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Context   /kˈɑntɛkst/   Listen
Context

noun
1.
Discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to determine its interpretation.  Synonyms: context of use, linguistic context.
2.
The set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event.  Synonyms: circumstance, setting.



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"Context" Quotes from Famous Books



... verse 3., to the words "Thou shall abide for me many days," Dr. Pocock thus explains the context: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... Art, its Constitution and Capacities, etc. By the Rev. Edward Young, M.A. The phrase "exceedingly young men of stubborn instincts," being twice quoted (carefully excluding the context) from ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... fact that several of our cases started lying from the time when there occurred some experience accompanied by a deep emotional context, and that this experience and the emotion was repressed, seems to point clearly to the part which repressed mental life may play in the genesis. That as children they kept to themselves secrets of grave import ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... says[131], "The Dean's following Instruction to his Friend is certainly very diverting, in these words, where the Animadverter charges the Dean with Absurdities and Contradictions; turn to the Place and read it with its Context, and tell me what you cannot answer, and I will; to which he would have done well to have added, If I can. But the whole Passage is just as if he had said, Sir, if you find not Contradictions and Absurdities enough in my Book to satisfy ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... still further lot offers: 40,000 "Women's Regulator Letters,"—letters which in their context any woman can naturally imagine would be of the most delicate nature. Still, the fact remains, here they are ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... doctor promptly, pronouncing it leed. Then, after a pause, he said: "Or lead," this time pronouncing it led. "It would depend on the context." ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett

