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noun
Reverse  n.  
1.
That which appears or is presented when anything, as a lance, a line, a course of conduct, etc., is reverted or turned contrary to its natural direction. "He did so with the reverse of the lance."
2.
That which is directly opposite or contrary to something else; a contrary; an opposite. "And then mistook reverse of wrong for right." "To make everything the reverse of what they have seen, is quite as easy as to destroy."
3.
The act of reversing; complete change; reversal; hence, total change in circumstances or character; especially, a change from better to worse; misfortune; a check or defeat; as, the enemy met with a reverse. "The strange reverse of fate you see; I pitied you, now you may pity me." "By a reverse of fortune, Stephen becomes rich."
4.
The back side; as, the reverse of a drum or trench; the reverse of a medal or coin, that is, the side opposite to the obverse. See Obverse.
5.
A thrust in fencing made with a backward turn of the hand; a backhanded stroke. (Obs.)
6.
(Surg.) A turn or fold made in bandaging, by which the direction of the bandage is changed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reverse" Quotes from Famous Books



... better, then Lucy's death would undoubtedly have made a considerable difference to him, and this is all that he has ever said that it would do. What right have we to put glosses upon the masterly reticence of a poet, and credit him with feelings possibly the very reverse of those he ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... The peculiarity of the woman is her duality, her double power. She can, by an act of volition, become hypnotic, clairvoyant—whatever you choose to call it. Or, if her visitor is at all sensitive, she can reverse the situation and play the part of the hypnotiser. I never heard ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... it is well to state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would counteract low prices. 'The result of all our experiments,' he said, 'is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more ... the last bushel always costs you more than all the others.' As prices went lower 'we must contract our farming to what I should call the average of the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... and his wife's pension, must have been very great. It would appear that during his prosperous times he had lived in a style quite equal to his income, and had no ample resources against a season of reverse; for, on the 1st of May 1388, less than a year and a half after being dismissed from the Customs, he was constrained to assign his pensions, by surrender in Chancery, to one John Scalby. In May 1389, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... it she saw the foolish, fat face, the over-curled, fair hair. She saw, too, that the figure held in one hand its own photograph, while, with a pencil held in the other it wrote, smiling the while its own fatuous smile, on the reverse of ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... madame, that the Court-Royal will reverse the judgment of the court restricting your lien on your husband's property, for payment of moneys due to you by the terms of your marriage-contract, to household goods and chattels. Your privilege ought not to be used to defraud the other creditors. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... instead of a friend, who indirectly tells you, "Eat, drink, and rejoice as long and as much as you like; but remember that if you are happy, it is to my generosity you are indebted, and if unhappy, that I do not care a pin about you." With Lucien it is the very reverse. His conduct seems to indicate that by your company you confer an obligation on him, and he is studious to remove, on all occasions, that distance which fortune has placed between him and his guests; and as he cannot compliment them upon being wealthier than himself, he seizes with delicacy ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... is one of that family to whom his visits are anything but agreeable; in truth, the very reverse. This Cypriano, who has conceived the fancy, or rather feels conviction, that the eyes of the young Tovas chief rest too often, and too covetously, on his pretty cousin, Francesca. Perhaps, except himself, no one has noticed this, and he alone is glad to count ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... no sentimentalist, he argued, moreover, that British civilisation might be made to pay its way! The idea that Mr. Rhodes is "the walking embodiment of an ideal," without personal ambition in his schemes, is as absolutely absurd as are the reverse pictures that have been painted of him. He is no angel and no ogre, Mr. Rhodes is one of Nature's sovereigns, who, conscious of his power and the limitations of human life, uses every minute at his disposal to write his name large in the records of his country. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... voted for it, it is not binding upon me, it does not exist. To make it a precedent before I have recognised it, and to use it against me in spite of my protests is to make it retroactive, and to violate this very law itself. Every day you have to reverse a decision because of some formal error. But there is not a single one of your laws that is not tainted with nullity, and the most monstrous nullity of all, the very hypothesis of the law. Soufflard, Lacenaire, all the scoundrels whom you send to the ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... are not town houses. They are the types which appear among the 'villas', that is, the landlords' or the farmers' dwellings, up and down the rural districts of Roman Britain and northern Gaul, and the town which they constitute is a conglomeration of country houses. The reverse has taken place of that which we often see to-day in England. Our modern builders and architects had—until perhaps quite recently—only one idea of a small house, the house, namely, which to-day characterizes the monotonous streets in the ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield

... recorded—scruple to fight fire with fire. Their existence, of course, was at stake, and there was no public to appeal to. A part of the legal army that rushed to the aid of our adversaries spent the afternoon and most of the night organizing all those who could be induced by one means or another to reverse their sentiments, and in searching for the few who had grievances against the existing power. The following morning a motion was introduced to reconsider; and in the debate that followed, Krebs, still defiant, took an active part. But ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... overtook him; and thenceforth, to the end of his days, he had nothing but tedious struggling and uphill work. To a man of his buoyant temperament, and happy in his home, this might have been of no extreme consequence, if only sound health had blessed him: unfortunately, the very reverse was the case. Sickly hitherto, he was soon to become miserably and hopelessly diseased: he worked on through everything bravely and uncomplainingly, but no doubt with keen throbs of discomfort, and not without ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... warrior; and this arm, though trained to war against thee, will not well forget, in the quick hour of battle, the blood that flows within it. Themistocles saved Greece and died a Satrap: I am bred one, let me reverse our lots, and die at ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli

... piety; On Simeon, and learning, and plays, and sobriety; With most clear illustrations, and critical notes, On his own right exclusive of canvassing votes. From Neech came a medley of prose and of rhyme, Satires, epigrams, sonnets, and sermons sublime; But he'd chosen all customs and rules to reverse, For his satires were prose, and las sermons were verse. Phoebus look'd at the papers, commended all three, And sent word he'd be happy to ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... exception to the rule that women are rendered additionally attractive through being extraordinary. Had she been less extraordinary she would have been more lovable. As it was she came near, at this time, to being the reverse of lovable, or so it struck me when, upon my endeavour to talk calmly and rationally to her after hearing all that Jack Osborne had just told us, and striving to induce her to listen to reason, she ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... is hardly possible to prove that it has become better, and quite impossible to prove that it will continue to do so. From the standpoint of the Mohammedan Turks, the last two hundred years of the world's history have not been years of marked progress; from the standpoint of their enemies, the reverse statement is obviously true. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... following. Their confession left no doubt of their guilt: they had committed murder that they might escape from misery; but they asserted that the principal was Browne, and the accessory Salmon—the reverse of the indictment. During their long consultation the jurors were allowed refreshment; but on the Friday evening several resolved to elope: at a late hour they broke past the astonished constables, and returned ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... the paper so that it could not be read, and requested each member of the cabinet to sign his name on the reverse side. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... a low form at Middleton School, her acquirements being the reverse of distinguished. This fact did not give her the smallest sense of discomfort. On the contrary, she was pleased; and although her fellow-scholars were all younger and smaller than herself, she soon became a sort of queen among them, laughing and joking ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... for any adventure, receptive, open-minded, and all willing to render his very life for what seemed good to do. Scientific reverence this, the willingness to experiment, to try, to test, and then, if the test failed, to grope for a new line of outlet, the readiness to reverse all he believed in in the face of a new and contradictory fact. He ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... important part of the time of the settlement of the Mississippi Valley, and the great lake basins. During this period ten States have been added to the Union. Many actors who now slumber in their graves are called up to bear witness. Some of the number were distinguished men; others the reverse. Red and white men alike express their opinions. Anecdotes and incidents succeed each other without any attempt at method. The story these incidentally tell, is the story of a people's settling the wilderness. It is the Anglo-Saxon race occupying the sites of the Indian wigwams. It is a field in ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... Then, too, he had been so kindly concerned that she should achieve the mission upon which she had embarked. It would have been so easy and even exacting had he been a man of less generous impulse. A man whom she could have thoroughly disliked. But he was the reverse of all those things which make it a joy to hurt. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... (good) king, then a wife, and then wealth. It is by the acquisition of these three that one can rescue his relatives and sons. But as regards the acquisition of these three, the course of my actions hath been the reverse. Hence, plunged into a sea of danger, am suffering sorely. That turn, destructive of one's family, hath now devolved upon me. I shall have to give unto the Rakshasa as his fee the food of the aforesaid ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... opinion of all those who were in close touch with it was that it was never so good. Even some of the French experts made the same mistake, and Gen. Bonnat counseled his countrymen not to rely upon it, since "it would take refuge amid its islands at the first reverse." One would think that the cause which makes for its predominance were obvious. Apart from any question of national spirit there is the all-important fact that the men are there of their own free will, an advantage which I trust that we shall never be compelled to surrender. Again, the men ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... with England; in practice, she is hourly made to feel the reverse. The Times, and all the journals which express the instincts of the dominant nation, constantly speak of the Irish people as 'the subjects of England, whom Englishmen have a right to control. They are the subjects of the Queen only in a secondary sense—as the Queen of England, and reigning ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... what an exact reverse of this condition of mind, as respects the observance of nature, is presented by the people whom we have just been led to contemplate in contrast with the Indian race? You will find upon reflection, that all the highest points of the Scottish character are connected ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... please. They were immature. They were, secondly, too advanced to be understood at once. And, lastly, people were only too glad to give a lesson to the impertinent youngster.