and what is below the requisite; whereas no one can worship God to excess, according to the words of Ecclesiasticus[59]: For He is above all praise. Religion, then, can only be a ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... and so many suggestions are constantly being offered in school journals that specific suggestions for things to make seem superfluous here. ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs

... that grace and charity are inseparable, but nothing more. All the Scriptural and Patristic passages cited can be explained without recourse to the hypothesis that they are identical. Charity is not superfluous alongside of sanctifying grace, because the primary object of grace is to impart supernatural being, whereas charity confers a special faculty which enables the intellect and the will to elicit ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... the meadow was so wet that it required a very large share of faith to support us in passing over its surface; but our friend, the dragoon, soon brought us safe through all dangers to a deep ditch, which he had dug to carry off the superfluous water from the part of the meadow which he owned. When we had obtained firm footing on the opposite side, we sat down to rest ourselves before commencing the operation of "blazing," or marking the trees ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... toil, war, and numerous ceremonials does the Bontoc man work off his superfluous and emotional energy. One might naturally expect to find Jack a dull boy, but he is not. His daily round of toil seems quite sufficient to keep the steady accumulation of energy at a natural poise, and his head-hunting offers him the greatest ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... entirely self-supporting and intrinsically significant, la possession de la forme as his descendants call it now. To this great end all means were good: all that was not a means to this end was superfluous. To achieve it he was prepared to play the oddest tricks with natural forms—to distort. All great artists have distorted; Cezanne was peculiar only in doing so more consciously and thoroughly than most. What is important in his art is, of course, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... conception of the principle of division of labour should make us all rejoice when the artist confines himself to art. True artists are scarce and precious; and although practical men of business often regard them as superfluous luxuries, the truth is that we cannot live without them. As poet and dramatist, Mr. Yeats has done more for his country than he could have accomplished in any ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... years ago, explains that passage in the first Psalm, His leaf also shall not wither, from Rabbins yet older than himself, thus: That even the idle talk, so he expresses it, of a good man ought to be regarded; the most superfluous things he saith are always of some value. And other ancient authours have the same phrase, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... "Yes," she assented, without any superfluous modesty,—squeezing as she spoke a pair of bronze slippers into the crown of Francesca's favourite hat—"yes, that part'll be hard on all of us; but I want you to know that I belong to you this winter, any way; Miss Peabody can get along ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... demonstrated by the production of figures and notes on the subject, when he would quite lose himself in bureaucratic divagations. He said that war was caused by the thirst for blood emanating from the superfluous energy of the nation. This was a phrase he had read in the Boletin de Contribuciones Indirectas and appropriated as his own with marked effect. He said soldiers were vagrants, and his aversion to all uniforms and ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... incantation we were practising; neither did the meaningless monotony of the performance tend to make us cheerful. This failed to disturb the serene self-satisfaction of the school authorities at having provided such a treat; they deemed it superfluous to inquire into the practical effect of their bounty; they would probably have counted it a crime for the boys not to be dutifully happy. Anyhow they rested content with taking the song as they found it, words ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... as I say, just behind Mellish. St Austin's, you must know, is composed of three blocks of buildings, the senior, the middle, and the junior, joined by cloisters. We left the senior block by the door. To the captious critic this information may seem superfluous, but let me tell him that I have left the block in my time, and entered it, too, though never, it is true, in the company of a master, in ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... of the hill up which the white men were climbing, the Indians dismounted and started on foot after them. Seeing their tactics, Mr. Coad and his companions took off all their superfluous clothing and threw it away, notwithstanding the severity of the temperature. One of the men, in passing near a ledge of rock, discovered a hiding-place under it, dropped down and crawled in, filling his tracks with dirt as he backed into the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... made the discovery that this great product of man's spiritual nature is nothing but the spawn of his self-conceit: that it is purely gratuitous, groundless, superfluous, and therefore in the deepest possible sense lawless, Mr. Buckle follows his master, for such Comte really