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Deflect   Listen
verb
deflect  v. t.  (past & past part. deflected; pres. part. deflecting)  To cause to turn aside; to bend; as, rays of light are often deflected; to deflect a punch; to deflect criticism by acknowledging a mistake. "Sitting with their knees deflected under them."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Deflect" Quotes from Famous Books



... ceaseless political or geological changes on earth, the face of this dead satellite, on account of the absence of air and water and consequent erosion, has remained unchanged for bygone ages, as it doubtless will for many more. They closely watched the Callisto's course. At first it did not seem to deflect from a straight line, and they stood ready to turn on the apergetic force again, when the car very slowly began to show the effect of the moon's near pull; but not till they had so far passed it that the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... matter. Some disturbing influence, however, there must be; the only question is whether that disturbing influence is sufficient to modify seriously the assumption we have made. A powerful disturbing influence might greatly alter the velocity of the star; it might deflect the star from its rectilinear course; it might even force the star to move around a closed orbit. We do not, however, believe that any disturbing influence of this magnitude need be contemplated, and there can be no reasonable doubt that 61 Cygni moves at present ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... no question of treason, General Wood," said Mr. Sefton placidly. "None of us would wrong Captain Prescott by imputing to him such a crime. I merely suggested an unconscious motive that might have made him deflect for a moment, and for a moment only, from the straight ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... the development of the telegraph was the discovery of electro-magnetism. This was the work of Hans Christian Oersted, a native of Denmark. He first noticed that a current flowing through a wire would deflect a compass, and thus discovered the magnetic properties of the electric current. A Frenchman named Ampere, experimenting further, discovered that when the electric current is sent through coils of wire the magnetism ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers

... now he has lost his faculty of forcing others to act. He makes a spurt but he can't stay the distance. He has met Millerand, French and Joffre in Council and allowed the searchlights of his genius to be snuffed out! That is what surprises me:—He, who once could deflect Joe Chamberlain and Milner from their orbits; who twisted stiff-necked Boers round his little finger; who bore down Asquith, Winston, Prince Louis and Beatty in Valetta Harbour—East versus West—Mediterranean ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... immediately above which has ceased to grow, so that the latter might have been expected to yield and become curved as soon as the apex encountered an unyielding object; whereas it was the stiff growing part which became curved. Moreover, an object which yields with the greatest ease will deflect a radicle: thus, as we have seen, when the apex of the radicle of the bean encountered the polished surface of extremely thin tin-foil laid on soft sand, no impression was left on it, yet the radicle became deflected at ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... beset with three powerful currents, which insidiously operate to deflect her from her course. Materialism, which denies or ignores the supernatural, and concentrates its heed on ameliorating the outward conditions of human life; criticism, which is clever at analysis and dissection, but ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... enjoyed; so he had brought it to him thus, as on a little silver breakfast-tray, familiarly though delicately—without oppressive pomp; and he was to bend and smile and acknowledge, was to take and use and be grateful. He was not—that was the beauty of it—to be asked to deflect too much from his dignity. No wonder the old boy bloomed in this bland air of his own distillation. Strether felt for a moment as if Sarah were actually walking up and down outside. Wasn't she hanging ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... be philosophy or mediaevalism; it becomes a concrete personal fact. Daily each one comes under its rule and sway. The mind loves truth, and the body tempts man to break truth. The soul loves honor, and passion tempts it to deflect its pathway. Man goes forth in the morning with all the springs of generosity open; but before night selfishness has dammed up the hidden springs. In the morning man goes out with love irradiating his face; he comes back at night sullen and black with hatred and enmity. In the morning the soul ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... car with winged horses—it must be an odd taste which finds things improved. In Greek verse, in Latin verse, or even in Milton's English one could stand Night, docile to the orders of Satan, condescending to deflect a hatchet which is whistling unpleasantly close to Rene's ear, not that he may be benefited, but preserved for more sufferings. In comparatively plain French prose—the qualification is intentional, as will be seen a little later—with ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... the animated scene was Penrod's great-uncle Slocum. This elderly relative had come to call upon Mrs. Schofield, and he was well upon his way to the front door when the mutterings of war among some shrubberies near the fence caused him to deflect his course ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... have a chance to do this. The dust-cloud surged out toward us every twenty years, and our scientists were able to use a gravitational beam to deflect a part of it toward our sun. In this way we kept it alive and might have been able to do so for ages. But now ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam

... For this reason it is necessary to use a needle valve, similar to that in an ordinary garden hose nozzle; and by such a valve the amount of water may be regulated to a nicety. Where the head is so great that even such a valve could not be used safely, provision is made to deflect the nozzle. These wheels have a speed variation amounting to as much as 25 per cent from no-load to full load, in generating electricity, and since the speed of the prime mover—the water wheel—is ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... long iron latch which fastened the outer door was enough to deflect her interest from the matter. She cast her cloak over the baby, and held it loosely on her knees, with its head to the fire. When the door shut with a crash, and some small object scurried across the stone floor, the girl looked out of her retreat with ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... Frank managed to deflect the automatic's muzzle from himself. But Rodan moved it downward purposefully, lined it up on a box ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... 26th of November, at six o'clock in the morning, heading south. She reascended the forty-third meridian; this we were able to ascertain very exactly by a good observation. This route it was that Weddell and then William Guy had followed, and, provided the schooner did not deflect either to the east or the west, she must inevitably come to Tsalal Island. The difficulties of navigation had to be taken into account, ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... assumed these movements, in His human soul, by an unfailing dispensation, when He willed; even as He became man when He willed." Thirdly, as regards the effect, because in us these movements, at times, do not remain in the sensitive appetite, but deflect the reason; but not so in Christ, since by His disposition the movements that are naturally becoming to human flesh so remained in the sensitive appetite that the reason was nowise hindered in doing what was right. Hence Jerome says (on ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... What the document contained she did not yet know, except that it was evidence that fixed upon the men named guilt for some past deed in which Weir had suffered and which would bring them to account. But something more than protest was needed, she saw in a flash, to deflect the man from his purpose and save the sheets from ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... they reached the end of the canyon and firm ground simultaneously. Helen saw that her rescuer had now a revolver in his hand, and that he was firing in such a way as to deflect the leaders to the left. At first the change in course was hardly perceptible, but presently she noticed that they were getting closer to the outskirts of the herd, working gradually to the extreme right, edging inch ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... not funny at all. You know you are clear of that kind of thing. You're like an arrow on its way to its goal. Straight and sure. Nothing can deflect you. That's why ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... critical. The Monitor could, at her leisure, come close up to us and yet be out of our reach, owing to our inability to deflect our guns. In she came and began to sound every chink in our armor—every one but that which was actually vulnerable, had ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... above their heads. Past the veranda they raced, pouring a deadly fire into the kneeling Waziri who discharged their volley of arrows from behind their long, oval shields—shields well adapted, perhaps, to stop a hostile arrow, or deflect a spear; but futile, quite, before the leaden missiles of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... village of Mpokwa, and comes flowing down a narrow thread of water, sinuously winding amongst tall reeds and dense brakes on either side-the home of hundreds of antelopes and buffaloes. South of Mpokwa, the valley broadens, and the mountains deflect eastward and westward, and beyond this point commences the plain known as the Rikwa, which, during the Masika is inundated, but which, in the dry season, presents the same bleached aspect that plains in Africa generally do when the ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Emperor than upon the chambers. In France the inability of political parties to coalesce into two great opposing groups largely defeats the best ends of the parliamentary system. In Austria the numerous and ineradicable racial divisions deflect the system further still from the lines upon which theoretically it should operate. No political group is sufficiently powerful to rule alone, and no working affiliation can long be made to subsist. The consequence is, not only that the Government can ordinarily play off one faction ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... position by the electro-magnets, j j j j, placed underneath, the whole forming a pair of galvanoscopes or current detecters, one for each line. It will be understood that the varying currents from the lines are allowed to flow through the coils, i i, so as to deflect the needles, and that the deflections of the needles follow, so to speak, the variations of the currents. The electro-magnets are magnetized by a local battery; permanent magnets might, however, take their place with a gain ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various

... on which we each one sail is beset by as many dangers as the ship at sea, and how shall we surely steer our course to our heavenly harbour without Divine guidance? There is a wellnigh infinite number of influences to deflect us from the safe and certain course. We start out in the morning, and we know not what person we may meet, what paragraph we may read, what word may be spoken, what letter we may receive, what subtle temptation may assail or allure us, what immediate decisions we ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... accounts easily for the different forms of tail seen in different comets. The sword shaped tails, at variance with the common theory, can be accounted for by supposing a slight difference in density or material in the cometic atmosphere, which will deflect the light as seen. The comet of 1823, which cannot be explained on the common theory, is very easily explained on the spherical. That comet showed two tails, apparently of equal length, which moved opposite ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... which affection was complicated on one side by gratitude, or on her side by superiority in education or social position, she was perfect. She could be employer and benefactress without letting such circumstances deflect in the slightest degree the stream of confidence and affection between her and another. She had the faculty of removing a sense of obligation and of forgetting it herself. Such a faculty is only found ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... Mrs. Wilkins had actually seen her at the mediaeval castle it did seem probable that struggling would be a waste of time. Still, to spend her nest-egg on self-indulgence— The origin of this egg had been corrupt, but she had at least supposed its end was to be creditable. Was she to deflect it from its intended destination, which alone had appeared to justify her keeping it, and spend it on ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... love experience ended. He turned to the great business of the world. Desire and Jealousy should deflect his life no more; like Fear they were to be dismissed as far as possible and subdued when they could not be altogether