... page in our print copy was obscured by an ink blot. The words in brackets are those that we have supplied based on context and those ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... Thought.—In many cases the relation in thought is not directly indicated, and we are left to determine it from the context, just as we decide upon the meaning of a word because of what precedes or follows it. In this case the meaning of a particular sentence may be made clear if we have in mind the main topic under discussion. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... account of the Baptism of St. Paul and the jailer the context leaves a strong impression on the mind that both received the Sacrament by aspersion ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... sentence—for ideas cannot be properly contrasted which have not some connection—but what that connection is, is not at first sight clear. It almost appears like a profane and irreverent juxtaposition to contrast fulness of the Spirit with fulness of wine. Moreover, the structure of the whole context is antithetical. Ideas are opposed to each other in pairs of contraries; for instance, "fools" is the exact opposite to "wise;" "unwise," as opposed to ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... applies the name without distinction to the English shilling, 12s. Scots piece, which at page 80 he calls our shilling, and to the shilling Scots. The context ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... even to oblige us to recognize the Southern States. A step further would enable us to open the Southern ports, but a war would nevertheless be a great calamity." (Maxwell, Clarendon, II, 245. Granville to Clarendon. No exact date is given but the context shows it to have been ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the rich in spirit, but the rich in earthly riches. It is also true that he said, 'My kingdom is not of this world' and 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's'; yet everyone who reads these passages in connection with their context must see that He is simply waiving all interference whatever with political affairs—that in wishing to gain the victory for social justice he is influenced not by political, but by transcendental aims for the sake of eternal blessedness. Whether Rome or Israel rules is immaterial to Him, if only ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... Steele show that the sympathy was mutual; but the poetry in them is a flash out of the clouds of a dull context. It is hardly worth noticing that Steele, quoting from memory, puts 'would' for 'might' in the last line. Sir Robert's daughter Elizabeth, who, it is said, was to have been the wife of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I, died at the age of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... harmful to mankind, a something from which God would do well to emancipate it. This may have referred to his first meeting and conversation with a courtesan at Paris, which he describes in one of his papers, but this is not likely from the context, which is not concerned with the gratification of sexual passion. It is of the nobler sentiment that he speaks, and there seems to have been in the interval no opportunity for philandering so good ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... 24, De Quincey speaks of yagers among the Chinese troops. Perhaps both Polish dragoon and yager were well-known military terms in 1837. At any rate there is no gain in scrutinizing them too closely, since the context in both cases seems to ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... examples may be merely an expletive, having arisen out of the general use of the dative ethicus, but the context does not satisfy me that it has the force of a dative. Dr. Guest (Proceedings of Philolog. Soc., vol. i. p.151-153, 1842-1844) has discussed this construction at some length, and he carefully distinguishes the dative of the 1st person ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... say signature, because its position on the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else—of the body to my imagined instrument—of the text for my context." ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... sure that Gerard himself was responsible, though it is consistent enough with his peculiarities. Passages are redistributed among different books and pieces in a rather bewildering manner; and you occasionally rub your eyes at coming across—in a very different context, or simply shorn of its old one—something that you have met before. To others this, if not exactly an added charm, will at any rate be admitted to "grace of congruity." It would be less like Gerard if it ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... was on board the fleet in the Downs, and after passing SIX WEEKS IN PARIS, he went to Calais with Lady Fanshawe on the 25th of DECEMBER, 1649. The date of the year is also erroneous, as it is evident from the context that it was 1648.] my husband went to Paris on his master's business, and sent for me from London: I carried him 300 pounds of his money. During our stay at Paris, I was highly obliged to the Queen-Mother of England. We passed away six weeks with great delight in good company; ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... dear Sophia, I have not finished reading it. I don't agree a bit with Mahaffy—not a bit. He takes the text in its literal meaning. He ought to read it with the context. Now, there is not the slightest manner of doubt that ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... politics, or they are letters dealing with technical historical points. There are many little shrewd and humorous turns occurring in them. But these should, I think, have been abstracted from their context and worked into a narrative. The Professor was a man of singular character and individuality. Besides his enormous erudition, he had a great fund of sterling common sense, a deep and liberal piety, and a most inconsequent and, I must ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... English reader some idea of the way in which, whenever her emotions were deeply touched, her talk would run into soft Welsh diminutives; but I soon abandoned the attempt in despair. I found that to use colloquial Welsh with effect in an English context is impossible without wearying English readers ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... and applicability of Rapid Dominance, it is crucial to consider the political context in which force is likely to be employed. As we enter the next century, the probability is low that an overriding, massive, direct threat posed by a peer-competitor to the U.S. will emerge in the near term. Without compelling reasons, public tolerance toward ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... commendation of it is printed as Porson's improperly, as the whole context shows. It should have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... sir,' replied Mr Tapley, whose mind would appear from the context to have been running on the matrimonial service, 'is to love, honour, and obey. The clock's ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him."[1555] The conditions specified were not realized in the earthly life of the Redeemer; moreover the context clearly shows that the prophet's words are applicable to the last days only—the time of the ransomed of the Lord, the time of restitution, and ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... have you put your folio? I've been looking for it ever since I came in, but I can't find it. A new reading started up in my head the other day, and I want to try it both with the print and the context.' ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... the interest of the Bible outside its theological applications is detached from its context as a spur to "all those who value the Word of God... to send the Society help in [its] work of extending Bible teaching in our ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... error. We must neither narrow it down to less, nor import into it more, than the Holy Spirit means by it here. Paul is speaking neither of an imputation nor an experience. We must not limit it to being made free from the curse or punishment of sin. The context shows that he is speaking, not of our judicial standing, but of a spiritual reality, our being in living union with Christ in His death and resurrection, and so being entirely taken out from under the dominion or power of sin. 'Sin shall not have dominion over you.' Nor is he ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... difficult for me to get at them. Vidyapati's quaint and corrupt Maithili language attracted me all the more because of its unintelligibility. I tried to make out his sense without the help of the compiler's notes, jotting down in my own note book all the more obscure words with their context as many times as they occurred. I also noted grammatical peculiarities according to ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... Farrar is quite right in reproaching literary criticism with the uncandor of judging an author without reference to his aims; with pursuing certain writers from spite and prejudice, and mere habit; with misrepresenting a book by quoting a phrase or passage apart from the context; with magnifying misprints and careless expressions into important faults; with abusing an author for his opinions; with base ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... They lift the reader into a higher region of thought and feeling. This seems to me a better test to apply to them than the one which Mr. Arnold cited from Milton. The passage containing this must be taken, not alone, but with the context. Milton had been speaking of "Logic" and of "Rhetoric," and spoke of poetry "as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate." This relative statement, it must not be forgotten, is conditioned by what went before. If the terms are used absolutely, and not comparatively, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... il Allah (and within my coat is nought but God). His blood traced on the ground the first-quoted sentence. Lastly, there is a quotation from Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, etc.: here {Greek: paze} may mean sport; but the context determines the kind of sport intended. The Zhid is the literal believer in the letter of the Law, opposed to the Soofi, who believes in its spirit: hence the former is called a Zhiri (outsider), and the latter a Btini, an ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... in quite so stately a way, possibly, the sentences would not have been quite so rounded, but the context would have been ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... confirmed that view—that Joe was thinking a good deal more of himself as the centre of a dramatic and historic scene than of wounding Mr. Gladstone. And, then, the use of the word "Judas" must be taken with the context. Mr. Chamberlain was talking of the "days of Herod," and when I called out "Judas," what I really meant was why not select Judas, and not Herod, who was his contemporary, if you will refer to this particular epoch of human history. I say all these ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... insurrection, but in truth there was nothing extraordinary in it. The real essence and singularity of the rising exists in its simplicity, and, saving for the courage which carried it out, the word extraordinary is misplaced in this context. ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens

... deciding causes alone," and the author's note, that "the federal judges decide, upon their own authority, almost all the questions most important to the country," seem to require explanation in consequence of their connexion with the context in which the author is speaking of the trial by jury. They seem to imply that there are some cases which ought to be tried by jury, that are decided by the judges. It is believed that the learned author, although a distinguished advocate in France, never thoroughly ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... Father White on the right of resisting or disobeying the natural prince; but when the latter quoted some passage thereanent in the works of St. Augustine, Mountjoy caused to be brought to him out of his tent the identical volume, and showed to the amazement of the bystanders, that the context explained away all the priest had asserted.' The noble theologian told Father White that he was a traitor, worthy of condign punishment for bringing an idol into a Christian camp and for opening the churches by the Pope's ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... please; I say nothing. The subject is well chosen; it opens well. To become more particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that chiefly struck me on perusal. Page 26: "Fierce and terrible Benevolence!" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality, The whole context made me feel possessed, even like Joan herself. Page 28: "It is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human frame," and what follows, pleased me mightily. In the second book, the first forty lines ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... It may be reproduced by anybody and distributed in any quantity as a whole. It should not be summarized, abbreviated, garbled or chopped into out-of-context fragments. ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... the same person; this, answered affirmatively, is an approval,—negatively, a condemnation, of intention; the merit of style, in either case, being mere competence, and that admitted irrespectively of the reader's liking or disliking of the passage per se, or as part of a context. Why, in this same tragedy of Macbeth, is a drunken porter introduced between a murder and its discovery? Did Shakspere really intend him to be a sharp-witted man? These questions are pertinent and necessary. There is no room for disputing that ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... he had been hurried down into Egypt by a base remnant of his people.(24) Moreover, the historical appendix to the Book carries the history it contains on to 561 B.C. at least.(25) Again there are passages, the subjects of which are irrelevant to their context, and which break the clear connection of the parts of the context between which they have intruded.(26) The shorter sentences, that also disturb the connection as they stand, appear to have been written originally as marginal notes which a later editor or copyist ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... seemed to me rather wrenched from its context in the fashion already nauseous to me in the orthodox schools, but as I had never in my life had such moments of grace as in my mountain-walks, I expressed so hearty an acquiescence in the doctrine itself—shocking ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... from their context, these passages may seem to supply the best possible falsification of the previous statement that Cellini told the truth about himself. Judged by these passages alone, he may appear a hypocrite of an unusually ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... bought a quantity of David's orange-colored winsey, and finding that it wore like iron, wished to order more. She used the word "reproduce" in her telegram, as there was one pattern and one color she specially liked. Perhaps the context was not illuminating, but at any rate the word "reproduce" was not in David's vocabulary, and putting back his spectacles he told me his difficulty in deciphering the exact meaning of his fine-lady patron. He called ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... plates for their amusement? So far as I have searched, no single instance has rewarded me. It is true that the naivete of much early work tempts one to believe that it was designed for babies. But the context shows that it was the unlettered adult, not the juvenile, who was addressed. As the designs, obviously prepared for children, begin to appear, they are almost entirely educational and by no means the ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... fide Codicum, upon authority. The Alterations or Additions which Shakespear himself made, are taken notice of as they occur. Some suspected passages which are excessively bad (and which seem Interpolations by being so inserted that one can intirely omit them without any chasm or deficience in the context) are degraded to the bottom of the page; with an Asterisk referring to the places of their insertion. The Scenes are mark'd so distinctly that every removal of place is specify'd; which is more necessary in this Author than any other, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... translate apiffez, "bedecked," assuming from the context that the author meant to write "attifez." We have, elsewhere, accounts which show that ballplayers, even though compelled to play with scant clothing, still covered themselves with their ornaments. J. M. Stanley in his Portraits ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis

... context to see whether there was anything in the entries preceding or following the lacuna that would afford a clue to the missing passage. The record of the few days immediately preceding the 23d of October was short and contained nothing of any moment whatever. ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... the various paragraphs under attack, bearing in mind that they cannot properly be considered in isolation from the context in the report. The paragraphs vary in importance, but it is convenient to take them in the numerical order of the report. We will indicate as regards each paragraph or set of paragraphs the essence of the complaint. After doing this we will state ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... whilst in the Bollandist's copy of the "Confession" the name is printed once in the singular and twice in the plural. St. Jerome uses the singular always when referring to Britannia; and St. Bede, in his "History," uses the plural and singular indiscriminately. Whenever Britannia is mentioned, the context alone can guide us in distinguishing which Britain is meant. ("Ireland and St. Patrick," by the Rev. ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming

... uneasiness occasioned him, without referring to venal or party motives. He garbles an author's meaning, not so much wilfully, as because it is a pain to him to enlarge his microscopic view to take in the context, when a particular sentence or passage has struck him as quaint and out of the way: he fly-blows an author's style, and picks out detached words and phrases for cynical reprobation, simply because he feels himself at home, or takes ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... only natural interpretation of the line, in which, from not having the context, we lose whatever wit the sentence may have possessed—and witty we must suppose it was, since Plutarch evidently thinks it a capital joke. In corroboration of this interpretation of an allusion which has a little perplexed the commentators, we may observe, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... words Aparyaptam and Paryaptam have exercised all commentators. If paryaptam is sufficient (as it certainly is), aparyaptam may mean either more or less than sufficient. The context, however, would seem to show that Duryodhana addressed his preceptor in alarm and not with confidence of success, I, therefore, take aparyaptam to be less ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... perception of the attraction of the steel-filings by the magnet, although the constitution of our organs renders an immediate perception of this matter impossible for us. For, according to the laws of sensibility and the connected context of our perceptions, we should in an experience come also on an immediate empirical intuition of this matter, if our senses were more acute—but this obtuseness has no influence upon and cannot alter the form of possible experience in general. Our knowledge of the existence ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... to isolate these three clauses from their context, because, if taken in their sequence, they are very significant of the true path by which men draw nigh to God and become righteous. They are all three designations of the same people, but regarded under different aspects and at different stages. There is a distinct ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... to God. (38) For instance, in 1 Cor. vii:40, Paul says: But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment, and I think also that I have the Spirit of God." (39) By the Spirit of God the Apostle here refers to his mind, as we may see from the context: his meaning is as follows: "I account blessed a widow who does not wish to marry a second husband; such is my opinion, for I have settled to live unmarried, and I think that I am blessed." (40) There are other similar passages which ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza

... we find that, broadly speaking, proper names stand for particulars, while other substantives, adjectives, prepositions, and verbs stand for universals. Pronouns stand for particulars, but are ambiguous: it is only by the context or the circumstances that we know what particulars they stand for. The word 'now' stands for a particular, namely the present moment; but like pronouns, it stands for an ambiguous particular, because the present ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... Con'flict conflict' | Im'part impart' | Tra'ject traject' Con'serve conserve' | Im'port import' | Trans'fer transfer' Con'sort consort' | Im'press impress' | Trans'port transport' Con'test contest' | Im'print imprint' | Un'dress undress' Con'text context' | In'cense incense' | Up'cast upcast' Con'tract contract' | In'crease ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... if we may hazard a conjecture, means the son of a woman of ill-repute. In this we are borne out by the context. It appears to have escaped the commentators ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... done in sculpture. When his distinguished relative the Marquis of Danesbury recalled him from his post as secretary of legation in Italy, to join him at his Irish seat of government, the phrase in which he invited him to return is not without its significance, and we give it as it occurred in the context: 'I have no fancy for the post they have assigned me, nor is it what I had hoped for. They say, however, I shall succeed here. Nous verrons. Meanwhile, I remember your often remarking, "There is a great game to be played in Ireland." Come over at once, then, and let me have a ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... find that the paragraph, and not the sentence, is the more unified whole. I turn to Cardinal Newman, and in the middle of a paragraph find the sentence, "This should be carefully observed," a sentence meaningless when taken from the context. As a part of the paragraph it has a function, but it is certainly as a unit of detail and not as a prime unit. A writer like Carlyle makes these lesser units more important, but they are still subordinate to their use in the paragraph. ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith

... a Christian is God's special treasure. "They shall be mine," says the Lord, "in that day when I make up my jewels," or "special treasure" as rendered by the margin (see Mal. 3:17). By reading the context we learn that it is those who fear the Lord that are his jewels. To fear God and keep his commandments is man's whole duty. It is a perfect life. Such a life is the Lord's jewel. Such a life is recorded in heaven. Oh, how animating is such knowledge! How it strengthens our ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... "constantly" by Mr. Pollock on the ground that the classical meaning of the word does not suit the context. I venture to think, however, that a tolerable sense may be obtained without ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... off, affirming the primary meaning of that parable to be plainly set forth in the context, while the secondary meaning pointeth out the folly of sowing seed anywhere save on good ground—which seemed to be only about one quarter of the area in the parable that was planted; and that anyhow, seed catalogues, especially those in colors, designed as ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... looked at MR. COLLIER'S note to which he refers, and find that he interprets miching by stealing, which will not suit the context; and abundant examples may be adduced that to mich was to skulk, to lurk, as MR. SINGER has very properly explained ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various

... "placing" the object, involves something more than these feelings and rudimentary reactions. It involves the recall of a context or scheme of events, and a fitting of the ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... about Follet, though I liked him no better than Stires did. I say it began with Stires; but it began really with Schneider, introduced by Stires into our leisurely conversation. This is Schneider's only importance: namely, that, mixing himself up in French Eva's context, he made other ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... them evinces itself in many ways, and appears to be founded upon a strange legend current in the country. This legend says that when the gypsy nation were driven out of their country (India), and arrived at Mekran, they constructed a wonderful machine to which a wheel was attached." From the context of this imperfectly told story, it would appear as if the gypsies could not travel farther ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... subordinate to Cain. But such a reference breaks the connection of the sentence, introduces a thought which is not a consequence of Cain's not doing well, has no moral bearing to warrant its appearance here, and compels us to travel an inconveniently long distance back in the context to find an antecedent to the 'his' and 'him' of our text. It seems to be more in consonance, therefore, with the archaic style of the whole narrative, and to yield a profounder and worthier meaning, if we recognise ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... own, and freely) you do well to keep for a mistress. I should much like to talk with you about some other points; it is only in talk that one gets to understand. Your delightful Wordsworth trap I have tried on two hardened Wordsworthians, not that I am not one myself. By covering up the context, and asking them to guess what the passage was, both (and both are very clever people, one a writer, one a painter) pronounced it a guide-book. 'Do you think it unusually good guide-book?' I asked. And both said, 'No, not at all!' Their grimace was a ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... the sea. It had no trees nor anything that wind can shake. It was vast, and was covered with something which the Latin text calls scaltae—a word which I have failed to find in Ducange or in any other authority which I have been able to consult. It is, however, evidently, from the context, some kind of ground fruit, and may perhaps be the strawberry or the Blaeberry—although the Latin for these seems to be generally fragum and bacca myrtilii. This fruit was white or purpureus—wherein another difficulty arises as to the meaning of purpureus. The individual berries ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute

... cognition is used throughout as the English equivalent of this, except in places where the context shows that it means ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... Human Comedy, so largely artificial, forced upon it as his purpose widened, is no enhancement of the best of his books. The fullness of experience which is rendered in these is exactly the same—is more expressive, if anything—when they are taken out of their context; it is all to be attributed to their own art. I come back, therefore, to the way in which Balzac handled his vast store of facts, when he set out to tell a story, and made them count in the action which he brought to the fore. He seldom, I think, regards them as material ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... "aft" changed to comma, which is more appropriate in the context. (two forward and two aft, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... cotton-wool. There, however, are the "sky-scraper" buildings, looming out through the mist, like the Jotuns in Niflheim of Scandinavian mythology. They are grandiose, certainly, and not, to my thinking, ugly. That word has no application in this context. "Pretty" and "ugly"—why should we for ever carry about these aesthetic labels in our pockets, and insist on dabbing them down on everything that comes in our way? If we cannot get, with Nietzsche, Jenseits ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... it is intended should be drawn from these remarks, taken with the context, is clear; namely, that, had the Jesuits been left alone to prosecute the work of evangelizing Japan, the ultimate result might have been very different. However, this was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... sprig that no one has plucked, a pearl that has not yet been pierced," a recognition of the charm of maiden purity. But there is a world-wide difference between this and the modern sentiment. The King's attitude, as the context shows, is simply that of an epicure who prefers his oysters fresh. The modern sentiment is embodied ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... their statements on oath now made available, the chief difficulty is one of selection and elimination; and there will be presented here with the context some of the chief depositions[F] and statements in the most notable witchcraft trials in some of the Connecticut towns, that are typical of all of them, and show upon what travesties of evidence the juries found their verdicts and ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... been a rightist deviationist, so the papers had said, a follower of one of whom Josip had never heard in any other context other than his father's trial and later execution. But he had not cracked under whatever pressures had been exerted upon him, and of that his ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... to convert the two Convocations." ... that is startling without the context—"into one National Synod." But two into one won't go. How will he manage it? Will those in the York ship join the Canterbury, or vice versa? Or, quitting both ships, will they land on common ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various