—But Christophe was not cool-headed enough to admit that his reverse was legitimate. He had none of that serenity which the true artist gains from the mournful experience of long misunderstanding at the hands of men and their incurable stupidity. His naive confidence in the public ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... [be] ready to Serve you and promote yr. Interest to the best of our Capacity and assure you with great fidelity. we have taken Doctr. Paul's opinion ab't yr. Case which you have inclosed. it seems to be quite the reverse of what Dr. Strahan gave and is intirely for you; our Proctor has persuaded us to have yet another eminent Civilian's opinion, which if in our Favor he thinks we ought to pursue the appeal, of which shall acquaint you more hereafter. we have received the Certificate ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... action with the coolness of spectators, were often enabled to give shrewd and sensible admonitions,—so that the forethought of wisdom passed for the prescience of divinity. Hence the greater part of their predictions were eminently successful; and when the reverse occurred, the fault was laid on the blind misconstruction of the human applicant. Thus no great design was executed, no city founded, no colony planted, no war undertaken, without the advice of an oracle. In the famine, the pestilence, and the battle, the divine voice ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Headquarters takes a view of this affair which is the very reverse of that taken by our contributor, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... "with greater ease find the reverse; but to find a woman worthy to be his wife I shall have ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... reached the side of the schooner and got our captives on board I attended the doctor while he busied himself bandaging and strapping cuts, the blacks staring at him wondering, and then at Jimmy, who looked the reverse of friendly, gazing down at the prisoners scornfully, and telling Jack Penny in confidence that he did not think much of common ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... in judging myself.... One always mistakes when one does not close his eyes. That may seem strange to us; but that is all. He is past the age to marry and he weds like a child, a little girl he finds by a spring.... That may seem strange to us, because we never see but the reverse of destinies ... the reverse even of our own.... He has always followed my counsels hitherto; I had thought to make him happy in sending him to ask the hand of Princess Ursula.... He could not remain alone; since the death of his wife he has been sad to be alone; and that ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck

... and hot water forced down through the larger tubing returns sulphur-laden through the central pipe. The orange-ray instantaneously dissolves any portable object up to a certain size, propels it back to Xlarbti through its center which is the reverse ray, and here reforms the object, just as you were recreated on the disk that you stood on when you ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei

... much amends for having let my soul entertain and cherish disgust, bitterness, and aversion toward him for so many years.—And as to the happiness of the pair!—on this point my opinion is just the reverse of yours. He is wise, sensible, virtuous; he is happy already, and will keep so, whether he marry or not. It is an act of condescension in a person of his grave character to take up with my daughter. A man who has got the ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... You know the spring is connected with the bell in your study; when the screen unrolled, the bell rang. It was only necessary to reverse the operation: by pulling the bell-wire in the Herr Count's study the ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... Attempts were made to open negotiations; but the constable broke them off brusquely, roaring out that the king would never tolerate two religions. On the 10th of November, 1567, the battle began at St. Denis, and was fought with alternations of partial success and reverse, which spread joy and sadness through the two hosts in turn; but in resisting a charge of cavalry, led to victory by Conde, the constable fell with and under his horse; a Scot called out to him to surrender; for ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... general outline. Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other end of the room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon, the reverse, just as I had made it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline—at the singular coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me, there should have been a ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... caught first that group which lurked in the ground near the base of the Empire State. Tolla had turned the beam to the reverse co-ordinates from those Tako used. It penetrated into the borderland, reached the apparitions and forcibly materialized them! A second or two it clung to that group of white men's shapes in the ground. They grew solid; ponderable. But the space they now claimed was ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... portions show a picture the reverse of that I have been compelled to exhibit in the course ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... colouring and vindicating their own conduct, but that of blackening the characters of those poor natives. To friends they are benevolent, peaceable, generous and hospitable: to enemies they are the reverse. But we forbear entering minutely into this subject at present, as we shall have occasion afterwards to make several remarks on the character, manners and customs of these tribes. Just views of them may indeed ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... his hireling, and the rueful veteran hastened to pile up another wheelbarrow with earth. If ever we come to reverse positions generally with our Irish brethren, there is no doubt but they will get more work out of us than we do ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... was closed, so that you would know just where to use your spades in the dark. Quietly as possible! No talking!" he kept cautioning as the men turned the soft earth, "and not higher than the cord, and lay the stubble side of the sods on the reverse so as to cover the fresh ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... password, "Rutherford B. Hayes," turn to the left, through a dark passage, turn the thumbscrew of a mysterious gas fixture 90 deg. to the right, holding the goblet of the encampment under the gas fixture, then reverse the thumbscrew, shut your eyes, insult your digester, leave twenty-five cents near the gas fixture, and hunt up the nearest cemetery, so that you will not have to be ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... what greatly surpassed all their joy, recovered the horsemen whom the Samnites had sent to Luceria to be kept as pledges of the peace. Hardly ever did the Romans gain a victory more distinguished for the sudden reverse produced in the state of their affairs; especially if it be true, as I find in some annals, that Pontius, son of Herennius, the Samnite general, was sent under the yoke along with the rest, to atone for the disgrace of the consuls. I think ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... before B.C. 217, and some show the tail. The distinguishing feature is the human eye; not the outa of Horus,[EN38] so well known to those who know the Pyramids, but the last trace of Athene's profile. Two are Roman: a Nerva with S.C. on the reverse; and a Claudius Augustus, bearing by way of countermark a depressed oblong, of 20/100 by 14/100 (of inch), with a raised figure, erect, draped, and holding a sceptre or thyrsus. There is also a Constantius struck at Antioch. The gem of the little collection was a copper ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... accidentally omitted in the consolidated legislation of Vraibleusia, he directed the jury to find the prisoner 'not guilty.' As in Vraibleusia the law believes every man's character to be perfectly pure until a jury of twelve persons finds the reverse, Popanilla was kicked out of court, amid the hootings of the mob, without a stain ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... the castle, for some mad reason of the sort that mothers every catastrophe, caused them to disobey that order and, instead, to charge forward at the double. In a moment the new fury (for it was not panic, nor yet exactly the reverse) communicated itself all along the road, and the regiments at the rear, in spite of the murderous fire from our ambush, yelled and milled to drive the men in ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... clear or obscure according as their meaning is inferred easily or with difficulty in relation to the context, not according as their truth is perceived easily or the reverse by reason. We are at work not on the truth of passages, but solely on their meaning. We must take especial care, when we are in search of the meaning of a text, not to be led away by our reason in so far as it is founded on principles of natural knowledge (to say ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... Reverse the process, in consequence of the excess of loss by evaporation over gain by inflow, which must have set in as the climate of Syria changed after the end of the pleistocene epoch, and (without taking into ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... hoof should be just the reverse of the preceding. The outer branch should be somewhat longer than ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... with the side of this the grain is partially wiped away, but not to the extent of taking off the whole of the grain. A recent but most admirable system of graining oak, by means of over-combing, is worked exactly the reverse of any of the foregoing methods; that is to say, the figure is first wiped out, and the combing or grain is done afterwards, when the graining color is dry, in this wise: The graining color is mixed somewhat thinner than for ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... but reappears whenever the substances pass through a reverse cycle, from a gaseous to a liquid, or from a liquid to a solid state. It may, therefore, be defined as stated, as the heat which apparently disappears, or is lost to thermometric measurement, when the molecular constitution of a body is being changed. Latent heat is expended ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention—it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reverse—but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business, its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... the rest of the infernal astronomical galaxy looking down on you, and the Indians chanting in the village, and you will think I have grown sentimental. I have not. You and I down there have been looking at the world through the reverse end of the glass. It's a bully old world, Hal, and this is ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... room is the control room of the space ship. The ray is—well, it's as difficult to explain as electricity, and perhaps as simple in its operation. The ray does more than nullify gravity—can be made to reverse gravity! Let's call the ray the gravity inverter for want of a better name. It makes anything it touches literally fall away from the Earth, toward the point whence ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks

... made for the sea-water to flow in, and explode the torpedoes. Ten of these lay on the port side of the ship, each containing eighty-two pounds of powder, and they were connected so that they could be fired in train. There were two men below, one to reverse the engines, the other to break open the sea-traps with a sledge hammer. Those on deck were to let fall the anchor and set the helm. Then Hobson would touch the electric button and fire the torpedoes, and all would leap overboard and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... long did it last? He had been turned out of the service, they remained in it with their red coats and epaulets; he was merely the son of a man who had rendered good service to his country, they were, for the most part, highly connected—they were in the extremest degree genteel, he quite the reverse; so the nation wavered, considered, thought the genteel side was the safest after all, and then with the cry of, "Oh! there is nothing like gentility," ratted bodily. Newspaper and public turned against the victim, scouted him, apologized for the—what should they be called?—who were ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... economy; and if we desire to know what it is that tends to the emancipation of the people of the earth from slavery, we must first satisfy ourselves that the theory of Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo has not only no foundation in fact, but that the law is directly the reverse, and tends, therefore, toward the adoption of measures directly opposed to those that would he needed were that theory true. The great importance of the question will excuse the occupation of a few ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... is forever lost. Glancing at his companion, he sees a change come over the spirit of her face. Her eyes brighten, but not with pleasurable anticipation. Quite the reverse. She lays her hand suddenly upon his arm, and ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... gives out an effluvium quite as far-reaching although not so abominable in character as that of the Mephitis? It comes in disagreeable whiffs to the human nostril when the perfumer of the wilderness is not even in sight. Yet it is not a protection; on the contrary, it is the reverse, and, like the dazzling white plumage so attractive to birds of prey, a direct disadvantage, informing all enemies for leagues around of its whereabouts. It is not, therefore, strange that wherever pumas are found, deer are never very abundant; the only wonder is that, like the ancient ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... and well-defined, the colors pure and vivid, and a brilliant effect is obtained by the artist having employed in some parts an opaque, and in others a transparent glass. The picture seems to be continued throughout the whole thickness of the specimen, as the reverse corresponds in the minutest points to the face; so that, were it to be cut transversely, the same picture of the Duck would be exhibited in every section. It is conjectured that this curious process ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... from the family tree, he went south to Wark and entered a ship-owning firm. In thirty years' time he died, the owner of one of the biggest trades in England, having married the daughter of his chief. My father was twenty-four and still at Oxford when he inherited. Almost his first act was to reverse my grandfather's early move by going north and piecing together the family friendship. He married his first cousin; and then, with the Chilcote prestige revived and the shipping money to back it, he entered on his ambition, which was to represent East Wark in the Conservative interest. ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... varieties are blest. The industrious peasant everywhere does range, And thanks the gods for his life's happy change. Lo, in the midst of a well-freighted pie They both at last glutted and wanton lie, When see the sad reverse of prosperous fate, And what fierce storms on mortal glories wait! With hideous noise, down the rude servants come, Six dogs before run barking into th' room; The wretched gluttons fly with wild affright, And hate the fulness which retards ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... moment in which Lord George had been spoken of as a suitor for his daughter's hand,—looking forward to it with the assured hope of a very sanguine man. The late Marquis had been much younger than he, but he calculated that his own life had been wholesome while that of the Marquis was the reverse. Then had come the tidings of the Marquis' marriage. That had been bad;—but he had again told himself how probable it was that the Marquis should have no son. And then the Lord had brought home a son. All suddenly there had come to him the tidings that a brat called Popenjoy,—a brat ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... are accustomed to treachery. Just think carefully over your position; it is superb.—If you follow my advice point by point, you will have thirty or forty thousand francs. But there is a reverse side to this beautiful medal. How if the Presidente comes to hear that M. Pons' property is worth a million of francs, and that you mean to have a bit out of it?—for there is always somebody ready to take that kind of errand—" he ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... important work should depend upon the various casualties and vicissitudes incident to the natural or official life of a single officer of the Army. This would be to make the work subordinate to the man, and not the man to the work, and to reverse our great axiomatic rule of "principles, not men." I desire to express no opinion upon the subject. Should the question ever arise, it shall have my ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... voice seemed to be wandering about in the thickening dusk. "You won't play much. You won't, perhaps, love many times." He paused. "And you did love me, you know. Your railroad friend would have understood me. I COULD have thrown you back. The reverse was there,—it stared me in the face,—but I couldn't pull it. I let you drive ahead." He threw out his hands. What Thea noticed, oddly enough, was the flash of the