dismissed. Whatever stirrings of blood or imagination there were in him after that parting, whatever failures from this ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... the synergistic as well as the Manichean aberrations in the doctrine of original sin. In its Thorough Declaration we read: "Now this doctrine [of original sin] must be so maintained and guarded that it may not deflect either to the Pelagian or the Manichean side. For this reason the contrary doctrine ... should also be briefly stated." (865, 16.) Accordingly, in a series of arguments, the Flacian error is thoroughly refuted and decidedly rejected. At the same time the Formula of Concord ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... experiments into periods as short as 1 or 2 hours, it is necessary to deflect the air-current at the end of each period from one set of purifiers to the other, in order to weigh the set used and to measure the quantity of carbon dioxide and water-vapor absorbed. The conditions under which these changes from one system to another are made, and which call for ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... "charge"; but an old African traveller, such as Kingozi, knew this for a blind rush in the direction toward which the animal happened to be headed. The rhinoceros, alarmed by the first intimation of danger, unable to get further news from its keener senses, had been seized by a panic. Were nothing to deflect him from the straight line, he would continue ahead on it until ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... arch shown (Fig. 6) in the fire-box is used to deflect the flames towards the back of the fire-box, so that the hot gases may be retarded somewhat, and their combustion rendered more perfect. It also helps to distribute the heat more evenly over the whole of the inside of the box, and prevents cold air from ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... for him, and sent the ball like a shot to Melvin. It was a pretty play, and nine times out of ten would have got by, but just as it had almost reached Melvin's outstretched hands, Barton, the opposing left tackle, touched it with the tips of his fingers, just enough to deflect it from its course. Ensley grabbed it, and it ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... the constitution is weak or over-passive, and requires stimulation; where the representative, on leaving his constituents, enters at once into a courtly or aristocratic atmosphere, whose influences all tend to deflect his course into a different direction from the popular one, to tone down any democratic feelings which he may have brought with him, and make him forget the wishes and grow cool to the interests of ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... been in time to deflect the muzzle of the firearm, and the bullet whistled harmlessly ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... although we can rest assured that he exercised a considerable influence upon later writers, we cannot actually trace this influence at work; we cannot in fact point to Lyly as the first of a definite series. The novel like its style coloured, but did not deflect, the stream of English literature. And indeed we may say this not only of Euphues but of Elizabethan fiction as a whole. The public to which a 16th century novel would appeal was a small one. Few people in those days could read, and of these the majority preferred to read poetry; ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... to operate in the given direction and in the given manner. Inertia is, in this sense, the essence of vitality. To be driven from that perpetual course is somehow to be checked, and an external and hostile force is required to change a habit or an instinct as much as to deflect a star. Indeed, nutrition itself, hunting, feeding, and digestion, are forced activities, and the basis of passions not altogether congenial nor ideal. Hunger is an incipient faintness and agony, and an animal that needs to hunt, gnaw, and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... was called Belinda asking about ways and means of getting to Salisbury; it brought to light the distressing fact that V.V. had the beginnings of a chafed heel. Once he had set things going they moved much too quickly for the doctor to deflect their course. He found himself called upon to make personal sacrifices to facilitate the painless transport of the two ladies to Salisbury, where their luggage awaited them at the Old George Hotel. In some way too elusive to trace, it became ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... orbits, from which we are sensibly deflected only by the approach of some new body of adequate mass. Now our "psychical" experiments and observations have plainly not as yet attained sufficient mass to be able to deflect the majority of those great bodies, the luminaries of science, from their accustomed paths through the heavens. Tides, indeed, we do create; there is a refluent washing to and fro of magazine articles about our topic; but we have not yet generated that wholesale perturbation of the scientific ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... eyes, becomes misty and obscure when you shut one eye and squint along the barrel. You then discover that although you can see the dim shadow of your game, your bullet will have to cut its way through at least twenty twigs before it can reach its goal. A solid bullet may deflect slightly, but it will generally deliver its message direct, unless the opposing objects are more formidable than ordinary small branches. A hollow bullet from an Express rifle will fly into fragments should it strike a twig the size of the little finger. This is quite sufficient to condemn ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... side-pockets till they bulged, the breast pocket, the pockets inside. He turned over the pieces. Some he rejected. A small mist of powdered rust began to rise about his busy hands. Mr. Massy knew something of the scientific basis of his clever trick. If you want to deflect the magnetic needle of a ship's compass, soft iron is the best; likewise many small pieces in the pockets of a jacket would have more effect than a few large ones, because in that way you obtain a greater amount of surface for weight in your iron, ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... with most of the guns at that time to be found upon the rivers, provided they could fight bows on. Though repeatedly struck, the flag-ship as often as thirty-one times, the armor proved sufficient to deflect or resist the impact of the projectiles. The disaster, however, that befell the Essex made fearfully apparent a class of accidents to which they were exposed, and from which more than one boat, on either side, on the Western waters ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... rod or so in radius. On the flood plain of either river or creek we may find examples of the successive stages in the development of the meander, from its beginning in the slight initial bend sufficient to deflect the current against the outer side. Eroding here and depositing on the inner side of the bend, it gradually reaches first the open bend whose width and length are not far from equal, and later that of the horseshoe meander whose diameter transverse to the course of the stream is much greater than ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... She took no interest in the race of uncles, either real or fictitious. But Patty, being in a reminiscent mood, continued the conversation with Harriet, who had no mail to deflect her. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... the shot being seen to be slightly above and to the right of the tangent, with a right-handed twist. The effect is as if there was a mean sidelong thrust w tan [delta] on the shot from left to right in order to deflect the plane of the trajectory at angle [delta] to the vertical. But no formula has yet been invented, derived on theoretical principles from the physical data, which will assign by calculation a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... to be the discoverer of Dominion Home Rule, did not raise his voice either for the Agrarian Settlement or for Home Rule during all the years while he was a real power in the country. I am not however going to allow my views on these questions to deflect my judgment from the real merit of the work performed by Sir Horace and his associates in the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which in the teeth of considerable difficulties and obstacles succeeded ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... Chartist in his youth, had become the gaoler of Parnell and the protagonist of coercion in Ireland. Joseph Chamberlain alone seemed to realise the significance of the social problem, and unhappily political events were soon to deflect his career from what then seemed to be its ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... bulk for bulk, oxygen is equally magnetic with a solution of this substance in water 'containing seventeen times the weight of the oxygen in crystallized proto-sulphate of iron, or 3.4 times its weight of metallic iron in that state of combination.' By its capability to deflect a fine glass fibre, he finds that the attraction of this bulb of oxygen, containing only 0.117 of a grain of the gas, at an average distance of more than an inch from the magnetic axis, is about equal to the gravitating force ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... management of the restaurant. Caroline, who took herself more seriously, and was busy with a dozen enterprises that had to do with the welfare of the race, was concerned chiefly with the humanitarian side of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it only such energy as she felt to be essential to its scientific betterment. She was tentatively engaged to Billy Boynton,—for what reason no one—not even Billy—had been able to determine; since she systematically disregarded him in relation to all the interests and activities ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... single exciting word may call up its own associates prepotently, and deflect our whole train of thinking from the previous track. The fact is that every portion of the field tends to call up its own associates; but, if these associates be severally different, there is rivalry, and as soon as one or a few begin to be ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... she had met in his own home. Her throat choked. She felt that she should cry, if she did not make some desperate effort to the contrary; so she began to read the paper diligently, though her mind scarcely followed the words she saw, and would deflect to those she heard, which were very earnest, indeed, though all about a matter no greater than one-eighth cent ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... seats, Ross discovered that they could be unhooked from their webbing swings. Freeing all of them, he dragged their weight to the stairwell and jammed them together to make a barricade. It could not hold long against any determined push from below, but, he hoped, it would deflect bullets if some sharpshooter tried to wing him by ricochet. Every so often there was the crash of a shot and some shouting, but Ross was not going to be drawn out ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... upon such trifles; a glass of light white wine leads not, as we are nowadays taught to believe, to instant ruin, but to edifying considerations of the life and glory of St. Peter; and a pack of cards suggests, straightway, intransigent fine points of martyrology. Always this churchman's thoughts deflect to the most interesting of themes, to the relationship between God and His children, and what familiary etiquette may be necessary to preserve the relationship unstrained. These problems alone engross Coignard unfailingly, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... interposed Aunt Jane tremulously. "In the sand—why, I am sure that is such a helpful thought! It shows quite plainly that the chest is not buried in—in a rock, you know." She gave the effect of a person trying to deflect a ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... of Barber's seemed to deflect Cis's interest from the rooms to herself. For now upon her own person she wrought improvements. These did not escape Johnnie, who accepted them as a part of the general upheaval—an upheaval which she informed ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... me that year after year they took about the same turns, each generation of foxes running through the upper corner of that field, or crossing the valley near yonder stone wall, when pursued by the dog. It seems the fox when he finds himself followed is perpetually tempted to turn in his course, to deflect from a right line, as a person would undoubtedly be under similar circumstances. If he is on this side of the ridge, when he hears the dog break around on his trail he speedily crosses to the other side; if he is in the fields, he takes again to the woods; if in the valley, he hastens to ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... being somewhat unscrupulous as to political methods, somewhat careless in personal conduct, somewhat lax in personal morals; but to the one great object of his life, the destruction of slavery and the elevation of the slave, he was supremely devoted. From the pursuit of that object nothing could deflect him. Upon no phase of it would he listen to compromise. Any man who was truly anti-slavery was his friend. Whoever espoused the cause and proved faithless in never so small a degree, became his enemy, inevitably