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Accustom   Listen
verb
Accustom  v. i.  
1.
To be wont. (Obs.)
2.
To cohabit. (Obs.) "We with the best men accustom openly; you with the basest commit private adulteries."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Accustom" Quotes from Famous Books



... received your letter of the 4th December. You must begin to accustom yourself a little to the kissing system. You can meanwhile practise with Maresquelli, for each time that you come to Dorothea Wendling's (where everything is rather in the French style) you will ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... Wells is merely trying, by dint of highly imaginative writing, to infuse life into a deliberate personification, like Robespierre's Goddess of Reason or Matthew Arnold's Zeitgeist. However difficult it may be, we must accustom ourselves to the belief that his assertions of the personal existence of his God represent the efficient element in his thought, and that if other passages seem inconsistent with that idea—seem to point ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... race are so overbodied and under-brained that the mind is exhausted in securing provision for hunger and raiment. No to-morrow but may bring men to sore want. Poverty narrows life into a treadmill existence. Multitudes of necessity toil in the stithy and deep mine. Multitudes must accustom themselves to odors offensive to the nostril. Men toil from morning till night midst the din of machinery from which the ear revolts. Myriads dig and delve, and scorn their toil. He who spends all his years sliding ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... Braxton Wyatt stepped in. What decree of fate had caused him to be spying about that night, and what had caused him to find the door of Paul's prison hut unfastened? He stood a few moments, trying to accustom his eyes to the dark, and he plainly heard the regular breathing of Paul on the bed of skins. Presently he saw the dim, recumbent figure also. But he was still suspicious, and he took a step nearer. Then a big form, projected somewhere from the dark, hurled itself upon him, ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... one, I repeat, has placed any obstacles in the way of my daily peregrinations. I have no need to occupy myself about the material part of my existence. My meals are brought to me regularly, direct from the kitchen of the Count d'Artigas—I cannot accustom myself to calling him by any other name. The food leaves nothing to be desired, thanks to the provisions that the Ebba brings on her return from ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... way, in a state of captivity. The slightest degree of dirt annoys them beyond measure, they lose their gaiety, and die of melancholy and disgust. They are animals of the most excessive delicacy, and it is not easy to procure them suitable nourishment. They cannot accustom themselves to live alone, and solitude is pernicious to them in an exact proportion to the degree of tenderness and care with which they have been habitually treated. The most certain means of preserving their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... their uncles, in moderation—in moderation, mind—and it is the duty of the uncles to receive those salutations, and I do not know that the duty is altogether an unpleasant one. I am, myself, unaccustomed to be kissed, but it is an operation to which I may accustom myself, in time." ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... statesman is aware that he must adapt himself to times and circumstances. He must have allies if he is to fight against the world; he must enlighten public opinion; he must accustom his followers to act together. Although he is not the mere executor of the will of the majority, he must win over the majority to himself. He is their leader and not their follower, but in order to lead he must also follow. He will neither exaggerate nor undervalue ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... declared they must have a siesta, even if they had to doze on their stools, for neither of them ever could accustom himself to the Roman fashion of throwing one's self on the ground, and sleeping with their faces to the earth. Von Bluhmen, a fiery amateur of sketching, walked off to take a 'near view' of the aqueduct, and the two artists ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... words that called a blush to her cheek and a smile on her lip, their attention called off now and then by some wild jest or courteous word from the young Lord Douglas, whose post seemed in every part of the royal train; now galloping to the front, to caracole by the side of the queen, to accustom her, he said, to the sight of good horsemanship, then lingering beside the Countess of Buchan, to give some unexpected rejoinder to the graver maxims of Lennox. The Princess Margory, her cousins, the Lady Isoline Campbell and Alice and Christina ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... and behaved as if she was no one's vassal. Fortunately for her and her aims, Urraca was far too busy fighting with her second husband, the king of Aragon, to pay much attention to what was happening in the west, so that she had time to consolidate her power and to accustom her people to think of themselves as being not ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... taking up your time in this very first letter by so wretched a scrawl, and such stupid nonsense; you must forgive a man spoilt by the Viennese. Now, however, I begin to accustom myself by degrees to country life, and yesterday I studied for the first time, and somewhat in ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... He spoke not a word for some time. I knew not to what attribute his silence. I did not hesitate to speak to him, and to tell him a few words, my difficulties about prayer. Presently he replied, "It is, madame, because you seek without what you have within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will there ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... interruption; for he would not allow his servant to say he was not at home when he really was. 