firelight on his cuff link. He turned again. "And you'll always drive ahead," ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... if you should reverse the tube of your telescope, with the result of seeing the object observed made smaller ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... /n./ Syn. {epoch}. Webster's Unabridged makes these words almost synonymous, but 'era' more often connotes a span of time rather than a point in time, whereas the reverse is true for {epoch}. The {epoch} usage ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... apt to cultivate our sense of pleasure less than our sense of suffering, by appreciating small pleasures little, while heeding small pains excessively. Beth's deliberate intention, as well as her natural impulse, was to reverse this in her own case as much as possible; she would not let her physical sense of well-being on a fine morning and her intellectual delight in a good mood for work be spoilt because of some trouble of the night before. The trouble she would set aside so that it might ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... his eyes grew dim with the strange sense of joy that came over him that glorious morning. But the next moment he became aware of the fact that to all this beauty and brightness there was a terrible reverse side. For suddenly a great falcon dashed with swift wing high up along the course of the river, and cries of fear, warning, and alarm rang out from the small birds, the minute before happy and contentedly seeking ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... them in the faint light of day, and a perfect hail of bullets was flying to and fro. And not only facing the village, but all round the kopje, where the enemy had in several places secured a footing and were utilising the stone defences prepared by the colonel's men, but of course from the reverse side. It had this good effect, though; it condensed the British force, giving them less ground to defend; and for the next two hours wherever a Boer dared to show enough of himself to form a spot at which to aim, ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... land the Time Freight in the yards at Argenta before the whistle blew for seven o'clock. It was a twelve-mile pull up-grade, every inch of the way—twisting, turning, and tunnelling, as has been said—and the caboose reeled and swayed from side to side as it rounded the reverse curves and swung at the tail of the train. Cullin, lantern in hand, had climbed to his seat in ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... as Augustine says (Ep. ccxi). Therefore Matthew unfittingly gives the last place to the temptation to covetousness on the mountain, and the second place to the temptation to vainglory in the Temple, especially since Luke puts them in the reverse order. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... these things] tended to the same point; for the immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances. Although these things are so, yet, if hostages were to be given him by them in order that he may be assured they will do what they promise, and provided they will give satisfaction to the Aedui for the outrages which ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... he, at length, "you and I are from different parts of the country—from two different worlds, you might say. You believe in slavery and the extension of it—I believe in just the reverse. I would sacrifice my professional future, if need were, in that belief." The other nodded, but his ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... The edges of this salver, which stands on a foot stalk of the same metal, are a little turned up, and carved. In the centre is inlaid a Greek medal; on the obverse whereof is this legend, [Greek: Ausander Aukonos] but it being fixed in its socket, the reverse is not visible. The other medals, forty in number, are set round the rim, in holes punched quite through; so that the edges of the holes serve as frames for the medals. These medals are Roman, and in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... contradicts this. Ver. 26. "The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them." They think these malignants better than the west country forces. They would condescend to any terms to get their help, though it were to reverse the Act of Classes,(395) to give them indemnity, yea, not so much as to condemn their way: but they will not so much as clear the state of the quarrel, or choose a better general(396) for all their help. Their way seems good in their own eyes, ver. 15. But it were wisdom to hearken to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... suddenly, he said, "M. de Bragelonne, I know nowhere a nobler mind than yours; you are, indeed, a worthy son of the most perfect gentleman that ever lived. Keep your tents." And he threw his arms round Raoul's neck. All who were present, astounded at this conduct, which was the very reverse of what was expected, considering the violence of the one adversary and the determination of the other, began immediately to clap their hands, and a thousand cheers and joyful shouts arose from all sides. De Guiche, in his turn, embraced Buckingham ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... confidential rank in its armies. I obtained the confidence of the Executive Directory, the approbation of my generals, and I will venture to add, the esteem and affection of my brave comrades. When I review these circumstances, I feel a secret and internal consolation which no reverse of fortune, no sentence in the power of this court to inflict, can deprive me of, or weaken in any degree. Under the flag of the French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country. ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... Town, but after that time they seemed to have disappeared almost entirely. Ostrich farming is an enterprise of the past twenty years, and before it began, the only way of procuring ostrich feathers was by hunting down and killing the wild birds. The practise was cruel, and it was also the reverse of economical. Thoughtful hunters realized this, and a rumor went through the colony that ostriches had been domesticated in Algeria, and were successfully raised for the production of feathers. When this rumor or report went about, it naturally set some of us thinking, and ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... arrows. 