and irreconcilably. Towards his ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... the Bay to Sausalito and wander up through the coast counties Here, Hall had told them, they would find the true home of the redwood. But Billy, in the smoking car for a cigarette, seated himself beside a man who was destined to deflect them from their course. He was a keen-faced, dark-eyed man, undoubtedly a Jew; and Billy, remembering Saxon's admonition always to ask questions, watched his opportunity and started a conversation. It took but a little ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... my captain risked the Casco in such waters. I believe, indeed, it is almost understood that yachts are to avoid this baffling archipelago; and it required all my instances—and all Mr. Otis's private taste for adventure—to deflect our course ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... unreal—that she could not possibly harbor any suspicion that he was her legal husband, hiding behind a mask of scars—and that even if she did suspect, that suspicion could never be translated into action which could deflect ever so slightly the ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... its needle. Now the theory is, that if you clutch the cylinder firmly with the right hand, leaving the left perfectly passive, the needle in the galvanometer will move from west to south; if, in like manner, you exert the left arm, leaving the right arm passive, the needle will deflect from west to north. Hence, it is argued that the electric current is induced through the agency of the nervous system, and that, as human Will produces the muscular contraction requisite, so is it human Will that causes the deflection of the needle. I imagine that if this theory were substantiated ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ornamented in various styles. The bed of the chief was perhaps the most gorgeous; on it could be seen the labor of five jealous women, each more anxious than the other to propitiate her lord by some extravagance of decoration, which would deflect the sunshine of his favor on her head to the envy and exclusion of the remaining members of the family. Suspended from stakes driven into the ground near the head of his couch rested the implements of warfare; lance, shield, bow, and quiver, together with the deadly tomahawk ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... form in hard iron and steel a neutrality extremely difficult to break up or destroy. We have evident proof that this neutrality consists of a closed chain, or circle, as by torsion we can partially deflect them on either side; thus from a perfect externally neutral wire, producing either polarity, by simple mechanical angular displacement of the molecules, as by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... hard, but sliced it, and a strong westerly wind helped deflect it to the right. It sailed over the fence, and struck in a ploughed field only a few feet from a man whom I ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... the very end, bitterly and intensely, the stupidity of the War Office. Had he been allowed to deflect the routine indifference and suspicion of the War Office from its old ruts into the deep-cut channels of Irish feelings and sentiments, he might have carried his countrymen with him, but he jumped first and tried to make his bargain afterwards and failed accordingly. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... a trifle to northward of it, it rains more or less the whole year round, but most at the equinoxes, as shown in the table on the following page. The winds, though somewhat less steady, are still very determinable. With an easterly tending, they deflect north and south, following the sun. In the drier season they blow so cold that the sun's heat is not distressing; and in consequence of this, and the average altitude of the plateau, which is 3000 feet, the general temperature of the atmosphere ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... base of the thumb should be opposite the center of the bow, the hand set straight on the wrist. As you draw, be sure that the arrow comes up in a straight line with your mark, otherwise the bow will be twisted in the grasp and deflect the shot. Then fully drawn, set the grasp of the left hand without disturbing the position of the bow, make the left arm as rigid as an oak limb; fix the muscles of the chest; make yourself inflexible from head to toe. Keep your ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... led our older Universities to deflect their functions (whether for good or ill) so far from their first purpose are complicated if not many. Once admit young men in large numbers, and youth (I call any Dean or Tutor to witness) must be compromised with; will construe the laws of ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... jumps and jolts, it leaks in insensibly, for adjacents in experience are always interfused, the smallest real datum being both a coming and a going, and even numerical distinctness being realized effectively only after a concrete interval has passed. The intervals also deflect us from the original paths of direction, and all the old identities at last give out, for the fatally continuous infiltration of otherness warps things out of every original rut. Just so, in a curve, the same direction ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... with courteous firmness, yet so moving the door so that while he passed in the former person remained outside, "you have sought, at the expenditure of thirty-seven taels five hundred cash, to deflect Destiny from her appointed line. The result has been lamentable to all—or nearly all—concerned. The lawless effort must not be repeated, for when heaven itself goes out of its way to set a correcting omen in the sky, ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... not be relieved merely by goodwill on either side. When you begin to deflect the course of trade, you deflect it in all directions and for all time in both countries which are parties to the bargain. Your industries in your respective Colonies would have exposed themselves to a more severe competition ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... a granite floor. This floor revolves and causes the stationary mill-stones to rotate on their axes, so that although they run rapidly, like a man on a "joy wheel," they make no headway. The material is prevented from accumulating at the sides by curved scrapers, which gracefully deflect the stream of material to the part of the revolving floor which runs under the mill-stones. Thus the sugar and nib are mixed and crushed. As the mixture usually becomes like dough in consistency, ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... whose conscience, as for whose life, the parent is responsible. The moral right of