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Adjustment   Listen
noun
Adjustment  n.  
1.
The act of adjusting, or condition of being adjusted; act of bringing into proper relations; regulation. "Success depends on the nicest and minutest adjustment of the parts concerned."
2.
(Law) Settlement of claims; an equitable arrangement of conflicting claims, as in set-off, contribution, exoneration, subrogation, and marshaling.
3.
The operation of bringing all the parts of an instrument, as a microscope or telescope, into their proper relative position for use; the condition of being thus adjusted; as, to get a good adjustment; to be in or out of adjustment.
Synonyms: Suiting; fitting; arrangement; regulation; settlement; adaptation; disposition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adjustment" Quotes from Famous Books



... wide difference is there in the position of the leaves on the trees and their relative adjustment to each other? Sometimes they grow singly, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in whirls or clusters. Some droop, others spread horizontally, while others still are more or less erect. The leaves of some trees cling close to the branches, others are connected with the branches by stems of various length ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston

... that it is put in motion by the noblest spirit or that it is nourished by the highest blood; every bone must have its just proportion; every muscle or tendon its proper pulley; every lever its proper length and fulcrum; every joint its most accurate adjustment and proper lubrication; all must have their relative proportions and strength, before the motions of the machine can be accurate, vigorous and durable. In every machine modifications are required according as the purposes vary to which it is applied. The heavy ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... should really be regarded as honorable scars, memorials of ancient victories, monuments to difficulties overcome, significant and encouraging indications of what our body-machine is still capable of accomplishing in the way of further adjustment to conditions in the future. The really surprising thing is not their number, but the infrequency with which they give rise ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... services of Mrs. Adams were enlisted, and she was more deft even than her mistress; and the butler, who was by this time a regular hospital dresser, greatly admired her pretty arms when they were bared to the elbow, and her flushed cheeks when she took a humble part in some tantalizing adjustment. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... (pursuing the will-o'-the-wisps of impure imaginings or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavour), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfilment in the outer conditions of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen

... rooster! It isn't the first time you've lost your feet. Maybe your feelings are jolted, but—the instrument is safe. Remember that time you fell down the fifty-foot bank and never even knocked your transit out of adjustment? You never let go of your grip on it! Come; you'll soon be streaking out again, ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... acres and acres of garden and its majesty of artificial lake—though that, for a person so familiar with the "great" ones, might be rather ridiculous—no visibility of transition showed, no violence of adjustment, in retrospect, emerged. The Palladian church was always there, but the piazza took care of itself. The sun stared down in his fulness, the air circulated, and the public not less; the limit stood off, the way round ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... upon the docile, and by caustic speech enforced their edicts against the unwelcome. To think of it is to wonder the more at the strange failure of their race upon the larger theatre. This inbred civility—to use the word in its completest meaning—this natural and facile adjustment of contending liberties, seems all that is required to make a governable nation and a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... amoeba and we live in the closest relation to our environment, and conformity to it is evidently necessary: life has been defined as the adjustment of internal relations to external conditions. We continually take food, use it for energy and growth, and return the simpler waste compounds. We are all of us, as Professor Huxley has said, "whirlpools on the surface of Nature;" when the whirl of exchange of particles ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... lamp is mounted horizontally there are thumb screws by which the lamp may be moved sidewise, up and down, and forward and backward. This mounting is called the "micrometer" device, because of the accuracy of adjustment. With the vertical mounting, a flat head thumb screw at the base of the lamp support releases the ball joint so that the lamp may be easily moved sidewise or forward and backward. To raise or lower the lamp, the thumb screw higher ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous

... there is none at all; and there is a great want of coherence between the meagre incidents which give only an apparent life to the dramatic movement,—the quarrel with Oronte respecting the sonnet, and its adjustment; the decision of the law-suit which is ever being brought forward; the unmasking of Celimene through the vanity of the two Marquisses, and the jealousy of Arsine. Besides all this, the general plot is not even ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... Quito held out no recompense worth the sacrifices he had made, and was like to make, by insisting on his claim, became now more sensible of the rashness of a course which must doubtless incur the censure of his sovereign. In this temper, it was not difficult for them to effect an adjustment of difficulties; and it was agreed, as the basis of it, that the governor should pay one hundred thousand pesos de oro to Alvarado, in consideration of which the latter was to resign to him his fleet, his forces, and all his stores and munitions. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... critical, formative years, when childhood begins to unfold into maturity. To make this material available, judicious selection and interpretation are required. The organism of each book and of the child must both be carefully regarded to make the adjustment perfect. Naturally this most vital line of study would be the introduction to a corresponding study of the direct, personal teachings of ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... fundamental changes and new conditions, the main feature of which is the new world-consciousness of which we speak. Whatever one's occupation, one cannot remain unaffected by these changes, or escape entirely the stress that the need of adjustment to new ideas and new conditions compels. What we may think about the future—about what can be done and what ought to be done, is in part, and perhaps largely, a matter of temperament. At least we see men, presumably having access to the same ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the petition of ... John Hanes, ... praying an adjustment of his accounts for the maintenance of certain captured African slaves, ask leave to report," etc. Senate Doc., 28 Cong. 1 ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... Sir Purcell; "you cannot wait in a better place. And I must entreat you to be careful." He half alluded to the adjustment of her shawl, and to anything else, as far as she might choose to apprehend him. Her dexterity in tossing him the letter, unseen by Madame Marini, might have frightened him and given him a dread, that albeit woman, there was germ ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... distribution; to which was afterwards added the important and difficult function of legally settling what was domain-land and what was private property. The distribution was accordingly designed to go on for an indefinite period until the Italian domains which were very extensive and difficult of adjustment should be regulated. The new features in the Sempronian agrarian law, as compared with the Licinio-Sextian, were, first, the clause in favour of the hereditary possessors; secondly, the leasehold and inalienable tenure proposed for the new allotments; thirdly and especially, the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... to close rate in a modestly priced watch is the balance wheel. This wheel requires careful adjustment for temperature error and for poise. Of these two disturbing factors poise is the most annoying to the owner because lack of it makes the watch a very erratic timekeeper. A watch in which the parts are not poised is subject to a different rate for every position it is placed in. This position error, ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison

... the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves below, and in the center the bony supports of the whole limb. Like the organs, these tissues are differentiated, structurally and functionally, and they also are so placed and related as to exhibit the kind of mechanical adjustment which we call adaptation. The tissues, then, in their relations to the organs are like the organs in their relations to the whole creature, i.e. adapted to specific situations where they may most ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... sorely. I now understand how good it is that at this age such friendships do not exist. Is it not hard enough to extricate ourselves from the seemingly hopeless complications of sexual instincts and relations? Are we not still far from the adjustment of passions, arising much too early and continuing much too long? physical and mental desires, affections misplaced, extinguished and transferred to others? and children who must be fed? Should we desire to add to these problems the complications ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... Ashton-Kirk soothingly, "it is not at all necessary that you do so. The fact is, to state it briefly, there is a trifling matter for adjustment between Professor Locke and ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... study is contained in eleven volumes on the following subjects: Schooling of the Immigrant; The Press; Adjustment of Homes and Family Life; Legal Protection and Correction; Health Standards and Care; Naturalization and Political Life; Industrial and Economic Amalgamation; Treatment of Immigrant Heritages; Neighborhood Agencies and Organization; Rural Developments; and Summary. The entire study has been ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... know), "and appear not in individuals subjected to new conditions" (What organism can pass through life without being subjected to more or less new conditions? What life is ever the exact fac-simile of another? And in a matter of such extreme delicacy as the adjustment of psychical and physical relations, who can say how small a disturbance of established equilibrium may not involve how great a rearrangement?), "but in the offspring of all, though more freely in ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... to-night the lower-button style with the white tie. It was indeed the adjustment of this necessary article which had consumed the five minutes passed in his dressing-room, slightly lengthened by the time necessary to trim his cuffs—a little nicety which he rarely overlooked and which ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... they cannot agree by "tossing up a penny," or by "drawing cuts." In a game of ball they determine "first innings" by "tossing the bat." Differences in a game of marbles, they settle by guessing "odd or even," or by "trying it over to prove it." In all these modes of