'A servant's strict regard for truth, (said he) must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for ME, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... seen plying strange vocations and undertaking tasks that bear hardly on the soft and gentle sex. Sometimes a hunter and trapper; and again a mariner; now we see her performing the rugged work of a farm, and again a fighter, stoutly defending her home. The fact that habit and necessity accustom her, in frontier life, to those employments which in older and more conventional communities are deemed unfitting and ungraceful for woman to engage in, makes it none the less striking and admirable, because in ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... admires so much, and with these purple pomegranates in my hair, which I put in just to please him. For my part I prefer the white blossoms of the orange; but they say that a woman when married must make some sacrifices, and I may as well accustom ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... a quiet and cheerful frame of mind while tones of discontent and displeasure are sounding on the ear. We may gradually accustom ourselves to the evil till it is partially diminished; but it always is an evil which greatly interferes with the enjoyment of the family state. There are sometimes cases where the entrance of the mistress of a family seems to awaken a slight apprehension in every mind around, as if each felt ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... sovereign of Great Britain at nine in the morning at the Museum of Practical Art; and on another occasion, at the same hour, amidst the Elgin marbles—not the only wise hint to the mothers of England to be found in the highest place. Accustom your children to find beauty in goodness, and goodness ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... However, thank God you came through it all right, and, after such a lesson, I should hope that we shall never have repetition of such a disaster as that. As an old soldier, I cannot agree with what you say about the uselessness of drill, even for fighting in a forest. It must accustom men to listen to the voice of their officers, and to obey orders promptly and quickly, and I cannot but think that, if the troops had gone forward at a brisk double, they would have driven the Indians before ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... later the door opened, and a stranger was announced. Murphy was on the hearthrug, as usual; the canvas and easel had been banished to a corner, and an effort was being made to accustom Murphy to the clicking of a typewriter—a sound concerning which ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry

... little reliance can be placed upon the medicines ordinarily recommended. The system has become accustomed to the stimulant to an exorbitant degree; the suffering is consequent upon the effort to accustom the system to get on without it. Other kinds of stimulants, like spirits or wine, will afford a slight relief for a few days, especially if taken in sufficiently large quantities to induce sleep. It is the sedative qualities of the opium that are chiefly missed, for as to excitement the patient has ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... neither Gluck nor Donizetti, neither the serious nor the frivolous. How terrible also are the translations! People get systematically accustomed to the absolute senselessness of scenic representations; look therefore to a rational treatment of the translated librettos. Before all, accustom your singers to looking upon their work in the first instance as a dramatic task; the accomplishment of their lyrical task will after that be an easy matter. Works of the earlier French school are most adapted to the purpose, because in them a ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... it was a little hard for him at first to accustom himself to these deprivations. But he got used to them at length, after a fashion, and all went smoothly. He even got used to being hungry in the evening, but he made up for it by treating himself, so to say, in spirit, by bearing ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... OVERCOME.—Too often a common boy's timidity is overcome by chance or by seduction, which is rarely lacking in great cities where prostitution is flourishing, and thus numbers of boys immediately after the transition period of youth, in accordance with the previous secret practice, accustom themselves to the association with prostitute women, and there young manhood and morals are ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... consent with all my heart, Guillette. I shall be very glad to take her. But in the mean time she will do well to learn her work, and accustom herself to obey others." ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... regard to the time of removal, as to the place to which he shall remove; but deeply impressed ourselves with the conviction that sooner or later removal must take place, we would counsel our people to accustom themselves to the idea of it, and in suggesting Liberia to them, we do so in the belief that it is there alone they can reasonably anticipate ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... darkness was gross. Pausing a moment to accustom his eyes to the blackness, there came to him from without the hoot of an owl. It was the signal agreed upon between him and his companion, and he wheeled to face the danger ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... it is one you will bear through life," said the hag, "and you had better accustom yourself early to its sound. Know, then, my sweet lady, that the count, my master, had no claims ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... study of Biology, the perception and memory of form is a very important factor indeed. Every student should draw sketches of his dissections, and accustom himself to copying book diagrams, in order to train his eye to perception of details he might otherwise disregard. The drawing required is within the reach of all; but for those who are very inexperienced, tracing figures ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... would result from the Confederate war for independence, and their solicitude was directed mainly towards the young men of Virginia and the South who were to compose the armies of the Confederate States. It was feared by many that the bivouac, the camp-fires, and the march would accustom the ears of their bright and innocent boys to obscenity, oaths, and blasphemy, and forever destroy that purity of mind and soul which was their priceless possession when they bid farewell to home and mother. Some feared the destruction of the battle-field; the wiser feared hardship ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... have pleased any other than this Princess, who had been so prejudiced against him by his violence that she could only regard him with feelings of hatred, which she was at no pains to conceal. The King hoped, however, that time might not only soften her anger, but accustom her to his sight. He took the precaution of surrounding the palace with a dense cloud, and then hastened to his Court, where his prolonged absence ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... it is best to learn on a tractor machine—one that is to say with the engine in front of the main planes—or on a "pusher" type of craft; this last mentioned having its motor behind the planes. Aeroplanes of both types are in use; and it would be advantageous, of course, for a novice to accustom himself to handle either. But from the point of view of those who operate large flying schools, and have to weigh one point against another, and eliminate so far as possible the elements of risk or difficulty, there are very distinct advantages in a "pusher" ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... of gentle rules and habits—why should that ever be ended? When a soul has got to this retirement and is content in it, it becomes very hard to die; hard to accept the necessity of dying, and to accustom one's self to the idea, and still harder to consent to ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... and wide as soon as he had made his ghastly discovery. But he had required time to recover his balance. The horrible suddenness had stunned him. Attempted fratricide is not a common happening in gentle families. He had to accustom himself to the atmosphere of the abnormal, so as to state the psychological case in its numberless ramifications. This he had done. His head was clear. His unalterable decision made. Now the minutes dragged with leaden feet until Dick ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke

... fringe of the most youthful of the masculine element in the houses where she had stayed. She had been unprepared for the change to the daily contact with a man like Barry Craven. It would take time to accustom herself, to become used to ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... were five weeks yet before this wonderful being would arrive. During this time I would walk, and accustom myself to riding, and when this paragon did come, I would leave her in full and free possession of the house throughout the day. It was not near so bad as it had looked at first. By eleven o'clock I felt ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey

... rejoicing with his vagabond comrade. Just how or when she began to know that she was not asleep, just why the knowledge did not alarm her, it would be hard to say. But when the truth came to her, the friendly, powdered stars had been above her long enough to accustom her to their winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night had sounded in her ears till they comforted and reassured her; the vast and empty field stretches meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a sudden delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a rolling meadow and ran at full speed ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... life to be ill, if you do not take care now! I will do what I can to help you; we will arrange the times most convenient to you. You might come to me at first direct from school on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Later on the system will accustom itself, and you will probably feel no bad effects. I should like to undertake your case myself. My charge to you will be a ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... lord," said I with a smile, "you can accustom yourself to not getting a reason for a certain kind of conduct, because I do not ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... almost prefer it to white bread. This old fisherman, who is as hard as iron, earnestly remonstrates against my manner of life; and assures me that I can not long hold out. I am, on