the parent, which is one with that of the child in that period of life, is fundamental. It constitutes the bed-rock on which rest all other rights in matters of education. To deny that principle, to deflect it from its proper meaning, to recognize it only partially, is to blast the very foundation of human nature. No reason of common good, of citizenship, can overthrow this right; on the contrary, it presupposes it; for, the State can only interfere to protect ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... simplicity and directness. He believed absolutely in the final outcome of his proposition: where others saw mist and failure ahead, he saw clear weather and the port of success. Never did he waver: never did he deflect from his course. He knew no path save the direct one that led straight to success, and, through his eyes, he made Bok see it with equal clarity until Bok wondered why others could not see it. But they could not. Cyrus Curtis would never be able, they said, to come out from under the ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... goes on. There are two artists in the neighborhood of Paris, who seem to be advancing towards the desideratum in this business. They are able to rise and fall at will, without expending their gas, and to deflect forty-five degrees from the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the wind buffeted us might have led one to suppose that its primary objective was to deflect our steps, and turn them in the direction of the mountains. Indeed, at times its pressure was so strong that we had no choice but to halt, to turn our backs to the sea, and, with feet planted apart, to prise ourselves against our sticks, and so remain, poised on three legs, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... spin, gyrate, rotate, wheel, veer, shift, swivel; deflect, inflect; reverse, revert; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... astrologers imputed to the stars, they potently incline, they do not coerce. Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and those subtle mental traits which make up the characteristics of races and nations, all tend to deflect from a given standard the religious life of the individual and the mass. It is essential to give these due weight, and a necessary preface therefore to an analysis of the myths of the red race is an enumeration of its peculiarities, and of its chief ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... In 1903 Hay saw Russia knocking away the last blocks that held back the launch of this huge mass into the China Sea. The vast force of inertia known as China was to be united with the huge bulk of Russia in a single mass which no amount of new force could henceforward deflect. Had the Russian Government, with the sharpest sense of enlightenment, employed scores of de Wittes and Khilkoffs, and borrowed all the resources of Europe, it could not have lifted such a weight; and ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... window-board. This is a board the edge of which rests on the edge of the window-sill, the ends being attached firmly to the window-frame. It affords a vertical surface three or four inches high and situated three or four inches in front of the window, so as to deflect the cold air upward when the window is slightly opened. The air will then reach the breathing-zone, instead of flowing on to the floor and chilling the feet, which is the usual consequence of opening a window in winter. It seems tragic to think that for lack of some such simple device, which anyone ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... events thus much is plain, that the mean state is in all things praiseworthy, and that practically we must deflect sometimes towards excess sometimes towards defect, because this will be the easiest method of hitting on the mean, that is, on what ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... in these last days; she would fall to thinking, with vague amazement, that this irremediable catastrophe was out of all proportion to its cause. It was monstrous that a crazy minute should ruin a whole life—two whole lives, hers and David's. It was as if a pebble should deflect a river from its course, and make it turn and overflow a landscape! It was incredible that so temporary a thing as an outbreak of temper should have eternal consequences. She gasped, with her face buried in her arms, at the realization— which comes to most of us poor human creatures sooner or ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... which sends market prices up or down is far stronger than any man or combination of men. It would sweep any man or men aside like driftwood if they stood in its way or attempted to deflect it. ...
— The New York Stock Exchange and Public Opinion • Otto Hermann Kahn

... give under the point of the stylus, and take a corrugated or wavy surface corresponding to the vibrations of the speech. Thus recorded on a yielding but somewhat stiff material, these undulations could be preserved, and at a future time made to deflect the point of a similar stylus, and set a corresponding diaphragm or tympan into vibration, so as to give out the original sounds, or an ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... affection that can be pointed out by the veterinarian:—a dentist can detect an unsound tooth:—a physician, from certain well marked symptoms, concludes that the lungs or liver of an individual are unsound:—particular doctrines are held to be unsound, because they deflect from such as are orthodox, and it is presumed there may be an unsound exposition of the law. The human mind, however, is not the subject of similar investigation; we are able to discover no virus by which it is contaminated—no spreading rottenness—no ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam

... habits are innate and temperamental—habits formed, no doubt, by far-off ancestors.