adjustment there is an appeal to chance. Probably behind these practices is the feeling that the boy who ought to win will somehow guess right. This appealing to chance to settle questions of fact is characteristic of society in its primitive ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... that this was in itself a training in the art of verbal expression; but here it seemed to Hugh that the whole of the training had confined itself to the momentary effect, the ring of sentences, the adjustment of epithets, and that he had received no sort of training in the art of structure. He had never been made to write essays or to arrange his materials. He thought that he ought to have been taught how to deal with a subject; but his exercises had been almost wholly translations ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... self-regulative and efficient, through the adoption of the Constitution. Upon this followed international influence, the growing importance of which Great Britain finally recognized by formal concessions, hitherto refused or evaded. During these years the policy of her government was undergoing a process of adjustment, conditioned on the one hand by the still vigorous traditional prejudices associated with the administration of dependencies, and on the other by the radical change in political relations between her remaining colonies in America ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... to see the weight of the objections urged against it. It is urged that the difficulty and expense of adequately inspecting so many examinations and of guaranteeing their efficiency would be great, and the difficulty in the way of a fair adjustment of the representation of existing interests and of the representation of new interests upon the general Medical ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... "What a delicate adjustment of the lines of beauty to the material consideration; the balance is perfect." And with this confusion of frank cupidity and rapacious regard, the miser, with a supreme effort, pushed the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... liability the merchant shipping comes under the jurisdiction of the local courts, without reservation. It is true, there still are formalities and reservations which enable questions arising out of incidents in the shipping trade to become subject of international conference and adjustment, but they are after all not such as would warrant the erection of national apparatus to take care of them in case they were not already covered by usage to that effect. The visible drift of usage toward neutralisation ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... a population there was of course much loosening of the bands, social, political, moral, and religious, which knit a society together. A great many of the restraints of their old life were thrown off, and there was much social adjustment and readjustment before their relations to one another under the new conditions became definitely settled. But there came early into the land many men of high purpose and pure life whose influence upon their fellows, though quiet, was very great. Moreover, the clergyman and the school-teacher, the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... past in an unsatisfactory state, and this Government, as the neighbor and one of the largest creditors of Venezuela, has interposed its influence with the French Government with the view of producing a friendly and honorable adjustment. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... shake-hands for the sake of old times on the Munster circuit." But it was clearly recognized that there was a point beyond which neither of them could take his followers, and these points could not be brought to meet. Even if adjustment had been possible on the question of time-limit, neither would give up the debatable counties, Tyrone and Fermanagh, in which the Nationalists had a clear though small majority of the population, but in which the Ulster ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... set upon me. "He is only a child, this poor Saint-Eustache," she reproached me. "I saw it all from my window, Monsieur de Lesperon. It was brutal; it was cowardly. So to beat a boy! Shame! If you had a quarrel with him, are there not prescribed methods for their adjustment between gentlemen? Pardieu, could you not ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... labour naturally takes place in a colony, and in that way certain cells in the primitive body were confined to the work of digestion. It would be an obvious advantage for these to retire into the interior, leaving the whole external surface free for the adjustment of the animal's ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... lug-pole to suspend kettles from. These pothooks are to be of different length so that the kettle can be adjusted to different heights above the fire, first for hard boiling, and then for simmering. If kettles were hung from the lug-pole itself, this adjustment could not be made, and you would have to dismount the whole business in order to ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... perforating the ice-house is guilty of lunacy—of unreason, in short. To do the unusual thing under unusual circumstances, successfully to adjust to a strange environment for which his heredity has not automatically fitted an adjustment, Mr. Burroughs says is impossible. He says it is impossible because it would be a non-instinctive act, and, as is well known animals act only through instinct. And right here we catch a glimpse ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... bookstore in Philadelphia, descanting with his usual gusto on its merits. Then and lastly he was keenly and wisely interested in various currents of local politics, society and finance, although he always considered the first a low mess, an arrangement or adjustment of many necessary