the contrary, convinced that it is easier to accustom one's self to a plain diet than to the luxuries of the feast. I am fond of the fish with which this stream abounds, and I sometimes amuse myself with spreading the nets. As to my dress, there is an entire change; you would take me for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... found that really, after all, it was very much a matter of sentiment, and that, so far as the flavour was concerned, there was nothing at all objectionable. The taste was of course novel, and peculiar, but I thought it possible that one might accustom oneself to it without much difficulty. Yet, just at first, a little sufficed, and when I had despatched one leg I considered that I had made a particularly hearty meal. And I felt so much the better for it that I strove to induce Miss ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... but it frequently happens that only a casual glance is given to the state of the turf, and the rest of the time is spent in considering the distance and the inclines that have to be contended against. The golfer should accustom himself to making a minute survey of the condition of things. Thus, to how many players does it occur that the direction in which the mowing machine has been passed over it makes an enormous difference to the speed of the particular piece of the green ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... a part of the colonial administrative machinery. This in turn was a natural adaptation of that developed in New Spain. Building upon the available institutions of the barangay as a unit the Spaniards aimed to familiarize and accustom the Indians to settled village life and to moderate labor. Only under these conditions could religious training and systematic religious oversight be provided. These villages were commonly called pueblos or reducciones, and Indians who ran away to escape the restraints ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... remarkable. The palace inhabited by the Royal Family, was a spacious hut, with an ante-chamber or outer house, in which eight of the guard kept watch. Their only weapon was an old pistol fastened on a plank; this was frequently fired, probably to accustom the young King to the tumult of battle. The old King lies buried under a stone monument, in front of which three guns are kept; but, to prevent accidents, they are ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... account of Ralegh's admittance to the Queen's favour, with its particular circumstances, rests, it must be remembered, on Naunton's own not unimpeachable authority. Other authors who tell the same story, have simply and unsuspiciously borrowed it from him. Students of Ralegh's history have to accustom themselves to the use by successive biographers of the same hypothetical facts with as much boldness as if they had been the fruit ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... plainly showed me in that pleasant way of his that makes him so fascinating. He insisted that I must be out of my senses, and would be my own death, if I lived on alone in the Rue des Cordiers. According to him, I ought to go into society, to accustom people to the sound of my name, and to rid myself of the simple title of 'monsieur' which sits but ill on a great man ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... European model, for the purpose of employing them against the English. Commissioner Lin also got up some sham fights at the Bogue, dressing those who were to act as assailants in red coats, in order to accustom the defenders to the sight of the red uniform,—the redcoats, of course, being always driven back with tremendous slaughter. They also ran up formidable-looking forts along the banks of many of their rivers, which on examination, however, turned out to be merely thin planks painted. ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... along pondering over my adventures, and resolved to buy a pistol when I got to Woodbridge. I remember thinking that I could write quite a book now myself. Already I began to feel quite a hardened pioneer. It doesn't take an adaptable person long to accustom one's self to a new way of life, and the humdrum routine of the farm certainly looked prosy compared to voyaging with Parnassus. When I had got beyond Woodbridge, and had crossed the river, I would begin to ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... and those who followed him, did an immense service to the advancement of clear thinking about natural occurrences. The principle of phlogiston was more tangible, and more readily used, than the Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury of the alchemists; and to accustom people to speak of the material substance which remained when a metal, or other combustible substance, was calcined or burnt, as one of the elements of the thing which had been changed, prepared the way for the chemical conception of an element as a definite substance with ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... after reading his last letter, Gerlach answered: "Your explanation only shews me that we are now far asunder"; the correspondence, which had continued for almost seven years, stopped. Bismarck felt that he was growing lonely; he had to accustom himself to the thought that the men who had formerly been both politically and personally his close friends, and who had once welcomed him whenever he returned to Berlin, now desired to see him kept at a distance. In ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... he said. "It would not be the same. Barodians have come to expect certain qualities from their rulers, and they would be lost without them. A new King might accustom them to other ways, but they are used to me, and they would not like me different. No, Chancellor, I shall abdicate. Do not wear so sad a face for me. I am looking forward to my new life with ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne

... on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustom'd oak. —Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... went to his home without lights, for the use of them was, on all occasions, forbid, to the end that they might accustom themselves to march boldly in the dark. Such was the common ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... parents will see their own interest, as well as that of their children, in strictly observing these rules; and they are exhorted to submit to their children being governed by the master and mistress; to give them good instruction and advice; to accustom them to family prayer; but particularly to see that they repeat the Lord's prayer, when they rise in the morning, and when they retire to rest, and assist in their learning the commandments; and to set before them a good example; for ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... world, and promises again de faire fureur; but he has always found time to spend some hours in the twenty-four at his father's house. He has continued much the same tone with Violante, and she begins to accustom herself to it, and reply saucily. His calm courtship to Helen flows on in silence. Leonard, too, has been a frequent guest at the Lansmeres: all welcome and like him there. Peschiera has not evinced any sign of the deadly machinations ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in the use of three chords, tonic, dominant, and subdominant; the melody, as before, being sung. At this stage it is wise to let the dictation work in the class take the form of phrases which can be harmonized with these chords, so as to accustom the children to use them. This gives invaluable practice in the first principles of harmonizing melodies, and should precede all formal ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home

... gaze so quietly understanding that Rhoda smiled. It was a slow smile that lifted and deepened the corners of Rhoda's lips, that darkened her gray eyes to black, an unforgetable smile to the loveliness of which Rhoda's friends never could accustom themselves. At the sight of it, Cartwell drew a deep breath, then leaned toward her ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... attention can not be given to this position, and instructors are cautioned to insist that the men accustom themselves to it. As a rule, it is so exaggerated that it not only becomes ridiculous, but positively harmful. The men must be taught to assume a natural and graceful position, one from which all rigidity is eliminated and from which action is possible ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... house contained. They were moderate eaters. This is a fair picture of Indian life in general in America, when discovered. After intercourse commenced with whites, the Iroquois gradually began to adopt our mode of life but very slowly. One of the difficulties was to change the old usage and accustom themselves to eat together. It came in by degrees, first with the breaking up of the old plan of living together in numbers in the old long-houses, and with the substitution of single houses for ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... arranged for novices, as soon as they have learned to handle the rapier, whether they have had any quarrel or not, and such encounters rarely lead to any result worth mentioning. The intention is to accustom the student to fighting for its own sake, and he must submit to the conditions or leave the Korps with ignominy. He learns to fence with coolness and judgment, in a way that could never be learned on the fencing ground with masks and blunted weapons, and he acquires from the first the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... rendering literature agreeable to children, and of the danger of associating pain with the sight of a book, or with the sound of the word task, we should at the same time avoid the errour of those who, in their first lessons, accustom their pupils to so much amusement, that they cannot help afterwards feeling disgusted with the sobriety of instruction. It has been the fashion of late to attempt teaching every thing to children ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... instinctive until a continued, conscious effort is made to accustom the body to them. When this is once done, however, the body not only attends to its primary health needs automatically, but it rebels at their omission, as surely as does the stomach at the omission of dinner. Witness the discomfort of the consumptive, trained to fresh ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... got lighter we went to look at the dead and wounded, perhaps from a feeling of bravado, perhaps to accustom ourselves to the sight. The enemy had paid dearly for their brave deed. They know the number of their dead and wounded better than we do, for they had opportunity enough to carry them away. On our side only four were killed and a few wounded. Niemeyer, Van Zyl ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... during a literary sojourn in Tuscany, whither he had gone to accustom himself "to speak, hear, think, and dream in Tuscan, and not otherwise evermore." Here he versified his first two tragedies, and sketched others; and here, he says, "I deluged my brain with the verses of Petrarch, of Dante, of Tasso, and of Ariosto, convinced ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... no desire to remain, and answered: "Your Majesty, I would stay in your palace with pleasure had I not a ship, in which I came to your kingdom, and which I cannot entrust to anyone; but if your Majesty pleases, I will come every day to the palace and accustom the ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various