[1] But this distinction does not here concern us. Temperamental bias is a habit, like another, only somewhat older, and, therefore, harder to deflect or eradicate. What do we imply, then, when we complain that, in a given character, no development has taken place? We imply that he ought, within the limits of the play, to have altered the mental habits underlying his speech and actions. But is this ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... remarkable one. I had a passion for dancing and my father wanted me to go to balls; I had a genius for horses and adored hunting; I had such a wonderful hack that every one collected at the Park rails when they saw me coming into the Row; but all this did not deflect me from my purpose and I went to Dresden alone with a stupid maid at a time when—if not in England, certainly in Germany—I might have passed as a ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... true that what a man does, and is, settles how he fares. And this is the mystical importance and awful solemnity of the most undistinguished moments and most trivial acts of this awful life of ours, that each of them has an influence on all that comes after, and may deflect our whole course into altogether different paths. It is not only the moments that we vulgarly and blindly call great which settle our condition, but it is the accumulation of the tiny ones; the small deeds, the unnoticed acts, which make up so large a portion of every man's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the light word of Socrates affirming, than in a whole world full of evidence denying, of such maunderers as you! See here; he was the most sensible of men; balanced; keeping his head always;—a mind no mood or circumstances could deflect from rational self-control, either towards passion or ecstasy. One explanation remains—as in the case of Joan, or of H.P. Blavatsky;—he was neither deceiving nor deceived, but what he claimed to hear, he did hear; and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... grows slow, and the Star becomes Stationary (which, as he saith, it doth in respect of the Ecliptick, not its own Orbite,) Here he observes, That from Decemb. 8/18, to Decem. 30. Jan. 9. its course was almost a great Circle: but that then it began to deflect from that Circle towards the North; so that afterwards, with a very notable and conspicuous Curvity, it directed its course towards Primam Arietis: Of which deflection, he ventures to assign the cause from the Cometical Matter, the various position and the distance of the Comet from ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... late. The rider could not deflect her mount. Into the fence went Wild Fire blindly and furiously. The girl threw up her leg to keep it from being jammed. Up went the bronco again before Wild Rose could find the stirrup. She knew she was gone, felt herself shooting forward. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... unintelligible threats he advanced, brandishing his weapon, at which I turned sideways to call to a German N.C.O. and protest against such treatment. The kindly sentry aimed a smashing blow at my left foot, which I was luckily able to partially deflect by a slight movement of my knee. Things were certainly quite disturbing, for the next instant he stuck the bayonet almost through my right thigh. The proceeding was not particularly pleasant, feeling very like a sharp burn, but I was almost too surprised to realise fully ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... God, in His providential wisdom and power, to answer the prayers of His people. It is an every-day occurrence for man to deflect the beams of the sun and make nature's laws do what they would not have done if left to themselves. We know men to be personal and to be changed by petitions to their mercy and entreaties to use their power in certain directions. We believe that God, infinitely greater than man, can be ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... "President." It must be appreciated that, with the whole hostile squadron at her heels, the American frigate could not delay, or turn her side with its battery towards an assailant behind; for to do so enabled the others to gain on her. On the other hand, the pursuer could so deflect—yaw—at frequent intervals, and having the greater speed could continually recover the ground thus lost. This was what Captain Hope of the "Endymion" did, with sound judgment. He took a position on the off-shore quarter of the "President," ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... maritime nation focused on the subject, there were naturally many devices suggested and tried for protecting ships from mines. The great majority of these suggestions may be classified in two groups: (1) Those which sought to deflect the mine from the pathway of the ship; and (2) those which sought to minimise the result of the explosion. One method from each of these groups was adopted with various modifications to suit different classes ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... reasonably look at it in this way. What business has a man to think of things right in front of you, poke his head, as it were, into your light? What right has he to set up dams and tunnel out swallow-holes to deflect the current of your thoughts? Surely you may remove these obstructions, if it suits you, and put them where you will. Else all literature will presently be choked up, and the making of books come to an end. One might as well walk ten miles out of one's way because ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... protected by the armour shield The might of Rome drew nigh beneath the wall (The front rank with their bucklers interlaced And held above their helms), the missiles fell Behind their backs, nor could the toiling Greeks Deflect their engines, throwing still the bolts Far into space; but from the rampart top Flung ponderous masses down. Long as the shields Held firm together, like to hail that falls Harmless upon a roof, so long the stones ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... so sacred an edifice. All this sounds to me like perfect absurdity—simple noise. Yet, I presume that those who talk in this way are good people and believe what they say. Of course, they can give no reason why God did not deflect the ball when Lincoln was assassinated. The truth is, the pulpit first endeavors to find out the facts, and then to make a theory to fit them. Whoever believes in a special providence must, of necessity, by illogical and absurd; because it is ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... mechanism of exploitation. It enables people to work for a common end, but just because the few who are strategically placed must choose the concrete objectives, the symbol is also an instrument by which a few can fatten on many, deflect criticism, and seduce men into facing agony for objects they do ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... was well done, moved away in the dirigible, sending it to a landing space some little distance away from the shed whence it had arisen. It was impossible to drop it back again through the roof of the hangar, as the balloon was of such bulk that even a little breeze would deflect it so that it could not be accurately anchored. But Tom had it under very good control, and soon it was being held down on the ground by some of ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... "So the iron would deflect the compass and make them run the ship onto the Kelp Ledges, off the Pinudas, Islands. If a ship went down he stood a good chance of eating one or two o' the passengers. But I don't mind sharks. If you want to know what really annoys me, it's them ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... sword with him, but the commander wrenched it free in time to parry the downward slash of the second guard's bronze sword. It was a narrow thing, because the bronze sword, though of softer stuff than the commander's steel, was also heavier, and thus hard to deflect. As it sang past him, the commander swung a chop at the man's neck, cutting it halfway through. He stepped quickly to one side to avoid the falling body and thrust his blade through a third man, who was aiming a blow at the neck of one of the commander's officers. There were only a dozen ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... imponderable at points 90d from the plane passing through the centre of the earth and sun, and coincident with the plane of the central meridian, and a depressing effect on that meridian. Its precise influence must be, from the nature of the cause, to deflect the circular current towards the poles, in places less than 90d from the meridian, and a contrary effect must be produced in places greater than 90d from the meridian. Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the magnetic poles of the earth correspond to the poles of rotation, ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... there was another extreme which, though apparently less dangerous, she must be careful to avoid. The imaginations of men are in a great measure under the control of their feelings and it was absolutely necessary for her to refrain from imparting too much information lest it might deflect from its purpose the very object ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... cleared a path for her to the porch, where Endymion stood shaking hands and bidding adieu, Dorothea caught her first and last glimpse of this traveller, who—without knowing it, without seeing her face to remember it, or even learning her name—was to deflect the slow current of her life, and send it whirling down a strange channel, giddy, ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... which I was bound to show. And in order that thou shouldst not only possess the estate which thy father left, but also that which my fortune and abilities have gained, I have never married, so that the love of children should never deflect my mind from that gratitude which I owed to the children of thy father. Thus I leave thee a vast estate, of which I am well content, but I am deeply concerned, inasmuch as I leave it thee unsettled and insecure. Thou hast the city of Lucca on thy hands, which ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... of that. As, for instance, in finishing the detent spring h, suppose we read in text books the spring should be reduced in thickness, so that a weight of one pennyweight suspended from the pipe j will deflect the detent 1/4". This is a rule well enough for people employed in a chronometer factory, but for the horological student such fixed rules (even if remembered) would be of small use. What the student requires is sound knowledge ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... varies from 5FeS, Fe{2}S{3}, to 6FeS, Fe{2}S{3}, and is a sulphide of iron, is responsive both positively and negatively. Bismuth and antimony also are inactive, whilst almost all minerals containing even a small percentage of iron will deflect the magnetic needle, at least under the influence of heat. So that from the lodestone—the most powerfully magnetic mineral known—to those minerals possessing no magnetic action whatever, we have a long, graduated scale, in which many of the precious stones appear, those containing ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... our investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the line ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... speech. There are some who contend that in a democracy every opinion should be heard; that, just because the good sense of the majority will ever lead the country into the right paths, the minority should be accorded full and fair expression, for they cannot deflect the country's course, and because such expression acts as a healthful safety-valve. Moreover, they say there is no way of preventing the minority from speaking save that of force, which is unworthy of a majority, and the negation ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... blessings. Open to God the realities of your heart and seek the blessings which you sincerely desire. But in all prayers desire most to know the will of God toward you, and to do it. Prayer is not offered to deflect God's will to yours, but to adjust your will to His. When a ship's captain is setting out on a {158} voyage he first of all adjusts his compasses, corrects their divergence, and counteracts the influences which draw the needle from ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... restored to the latter. The curious thing is that physically the polarized ring does not present any different appearance or ordinary properties different from those of a plain ring, and will not deflect a compass needle. Its condition is discoverable, however, by the test of self-induction to currents of different direction. As a practical consideration, we may mention in this connection that a self-inductive coil for currents of one direction must be constructed differently from one to be used ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... window, bow window. sine curve; spline, spline curve, spline function; obliquity &c 217. V. be curved, &c adj.; curve, sweep, sway, swag, sag; deviate &c 279; curl, turn; reenter. render curved &c adj.; flex, bend, curve, incurvate^; inflect; deflect, scatter [Phys.]; refract (light) 420; crook; turn, round, arch, arcuate, arch over, concamerate^; bow, curl, recurve, frizzle. rotundity &c 249; convexity &c 250. Adj. curved &c v.; curviform^, curvilineal^, curvilinear; devex^, devious; recurved, recurvous^; crump^; bowed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Raindrop may deflect a thunderbolt, or a hair may ruin an empire, as surely as a spider-web once turned the history of Scotland; and if it had not been for one little pebble, this history of Tito might never ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... know, this is good for interplanetary flight because you can run it continuously and it has extremely high exhaust velocity. But in our situation it was no good because it has rather a low thrust. It would have taken more time than we had to deflect us enough to avoid a smash. We had five minutes ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily

... deflect from their primary sense. We find the most curious men the most idle and silly, the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor



Words linked to "Deflect" :   put off, foreclose, obviate, deflective, deflexion, avoid, prevent, deflector, forfend, avert, preclude, bend, turn away, forbid, flurry, debar



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