things among the lower orders. He seemed to know or sense in some occult way everything that was going on in those various realms. His mind was so full and rich that merely to be with him was a delight. He gushed like a fountain, and yet not polemically, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... continuing adventure of the species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble of life and the distresses of life in the fact that the species is still very painfully adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions under which it lives. The conflict of life is a continual pursuit of adjustment, and the "ills of life," of the individual life that is, are due to its "disharmonies." Man, acutely aware of himself as an individual adventure and unawakened to himself as a species, finds life jangling and distressful, finds death frustration. He fails and falls as a person in what may ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... the table. The slight misunderstanding to which such a manoeuvre very naturally gave rise, may have seemed to justify his doubts, as they did to check the good intentions of his entertainers, with regard to the speedy adjustment of grievances; yet I think I am not mistaken in believing that popular sentiment in this country is just now setting strongly in favour of a community of copyright between America ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... since we all want others to feel that we can manage competently such a basic undertaking as marriage; a safeguard against exploitation, since a discontented marriage partner offers fair game to a predatory third person; a link with our sexual taboos, since difficulties in marital adjustment often have a sexual component, and any suggestion of sexual incompetence is deeply wounding to our pride. It could reflect the traditional tendency to regard the family as a closed "in-group"—an attitude not without advantages for ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace

... to foreign capitalists; partly by the expenditure of national funds. When troops and messages can be moved and flashed about rapidly pronunciamientos tend to diminish. The credit of the country abroad was firmly re-established in 1886 by a proper adjustment of the foreign debt with Mexico's European creditors; and as a result further loans were secured. The Mexican National Railway, traversing the country from the capital to the United States frontier, was opened in November, 1888, as ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... perfect justice, equilibrium and adjustment are inherent in the universal system of Nature. Buddhists do not believe that one life—even though it were extended to one hundred or five hundred years—is long enough for the reward or punishment of a man's deeds. The great circle of rebirths will be more or less quickly run through ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott

... said, making a small adjustment on the screen, "you and countless other atavisms are reacting in a very predictable way. Since you can't reconcile the naked Ankorbades and their superior technology, and since they are alien to point of showing no interest whatsoever in our ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco

... locks, twisted around a small gold bodkin, were kept in their position by a net of silk and gold. Short petticoats, deep laced with silver, to correspond with the jacket, red stockings which were visible so high as near the calf of the leg, and buskins of Spanish leather, completed her adjustment, which, though far from new, had been saved as an untarnished holiday suit, which much care had kept in good order. She seemed about twenty-five years old; but perhaps fatigue and wandering had anticipated the touch of time in obliterating ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... we miss this delicate adjustment of time, it is easy to console ourselves with bright armfuls of Lupine, which bounteously flowers for six weeks along our lake-side, ranging from the twenty-third of May to the sixth of July. The Lupine is one of our most travelled plants; for, though never seen off the American continent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... each party pelting one another with cases from other parts of the world. Perhaps at that point it might be well to remember the grave and wise warning given us by Lord Morley in his "Life of Gladstone"—that each case of political re-adjustment really stands by itself, and that often little light can be thrown, but rather darkness deepened, by studying too closely ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... their best dresses, and with baskets on arms, were coming from market gossiping volubly; boys and girls garbed in the universal one-piece black overdress of the country, played games on the roadside; an armoured-motor machine gun halted beside the children to make some adjustment; great three-ton lorries lumbered along; officers in touring cars, sometimes with red and gold staff hats, flew by, taking salutes with easy nonchalance, while we, with ears and eyes wide open, bowled along towards ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... but applied herself to a mathematically accurate adjustment of the top edge of the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... there is no other way to express physical perfection. But can it be so expressed? The reader must reply for himself. We will, however, suppose it possible; still the task is incomplete without the adjustment of these to the perfect Moral, in the highest known degrees of its several elements. To those who can imagine such a form as shall be the sure exponent of such a moral being,—and such it must be, or it will be ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... brigantine was out of sight. Their sails were now so worn that they were obliged to lower them, and drift about