... Bennoch figures as one of the subordinate characters in the posthumous romance called Doctor Grimshawe's Secret. It is but a sketch of him, however, and considerably modified from the brilliant and energetic reality. Meanwhile the consul began to accustom himself to the routine of the consulate, and his family, leaving the sombre respectability of the Waterloo Hotel, moved, first, to the hospitable boarding-house of Mrs. Blodgett, and afterwards to a private dwelling in Rock Park, Rock Ferry, on the opposite side of the Mersey, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... may be asking, What of my dog, Bruno? Well, I am thankful to say, he was still with me, but it took him a long time to accustom himself to his new surroundings; he particularly objected to associating with the miserable pariah curs that prowled about the encampment. They would take sly bites out of him when he was not looking, but on the whole, he was well able to hold his ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... ship. Each day of the voyage a drill was held with the emergency boat, which was a fixed boat, either No. 13 on the starboard side or No. 14 on the port side, according to the weather, the idea, doubtless, being to accustom the men quickly to reach the station on either side of the ship. The siren was blown and a picked crew from the watch assembled at the boat, put on life belts, jumped into the boat, took their ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... changed. She gave him a frightened, bewildered look, as though she were unable to identify him now with the man she had known in the Dalton Street flat, in the restaurant. She was still struggling, groping, wondering, striving to accustom herself to the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... me most in this Method was the assurance I had, wholly to use my reason, if not perfectly, at least as much as it was in my power; Besides this, I perceived in the practice of it, my minde by little and little accustom'd it self to conceive its objects more clearly and distinctly; and having not subjected it to any particular matter, I promised my self to apply it also as profitable to the difficulties, of other sciences as I had to Algebra: ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes

... does, the two vessels left Amboyna, amply provisioned with fowls, ducks, geese, pigs, goats, potatoes, yams, bananas, and pumpkins. Meat, however, they obtained in but small quantities, the flour was of a bad quality, and the sailors could never accustom themselves to the sago which was shipped in its stead; bamboos, cloves, and arrack may be added ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... patient under observation. After a time a nun brought in the gardener's wife, a tall, gaunt woman, who was a native of Marseilles, and spoke the confusing patois of that city with great rapidity. It was some time before Lydia could accustom her ear to ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... Lancashire being so frequently divided by stone walls. The nature of our neighborhood equally prevented him from teaching me to swim, which he would otherwise have done, as there were no streams deep enough, or left in their natural purity. To accustom me to water, however, he made me take cold shower-baths, certainly the best substitute for a plunge that can be had in an ordinary room. In mental education he attached great importance to common things, to arithmetic, for example, and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... had settled in our house I had to accustom myself to the honours of my position, which at first were rather irksome to me; but as they were part of the business I had to put up with them. I found my position as the wife of the British Consul in Damascus very different from what it had been in Brazil. A consul in the ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... stood suddenly still, though accustom'd to foam and to bellow; And, fearless, the trout play'd along with the pike, and the pike play'd ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... from it, she was not sorry to remember that she had not money enough for the journey. She must perforce stay in London till she had earned it; meantime she would go back to the districts and the people she knew so well, and accustom herself again to the old ways, the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the fleshy part, where the artery may be felt beating by anyone, if in the leg, place a cork in the direction of a line drawn from the inner part of the knee towards the outer part of the groin. It is an excellent thing to accustom yourself to find out the position of these arteries, or, indeed, any that are superficial, and to explain to every person in your house where they are, and how to stop bleeding. If a stick cannot be got, take a handkerchief, make a cord ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... presuppose a knowledge of Him, just as faith and confidence in an earthly friend follow upon an intimate acquaintance with that friend. But this close knowledge of our Master, so necessary to our present peace and future happiness, will never be ours unless we make Him our confidant, unless we accustom ourselves to live in His presence, to look to Him, to speak to Him often, to listen to His gracious direction. And this intimate relationship with our Saviour, this habitual communion with Him, will enkindle in our souls the ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... into shops unless she had to, and she felt no interest in them. Indeed, she shunned them, as places where one was sure to be parted from one's money in some way. She was nervous about counting her change, and she could not accustom herself to having her purchases sent to her address. She felt much safer with her ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... few days only. I shall go to Egypt, and in travelling accustom myself to the solitude in which I must dwell, now ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... Bir Sayed Ali Wells (2-1/2 miles north of Firush.)