is. Proclaiming Law everywhere else, and, from his extreme partiality to the word, often lugging it in, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... employed himself on the following day reading up the murder case in back numbers of the Age in the newspaper annex of the Public Library. He had to read a great deal of superfluous matter, and of many idle schemes and excursions on the part of the police before he came upon an illuminating little item in the shape of a casual hit of testimony from a friend of the dead man. The friend explained that the diamond dealer always carried in a ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... date fixed for the trial an event occurred which made all speculation superfluous. One morning the rumour reached Stromness that Tom Kinlay and all the smugglers had escaped from Kirkwall jail. At first this was generally discredited, for the building in which the men were confined was a notably strong one; but later reports confirmed ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... therefore, at nightfall of a July day, carrying a little bundle of linen, and the remains of his money, somewhat augmented by the sale of various articles of clothing and convenience, which his change of life rendered superfluous and unsuitable. He directed his course northwards, travelling principally by night—so painfully did he shrink from the gaze even of foot-farers like himself; and sleeping during the day in some hidden nook of wood ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... be superfluous to deal with the speech from the throne in this place, but at the close of the ceremony an incident occurred which deserves mention. "After taking leave of the Reichstag's representatives the Kaiser stretched out his hand to the famous professor of jurisprudence ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... narrowing the stage at pleasure, so that the inside of a palace and a hut have the same length and breadth, &c. The errors which may be avoided are, want of simplicity and of great and reposing masses; overloading the scenery with superfluous and distracting objects, either from the painter being desirous of showing his strength in perspective, or not knowing how otherwise to fill up the space; an architecture full of mannerism, often altogether unconnected, nay, even at variance with possibility, coloured ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Camp Girl business would be of no earthly benefit to her. It's only a fad and I believe not only that, but the 'Scout' movement will die a natural death after a while. Young people must have some way to work off their superfluous energy; these Societies help them to do so. Now remember, Kate, you have a fairly well-to-do father and you need not worry over your future. Not so poor Ethel. That I have to look out for. Please do not refer to this subject again, especially before her. I mean it and shall resent it if you do. ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... facing the Avenue at a corner that represents land value that is computed by the square inch, is the structure of Brown-Smith. In some cases the passer-by will search in vain for any indication of the name—the information being deemed wholly superfluous. It matters not in the least whether the commodity upon which Brown-Smith has reared its history be hats, or groceries, or furs, or jewelry, or silverware, or boots, or men's furnishings. The story of the enterprise, its growth and its migrations, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... incredulously. Dad sick unto death? Such a thing had never happened—couldn't happen, it seemed to me. It was unbelievable; not to be thought of or tolerated. But all the while I was planning and scheming to shave off every superfluous minute, and get to ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... "Excuses are superfluous, when no choice is allowed me but to obey," returned Ada, with more haughtiness in her manner than usual; for, having seen Paolo in company with the pirate, she could no longer regard him in the same light she had ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... Pardees "take" eighteen diners—no more. This because Mrs. Pardee has eighteen of everything in silver. And that means eighteen of everything from grapefruit spoons to cheese knives; and finger bowls before and after until you feel like an early Roman. As for Maxine—the friendly warning is superfluous. You would as soon have thought of slipping Hebe a quarter on Olympus—a rather severe-featured Hebe in a white silk blouse ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... his hand as if all explanation were superfluous. Then he drew himself up, and, addressing the officials ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... embarrassing. Grain comes in, more than they want: their barns begin to overflow. Garments are too many for the warehouses. Huge piles of timber block up the yards, besides masses of stones, and heaps of other superfluous material. Before long, the masters conclude that their simplest course for checking supply is by lessening the number of the workmen. The increased diligence of the people (we may suppose) has made the work of three men ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... stranded on the sands in Red Wharf Bay, so far from shore that they could neither go forward nor back; had thus spent their first night in a somewhat chilly manner in old bathing machines by the land wash, and supped off the superfluous hard biscuit which they had been reserving for the return voyage. They were none the worse, however, our genial host making it up to them in an extra generous provision and a special evening entertainment. One of my smartest boys (a Jew by nationality, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... "notwithstanding any anxieties which he pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by his action that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of feathers from falling off his head." The hero's "superfluous ornaments" having been discussed, the means by which the heroine is invested with grandeur are next considered: "The broad sweeping train that follows her in all her motions, finds constant employment for a boy who stands behind her, to open and spread it to advantage. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... to-night, and, in the meantime, sell all your superfluous property, and tell Mark to do ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... know how this particular miracle has been arranged," said Lord Westerham, as he gave his hand to Norah and took her out of the car, "but a re-introduction is, if you will allow me to say so, Miss Parmenter, rather superfluous. I have known Miss Castellan for quite two years, at least, I had the pleasure of meeting her in Connemara, and we have fished and shot and sailed together until we became ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... it would be so, and felt it a blessing that a suitable home had been vacant in their uncle's parish. Then, of course, notice had to be taken of the four other girls, whom Gwendolen had always felt to be superfluous: all of a girlish average that made four units utterly unimportant, and yet from her earliest days an obtrusive influential fact in her life. She was conscious of having been much kinder to them than could have been ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... when Fafnir slays Fasolt, and on every subsequent occasion when the ring brings death to its holder. This episode must justify itself purely as a piece of stage sensationalism. On deeper ground it is superfluous and confusing, as the ruin to which the pursuit of riches leads needs no curse to explain it; nor is there any sense in investing Alberic with ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... the race were to exist and its numbers be kept up; and society, recognising this, polygamy would be an institution universally approved and submitted to, however much suffering it entailed. If food were scarce, the destruction of superfluous infants and of the aged might also always have been necessary for the good of the individuals themselves as well as of society, and the whole society would acquiesce in it without any moral doubt. If ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... that they have prepared themselves for a mighty struggle to climb over, or break their way through, a rampart, which turns out, on close approach, to be a mere heap of ruins; venerable, indeed, and archaeologically interesting, but of no other moment. And some fragment of the superfluous energy accumulated is apt to find vent ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... for factory purposes. But in England, where the labourer had no property in the land, reformed methods of agriculture and the operation of the Poor Law combined to incite the large proprietors and farmers to rid themselves of all superfluous population in the rural parts and accelerated the migration into the towns. Here the population bred with a rapidity hitherto unknown. The increase of population in England and Wales during the thirty years from ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... with exactly the same intensity, and this phenomenon according to Newton would be unphilosophical. In Art. 4 we learn that Newton in the first rule states that "Nature is simple, and does not abound in superfluous causes of things." And again: "In the nature of Philosophy nothing is done in vain; and by means of many things, it is done in vain when it can be done by fewer." Here then we have apparently two forces which act in the same molecular or planetary or interstellar ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... oppressed by the judgment of man, who shall not know that there is fraternal aid for him? It is not surprising that this should not be so, but it is surprising that this should exist side by side with our superfluous leisure and wealth, and that we can live on composedly, knowing that these things are so. Let us forget that in great cities and in London, there is a proletariat, and let us not say that so it must needs be. It need ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... usuras extendere. And to put out that interest again on interest. The other explanation, viz. that it means simply to put money at interest, makes the last clause wholly superfluous. ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... struck up, the dancing began again, the two other girls, quickly provided with partners, began to waltz, the superfluous men stood up together and went at it with gravity and grace. No one asked this woman, who stood at ease, watching the dancers, her hands resting on her hips, her head tilted back against the logs. As he looked at her, the intruder had a queer little thrill of fright. He ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... must have been strained to bursting point; but "out-bush" every man carries a "bluey" and a mosquito net in his swag, and as the hosts slept under the verandah, and the guests on the garden paths, or in their camps among the forest trees, spare rooms would only have been superfluous. With a billabong at the door, a bathroom was easily dispensed with; and as every one preferred the roomy verandahs for lounging and smoking, the House had only to act as a dressing-room for the hosts and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... be carefully staked and tied out. It is not merely necessary to secure the main stem, but the branches should also be supported, or when weighted with flowers they will be very liable to give way under a moderate wind. Superfluous branches may be removed, but not so severely as to start new growth to the detriment of the flowers. Disbudding also will have to be practised for the highest class of flowers. Only one bloom should be allowed to develop ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... shall not lose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its own trumpet. The only alternative is that it is an error in process of detection, for if evidence concerning any opinion has long been deemed superfluous, and ever after this comes to be again felt necessary, we know that the ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... while he confides many things to me, this secret he kept, and still keeps. All I know is that he fitted up a play-room for Jack on the attic floor, and by means of an apparatus, the peculiarities of whose construction he alone knows, he managed after a while to store up the superfluous energy which Jack expended upon everything that he did. Every time Jack turned a somersault he contributed, unknown to himself, something to the growing bulk of hoarded force in the reservoir provided for ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... bonnet, and hastened over to Captain Sedley's house. She was sure of finding assistance there. She was so confident of Tony's innocence, that the thought of proving it for the satisfaction of the public seemed superfluous. ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... down the stairs, keeping a still tremulous hand upon the rail; but she smiled brightly when Alice looked up from below, where the woodwork was again being tormented with superfluous attentions. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... like them," Socola admitted, looking on their stalwart forms with undisguised admiration. Scarcely a man was under six feet in height, with broad, massive shoulders and chests and not an ounce of superfluous flesh. Their resemblance to each other was remarkable. Nature had cast each one in the same heroic mold. The spread of giant unbroken forests spoke in their brawny arms and legs. The look of an eagle soaring over great rivers and fertile plains ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... her wistfully for a moment, and she thought he was going to speak. But he was wise in the ways of the world. He had lost. He understood it. Speech was superfluous. He was a quaint combination of ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... the lute has drawn in his light, become superfluous, since the road is effectually blocked for the lovers by the musical interloper. He overhears Eva's exclamation, "Beckmesser!" and has an idea. Beckmesser shall be made of use to prevent the lovers as long as possible from moving any farther from the safe ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one, which it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... above its author's historical works, as the last example of the effort of the ecclesiastical spirit to crush the discussion of its dogmas. It is owing to this attempt that the Nemesis is now so well known as to render any reference to its contents superfluous. ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... was interested. The possibility of relieving a fellow-creature of his superfluous wealth by legitimate means, and under the laws and rules which govern the legal transfer of property, was the absorbing interest of ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... fits the phenomena; which one, when found, is to be assumed as true, with no other reservation than that if, on re-examination, it should appear to assume more than is needful for explaining the phenomena, the superfluous part of the assumption should be cut off. And this without the slightest distinction between the cases in which it may be known beforehand that two different hypotheses can not lead to the same result, and those in ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... manuscripts, and is retained by Poppo, Bornemann, Dindorf, and Kuehner. But Schneider and Weiske read [Greek: eile], "took possession of," on the suggestion of Muretus, Var. Lect. xv. 10, who thought it superfluous for Xenophon to say that Cyrus merely saw the tents. Lion, however, not unreasonably supposes this verb to be intended to mark the distance at which Cyrus passed from the tents, that is, that he passed within sight of them, ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... these two composers imagine that to sing is simply to degoiser the note; but the art of singing, or technic was considered by them to be secondary and insignificant Phrasing or any sort of finesse was superfluous. The orchestra must be all powerful. "If Wagner gets the upper hand," Rossini continued, "as he is sure to do, for people will run after the New, then what will become of the art of singing? No more bel canto, no more phrasing, no more enunciation! What is the use, when ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone



Words linked to "Superfluous" :   unnecessary, worthless, wasted, unneeded, superfluity



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