... cries Booth; "I do not conceive that to have been Lucan's meaning. If you please to observe the context; Lucan, having commended the temperance of Cato in the instances of diet and cloaths, proceeds to venereal pleasures; of which, says the poet, his principal use was procreation: then he adds, Urbi Pater est, urbique ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... Duviquet translates it, "Une tete qui reunit toutes les conditions necessaires pour etre reputee sage, forte, bien puissante." I prefer to construe it: 'brought into the condition which Lisette desires,' that is to say, 'subject to her charms.' If the context were not clear enough, its use in line 13, below, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... a Participle implying "when," "while," "though," or "that," show clearly by the context what ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... is ignorant of the facts in the case. He gropes his way under the misleading light of a false date, and of fragments torn from the context of a letter which, in its complete form, has never till now been published. Where positive and published information exists, it has not always come within the range of the critic's researches; had it done so, he would have taken the information into account, but he ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... The context thinks it explains who the victim was, but it does nothing of the kind. It furnishes some guessing-material of a sort which enables you to infer that it was "we" that suffered the mentioned injury, but if you should carry the language to a court you would not be able to prove ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... p. 279.).—Without the context of the passage adduced by C.W.B., it is impossible to speak positively as to its precise signification. I think, however, the phrase is equivalent to "formula professionis monasticae." Promissio frequently occurs in this sense, as may be seen by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... man of sense, but unstudied in the context of human nature, and from having confined his reading to the writers of the present and the last generation unused to live in former ages, it must seem strange that Baxter should not have seen that this test is either all or nothing. And the Creed! Is it certain that ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... impersonal pronoun, being masculine in form, is liable to create the impression that "he" or "his" exclusive of "she" or "her" is the subject of discourse. This is not so. Generally the masculine pronoun is used impersonally in this discussion, and the discerning reader can easily decide from the context where this is ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... suffers it to fade from his mind. Such a man cannot in strictness be said to know anything. He has the show without the reality of wisdom. These opinions Plato has put into the mouth of an ancient king of Egypt. [Plato's Phaedrus.] But it is evident from the context that they were his own; and so they were understood to be by Quinctilian. [Quinctilian, xi.] Indeed they are in perfect accordance with the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by the drift of the context, that he intended the remark as having a moral as well as a physical application; since, as he there intimates, in "gain-devoted cities," whither naturally flow "the dregs and feculence of every land," ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... of Aristotle, the spirit of the master no longer survived. The doctrine of Ideas passed into one of numbers; instead of advancing from the abstract to the concrete, the theories of Plato were taken out of their context, and either asserted or refuted with a provoking literalism; the Socratic or Platonic element in his teaching was absorbed into the Pythagorean or Megarian. His poetry was converted into mysticism; his unsubstantial visions were assailed secundum artem by the rules of logic. His political ...
— Laws • Plato

... hung in the air without a context, while Audrey went on making tea. This she did with a graceful and deliberate precision, completing ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... place, point; terms; regime; footing, standing, status. occasion, juncture, conjunctive; contingency &c. (event) 151. predicament; emergence, emergency; exigency, crisis, pinch, pass, push; occurrence; turning point. bearings, how the land lies. surroundings, context, environment 229a[TE 232]; location 184. contingency, dependence (uncertainty) 475; causation 153, attribution 155. Adj. circumstantial; given, conditional, provisional; critical; modal; contingent, incidental; adventitious &c. (extrinsic) 6; limitative[obs3]. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... that confuses terms purposely and constantly. Apart from a certain practice in the figurative language of the alchemists, it is necessary, so to speak, to think independently of the words used and regard them only in their context. For example, when it is written that a body is to be washed with water, another time with soap, and a third time with mercury, it is not water and soap and mercury that is the main point but the ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... practice) is accurately formulated in the following passage from Berlioz's Grande Traite de l'instrumentation et d'orchestration: "It was no use for the modern composer to say, 'But do just listen! See how smoothly this is introduced, how well motived, how deftly connected with the context, and how splendid it sounds!' He was answered, 'That is not the point. This modulation is forbidden; therefore it must not be made.'" The lack of really educative teaching, and the actual injustice for which Cherubini's disciplinary methods were answerable, did much to weaken Berlioz's at ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... blew his nose violently. "Truly—though used for either gender, by the context masculine," he responded gravely. "Ah," he added, leaning over Clarence, and scanning his work hastily, "Good, very good! And now, possibly," he continued, passing his hand like a damp sponge over his heated brow, "we shall reverse our exercise. I shall deliver to you in Spanish what you shall ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... "where he entered the saloon and mounted the ladder;" but the context shows that the stair was a flight of steps leading up to the dais and not a ladder in it. The word fihi in the magician's instructions might indeed be taken in this latter sense, but may just as well be read "thereto" or "pertaining ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... resumed M. Lecoq, "but the end justifies the means. Well, you have read this letter; but have you studied it, examined the hand-writing, weighed the words, remarked the context of the sentences?" ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau



Words linked to "Context" :   discourse, contextual, circumstance, setting, environment, context of use, conditions, linguistic context



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