—An early start was made, though as it was the first day's march as a column it was not intended to go very far. The going, moreover, was bad. It takes time to accustom oneself to marching through deep sand, just as it takes time to acquire the 'heather-step' in August. However, every one did well, the water was good and fairly plentiful, though somewhat scattered, and the spirits of the little force rose high at the possibilities ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... Elysian grove The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear: The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love, And rush'd along the meads the charioteer; There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain; Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his Friend there once more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... Rights, Humanity, Hours, once regarded as the special property of the street corner ranter, were creeping into our everyday vocabulary. And strangely enough, Nathan Haynes, the gentle, the bewildered, the uninspired, heard them, and listened. Nathan Haynes had begun to accustom himself to the roar of the flood that had formerly deafened him. He was no longer stunned by the inrush of his millions. The report sheet handed him daily had never ceased to be a wildly unexpected thing, and he still shrank ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... itself is so adaptive, it is so felicitous, it abounds in such innumerable pleasant little analogies, such nice conceits and suggestive drolleries, that he who acquires these has at will a whole armoury of attack and defence. It actually requires years of habit to accustom us to a display that we come at last to discover implies no brilliancy whatever in him who exhibits, though it argues immense resources in the treasury from which he ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... have been a whole year away, that is to say, an eternity. The court is a very slippery place; and if a man does not accustom himself hourly to walk over this glassy parquet, he ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... their steps to the stables where the groom Thomas, a fine handsome young fellow of about twenty, was polishing the coats of his charges, at the same time as he emitted that curious hissing which all stablemen so mysteriously accustom themselves to when busy over their work. He did not see the two young gentlemen till they had been watching his operations for a few seconds, but as soon as he did so, respectfully touched his cap and asked them ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous

... waiter's answer; "Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il?" "Tell me a good one."—"That I can, Sir: The Chambertin with yellow seal." "So Terre's gone," I say, and sink in My old accustom'd corner-place; "He's done with feasting and with drinking, With Burgundy ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... till one has to employ severity in mastering them. Of course, I did not let him do much work. Colts are like boys—a boy shouldn't do a man's work, but he had exercise every day, and I trained him to draw a light cart behind him. I used to do all kinds of things to accustom him to unusual sounds. Father talked a good deal to me about Rarey, the great horse-tamer, and it put ideas into my head. He said he once saw Rarey come on a stage in Boston with a timid horse that he was going to ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... at what he meant to do, prevented him by telling him, I perceive Carneades by the books that you have been now shutting, and much more by the posture wherein I found Persons qualifi'd [Errata: so qualify'd] to discourse of serious matters; and so accustom'd to do it, that you three were before our coming, engag'd in some Philosophical conference, which I hope you will either prosecute, and allow us to be partakers of, in recompence of the freedome we have us'd in presuming ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... accustom himself to.—The reflection that he must some day be taken apart like an engine or a clock, or like a house whose owner is gone, and worked up into arches and pyramids and hideous frescoes, did not distress this monk in the least. I thought he even looked as if he were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... present; he had no one to check him, able to judge whether his instruction was good or bad. So he stuck some stones up for butts, at about twelve hundred yards, and set them all firing at them. He judged that by this he would in the first place accustom them to firing at a comparatively innocuous distance; and in the second, that they would waste a good deal ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... said, "procure thyself an instructor, that thou mayest not be in doubt, and accustom not thyself to ...