'The Geyling's nephew,' said Madame de Ruth, 'and the only good thing about her! A charmingly naughty child, who they hope, however, will play his Cupid's role to-night, though he is as likely as not to do exactly the reverse, for he is by nature a ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... talent. But it is difficult to lament over the survivors (1884). The master neither took their money—for they are rich, nor their fame—for they are celebrated, nor their merit—for they had and still have plenty. And they never bewailed their fate: the reverse! The proudest congratulate themselves on having been at so good a school; and M. Auguste Maquet, the chief of them, speaks with real reverence and affection of his great friend." And M. About writes "as one who had taken ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... visit, was, that this neglected outbuilding was the place in which "King Alexander lived for three days with the hermit of Inchcolm." There was nothing in the rude architecture and general character of the building to gainsay such a tradition, but the reverse; and, on the contrary, when we turn to the notice of a visit of Alexander I. to the island in 1123, as given by our earliest Scotch historians, their account of the little chapel or oratory which he found there perfectly applies to the building which I have been describing. In ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... tell you that they would shed their blood upon the truth of it; but let any one that thinks so transact bisness with me, or bekome a tenint of mine, and he'll find that a' can make him bleed in proving the reverse. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Reverse this idea once and for all; see that woman is in reality the race-type, and the man the sex-type—and all our dark and tangled problems of unhappiness, sin and disease, as between men and women, are cleared at once. Much, very much, of our more ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... midnight, and the principal instrument they use on such occasions is a broom." Hence, in Hamburg, sailors, after long toiling against a contrary wind, on meeting another ship sailing in an opposite direction, throw an old broom before the vessel, believing thereby to reverse the wind.[12] As, too, in the case of vervain and rue, the besom, although dearly loved by witches, is still extensively used as a counter-charm against their machinations—it being a well-known belief both in England and Germany that no individual of this ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... been Guelphic, and we have seen him already as a young man serving two campaigns against the other party. But no immediate question as between pope and emperor seems then to have been pending; and while there is no evidence that he was ever a mere partisan, the reverse would be the inference from his habits and character. Just before his assumption of the priorate, however, a new complication had arisen. A family feud, beginning at the neighboring city of Pistoja, between the Cancellieri Neri and Cancellieri Bianchi,[23] had extended ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... batch of weird-looking apparatus which faintly resembled a television set, although there were twice the number of dials and knobs. To the uninitiated eye the legends under them would have been perplexing—"Month Selector," "Reverse Day Fast-Forward," "Weekometer," "Minute-Second Divider." To Mrs. Mimms however the instrument was simply standard equipment for all assignments. She placed it carefully on the desk in her living room and, one by one, drew out the five ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight

... spiral reverse, and after that a complete spiral for all the fingers. When this last job was finished, Mr. Wall smiled, ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... dining-room door. It was holiday-time, yet Dick was going to Chelmsford for an examination. He had come out intending to ask his father before he went to London for half a crown. Dick was just at the age when schoolboys try to appear exactly the reverse from what they are. He squabbled constantly with Dorothy, though he loved her very much, and now, when he heard his father sigh, he put his hands in his pockets as if he didn't care about anything, and ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... herself, as she had never done before, on the edge of a world unknown, where everything would be new to her, where—it was possible—that which awaited her might not be unmixed happiness, might even be the reverse. It is seldom that a girl on the eve of marriage either thinks this or acknowledges to herself that she thinks it. Elinor did so involuntarily, without thinking upon her thought. Perhaps it would ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... consider that "the Lord had testified against her." The truest sympathy was manifested for her and for the stranger who had loved her and clung to her. In her sorrow they clustered around to comfort her, and when the bright reverse gave her again an honored name and "a restorer of her life" in her young grandson, they were eager to testify their joy. The apostolic injunction, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep," seems to have been strictly ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... spring, his words seemed to be echoed by Tom May in a deep roar as he too sprang upon the rail, from which he leaped, throwing his hands on high as he described a curve outward from the Seafowl's side, and then in the reverse of his position as his fingers touched the water there was a heavy splash, and those who ran to the side caught sight of the soles of his feet as he too disappeared for a short space beneath ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... to reverse this statement, having her grandfather own hundreds of acres and thousands of slaves. Whatever it was, poor Oleander was certainly hard at work now. Perhaps her proud grandfather was saved from turning over in his grave by the fact that his male descendants were not inclined to work. ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... reasons, need not be mentioned here. Many men, in all nations, long for Peace; but there are Three Women at the top of the world who do not; their wrath, various in quality, is great in quantity, and disasters do the reverse ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... seconds, to see if anybody would groan, "I shall take it for granted you feel for the GETTING-UP misery as well as the GOING-TO-BED one, although you have not groaned as I expected. I will just add, in conclusion, that the summer GETTING-UP misery was just the reverse of this winter one. Then the poor little wretches were expected to wait till their nursery was dusted and swept; so there they had to lie, sometimes for half-an-hour, with the sun shining in upon them, not allowed to get up and come out ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... ever-increasing dissensions. A tempest had caused great havoc to the English squadron which was out at sea; Lally was waiting and waiting for the arrival of M. d'Ache with the fleet which had but lately sought refuge at Ile de France after a fresh reverse. From Paris, on the report of an attack projected by the—English against Bourbon and Ile de France, ministers had given orders to M. d'Ache not to quit those waters. Lally ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... an eclipse in progress the shape of the Sun's contour gradually changes, so will the shape of the Solar images on the ground change, becoming eventually so many crescents. Moreover, the horns of the crescent-shaped images will be in the reverse direction to the horns of the actual crescent of the Sun at the moment, the rays of the Sun crossing as they pass through the foliage, just as if ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... especially of attending regularly for eight or ten months each year for nine years or more, is that it establishes a habit of regularity and persistency in effort. The boy who leaves school to go to work does not necessarily learn to work steadily, but often quite the reverse. Few who graduate from a grammar school, or who take the equivalent course in a rural school, fail to be regular in their habits of effort. This accounts in part for the fact that few unskilled workmen ever graduated from a grammar school. Scarcely any of the Jukes were ever at school any considerable ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... to gloze over bad deeds with holy texts, wrested to their purpose. Often, the more a man talks about Charity and Toleration, the less he has of either; the more he talks about Virtue, the smaller stock he has of it. The mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart; but often the very reverse of what the man practises. And the vicious and sensual often express, and in a sense feel, strong disgust at vice and sensuality. Hypocrisy is not so ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... prevail, and of parents professing a certain faith, take it for granted that all this is right?—This is matter of accident. 'Time and chance happeneth to all:' and I, the thinking principle within me, might, if such had been the order of events, have been born under circumstances the very reverse of those under which I was born. I will not, if I can help it, be the creature of accident; I will not, like a shuttle-cock, be at the disposal of every impulse that is given me." I felt a certain disdain for the being thus directed; I could not endure the idea ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... sketches, letters, etc., has been known to us for lo, these many years. We have always found him "a fellow of infinite jest," and one who, "though troubles assailed," always looked upon the bright side of life, leaving its reverse to those who could not behold the silver lining to the darkling clouds of their moral horizon. We could fill a good-sized volume with anecdotes illustrating the humorous in Mr. Burnett's composition, and his keen appreciation ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... up to the fifth floor to prepare for a swift retreat from the scene of his humiliating defeat. It was hardly in keeping with his boast of persistence that he should suffer himself to be thus routed by a single reverse, however crushing. But in a world where every problem contains its human factor, red wrath accounts for ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... conversation with Scott. He wrote immediately after the walk so as to record the conversation. This is what Scott said: "Do you know I experience a sort of determined pleasure in confronting the very worst aspect of this sudden reverse—in standing, as it were, in the breach that has overthrown my fortunes, and saying, Here I stand, at least, an honest man. And God knows if I have enemies, this I may at least with truth say, that I have never wittingly given cause of enmity in the whole ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... perverted and suppressed, and grave subjects daily degraded in the treatment. The journalist is not reckoned an important officer; yet judge of the good he might do, the harm he does; judge of it by one instance only: that when we find two journals on the reverse sides of politics each, on the same day, openly garbling a piece of news for the interest of its own party, we smile at the discovery (no discovery now!) as over a good joke and pardonable stratagem. Lying so open is scarce lying, it is true; but one of the things ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... last crusades was within a century the France of Crecy, just as the France of Austerlitz was more speedily the France of Waterloo; and men who followed the tricolour at Solferino lived to see it furled in humiliation at Sedan. No other country has had a history as prolific in triumph and reverse, in epochs of peaceful progress and periods of civil commotion, in pageant and tragedy, in all that gives fascination to historical narrative. Happy the land whose annals are tiresome! Not such has been the fortune of poor ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro



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