— Hebrew Literature

... he had nourished the germ of a generous purpose, had tried to accustom himself to the idea of ultimately surrendering her; but in her presence, a certain bitter fury swept away the wretched figment, and he remembered only how fair, how holy, how dear she was to him. Once more the cry of his famishing ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... protecting the interests of neutrals, but it is in itself a step towards the creation of the more general court for the hearing of international controversies to which reference has just been made. The organization and action of such a prize court can not fail to accustom the different countries to the submission of international questions to the decision of an international tribunal, and we may confidently expect the results of such submission to bring about a general agreement upon the enlargement of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... the harbour they had to pass through the slave-market. This was not the first time they had visited the scene of this iniquitous traffic, but neither Harold nor Disco could accustom themselves to it. Every time they entered the market their feelings of indignation became so intense that it was with the utmost difficulty they could control them. When Disco saw handsome negro men and good-looking girls put up for ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... of our happy discovery the cuckoo path became part of our regular route home from the woods. Our first care was to dispel the fears of the bird, and accustom her to seeing us, so for several days we passed her without pausing, though we looked at her and spoke to her in low tones ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... waiting a few seconds to accustom his eyes to the dim light, began groping about until he caught hold of Tom's leg. Tom, dreadfully frightened, cried out in English, "Oh, dear; he's ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... run a little way into the tide and then run out again with ankles wet, fearful of the first chill, many men accustom themselves to love by degrees. So they never taste the sweetness and strength of it as did Ralph Peden in these days, when, never having looked upon a maid with the level summer lightning of mutual interest flashing in his ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... simply because every word, or cry, or sound, may throw it into a panic and cause it to fly. Wherefore it behoves a good captain to provide that certain fixed persons shall receive his orders and pass them on to the rest, and to accustom his soldiers to look to these persons, and to them only, to be informed what his orders are. For whenever this precaution is neglected the gravest mishaps ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... did not prostrate themselves. Imlac was forced to observe them with great vigilance, lest they should betray their rank by their unusual behaviour, and detained them several weeks in the first village to accustom them to the ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson

... avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heart-burn. Shave the upper lip. Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages (they are nothing but lies), only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy under. Above all, don't go to any sights of wild beasts. That has been your ruin. Accustom yourself to write familiar letters, on common subjects, to your friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think about common things more.... I supped last night with Rickman, and met a merry natural captain, who pleases ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... the question. "You know, from the first, I did not want to come here. My weak compliance is revenging itself upon me now. You yourself only spoke of it as a trial; if I could not accustom myself to it you would ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... Garden, a square brick pit or well is formed by a close-set block of houses, to the back windows of which it admits a few rays of light. Access to the bottom of it is obtained out of Maiden Lane, through a low archway and an iron gate; and if you stand long enough under the archway to accustom your eyes to the darkness you may see on the left hand a narrow door, which formerly gave quiet access to a respectable barber's shop, of which the front window, looking into Maiden Lane, is still extant, filled, in this year (1860), with a row of bottles, connected, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... Latin or Greek. We have an imagination, before which, since it should not seize upon the very first conceptions that chance to present themselves, we ought to place the fittest and most beautiful images, and thus accustom and practise the mind to recognize and love the beautiful everywhere, and in nature itself, under its determined, true, and also in its finer, features. A multitude of conceptions and general knowledge is necessary to us, as well for the sciences as for daily life, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... and which he buried on the promontory which to this day is called the Dog's Tomb.[27] We ought not to treat living things as we do our clothes and our shoes, and throw them away after we have worn them out; but we ought to accustom ourselves to show kindness in these cases, if only in order to teach ourselves our duty towards one another. For my own part I would not even sell an ox that had laboured for me because he was old, much less would I turn ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... year after: for I never need other powdering to my hair, to preserve it bright and clean, as the gallants do; but which does certainly greatly prejudice transpiration by filling up, or lying heavy upon the pores. Those, therefore, who (since the use of perukes) accustom to wash their heads, instead of powdering, would doubtless find the benefit of it; both as to the preventing of aches in their head, teeth, and ears, if the vicissitude and inconstancy of the weather, and consequently the ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... ease with which the human mind can accustom itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and the "Plutonia." And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end we were accustomed to both—to a degree. We had ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... this sick man, which will not only not comfort his grief with wholesome remedies, but also nourish them with sugared poison? For these be they which with the fruitless thorns of affections do kill the fruitful crop of reason, and do accustom men's minds to sickness, instead of curing them. But if your flattery did deprive us of some profane fellow,[81] as commonly it happeneth, I should think that it were not so grievously to be taken, for in him our labours should receive no harm. But now have you laid hold of ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius



Words linked to "Accustom" :   hook, modify, habituate, alter, change



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