for a whole day to repair them. Having neither chronometer nor sextant, and only a quadrant of antique date, often ten and even twenty miles out of adjustment, the position of the vessel could only be guessed. The men behaved admirably during this weary time, employing themselves in cleaning their arms, fishing, or mending their clothes. The rain generally fell in torrents till the 4th October, when the day ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... country into a severe recession. In 1989, the government launched a comprehensive, IMF-supported program to achieve macroeconomic stabilization and to introduce market mechanisms into the economy. Despite substantial progress toward macroeconomic adjustment, in 1992 the reform drive stalled as Algiers became embroiled in political turmoil. In September 1993, a new government was formed, and one priority was the resumption and acceleration of the structural adjustment process. Buffeted by the slump in world oil prices and burdened ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... must simply paddle straight ahead. The adjustment is to be accomplished entirely by the poise of the body. You must prevent the capsize of your canoe when clinging to the angle of a wave by leaning to one side. The crucial moment, of course, is that during which the peak of the wave slips ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... the Peace and associating themselves for its maintenance." (4). "Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety." (5). "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims," regard being had to the interests of the populations concerned. (6), (7), (8), and (11). The evacuation and "restoration" of all invaded territory, especially of Belgium. To this must be added the rider of the Allies, claiming compensation for all damage done to ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... action, another in the rejection of action, even in the seeming destruction of desire; another shall have peace and freedom through intellectual inquiry, while another must obey his God or love his God and may stand in very conscious need of divine salvation. The adjustment sought by Confucius was very different from that which drew the mind of Plato or led Augustine to the City of God. Often quite different motives may inspire the reasonings which incidentally bring men to like conclusions.... The life adjustment ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... this proceeding the Government objected, upon the ground that the Crown had a pre-emptive right, and that the land belonged to the Indians only so long as they might choose to occupy it. Many conferences were held, but no adjustment satisfactory to the Indians was arrived at. There has been a good deal of subsequent legislation and diplomacy over this vexed question, but so far as any unfettered power of alienation of the lands is concerned Governor Haldimand's grant was practically a nullity, and so ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... adjustment of the cape seemed to interrupt the speech, but others mentally supplied the ending ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... (Fig. 12), Uh-Ch'in, Koka and a few others show a distinct advance in point of curve and adjustment of hair, and strongly resemble the bow of the quaint Swedish Nyckelharpa in ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... the brougham bearing the bride and her father was in sight; but there was sure to be a considerable interval of adjustment and consultation in the lobby, where the bridesmaids were already hovering like a cluster of Easter blossoms. During this unavoidable lapse of time the bridegroom, in proof of his eagerness, was ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... two-thirds vote of each House, to override the veto, and secondly by an implied power in the Judiciary to annul Congressional or State legislation, not on the grounds of policy, but on the sole ground of inconsistency with the paramount law of the Constitution. In this adjustment, the influence of Montesquieu ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions of her charms to the portrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminution than a difference. The starting-point selected by the judgment was her height. She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... league was formed for the adjustment of the differences between the Catholics and Protestants: but the unfortunate thirty years war breaking out in 1618, and desolating nearly the whole of Germany, prevented the permanent consolidation of the interests of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... and charred nutshells, a flint instrument, beautifully and minutely serrated at the edge, and burnt bones. The back or spine of the serpent, which, as already stated, is 300 feet long, was found, beneath the peat moss, to be formed by a careful adjustment of stones, the formation of which probably prevented the structure from being obliterated by time and weather." ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... adapted to the purpose, would, of course, be the most suitable vehicle. As a precaution which should never be overlooked, a temporary dressing should first be applied. This may be so done as for the time to answer all the purposes of the permanent adjustment and bandaging. Without thus securing the patient, a fracture of an inferior degree may be transformed to one of the severest kind, and, indeed, a curable changed to an incurable injury. We recall a case in which a fast-trotting horse, after ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... not condescend to alter her dress by the aid of a single pin, or by the adjustment of a ribbon. It might well be that, after the mingled work and play of the morning, her hair should not be smooth; but she was too proud to look at her hair. The man whom she had loved, who had loved her but had neglected ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... kneading and rolling so clumsily that the nodule was malformed, but the majority were singularly symmetrical, evidencing nice adjustment between the degree of adhesiveness of the "pug" and the applied force of the wave. Several weighed nearly a quarter of a pound, while the majority were not much bigger than marbles, and the oval was the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... of the river was difficult to cross with the carts, and delayed us an hour. A different adjustment of the loads was necessary; therefore I was obliged to turn out of my intended route for this day, and go into a bight of the river for water, in making a much shorter journey. This was only of six miles from the ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... of taste is obtuse, or who have been brought up in the happy habit of being content with humble fare, whose health is so firm, that it needs no artificial adjustment; who, with the appetite of a cormorant, have the digestion of an ostrich, and eagerly devour whatever is set before them without asking any questions about what it is, or how it has been prepared—may perhaps imagine that the Editor ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... pacification the captives were released, freedom of conscience and of worship was established, and the Protestant troops, being disbanded, were at liberty to enter into the service of Ferdinand to repel the Turks. Within six months a diet was to be assembled to attempt an amicable adjustment of all ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... 90% of the population living in rural areas. Agriculture accounts for 40% of GDP and 90% of export revenues. After two years of weak performance, economic growth improved significantly in 1988 as a result of good weather and a broadly based economic adjustment effort by the government. The closure of traditional trade routes through Mozambique continues to be ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... to have been solved. But at least the fact that the South African Union and the Indian Empire are both partners in the same British commonwealth improves the chances of a just solution. It helped to find at least a temporary adjustment in 1914; in the future also it may contribute, in this as in many other ways, to ensure that a fair consideration is given to both sides of the thorny question ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... fear of seeming to neglect the towns. For, after all, in the end it was out of the pockets of the towns that 'the Land' would have to be financed, and nobody really could expect the towns to get anything out of it. Stanley paused in the adjustment of his tie; his wife was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... its needs, may alternate with the long-contending, victoriously intricate sentence; the sentence, born with the integrity of a single word, relieving the sort of sentence in which, if you look closely, you can see much contrivance, much adjustment, to bring a highly qualified matter into compass at one view. For the literary architecture, if it is to be rich and expressive, involves not only foresight of the end in the beginning, but also development or growth of design, in the process of ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... with this, if not the same argument in a more general form, I adduce the high spiritual instinct of the human being impelling us to seek unity by harmonious adjustment, and thus establishing the principle that all the parts of an organized whole must be assimilated to the more important and essential parts. This and the preceding arguments may be strengthened by the reflection, that the composition of a poem is among the imitative arts; and that ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... The actual adjustment of the detector is rather a delicate job, and once it is in the proper position it is a good plan to avoid jarring it, as it is liable to get out of ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... long been bedfellow of wild adventure. He thought that he knew the mood in which it was best met. The mood represented the grist of much subtle effort, comparing, adjustment, and readjustment. He cultivated it now. The banditti admired courage, coolness, and good humor. They had provision of food and wine, the sun still shone warm. The robber hold was set ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... nerves and muscles in the eye is far from perfect at the time of birth. The muscles act irregularly; indeed, the lack of muscular adjustment is such that movements of the eye likely to alarm the parents are regularly observed in very young infants. Furthermore they cannot focus images which fall upon their eyes. The retina, which receives visual impressions, has reached such development at birth, however, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... his purchase of the boat before Tom was ready to make a long trip in it. Up to that time he had gone on short spins not far from the dock, in order to test the engine adjustment. The lad found it was working very well, but he decided with a new kind of spark plugs for the two cylinders that he could get more speed out of it. Finally the forward compartment was painted and a general overhauling given the hull and Tom was ready to ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... distressing to see how much they affect the manners of their Malay slaves in chewing beetle, and other actions equally disagreeable. Their dress is a loose white or flowered muslin robe, which is open and large, reaching to the wrists and neck: but if the adjustment of their garments does not take up much time at the toilet, the arranging of their hair makes sufficient amends for it: they have in general very thick long black hair, which is gathered into a knot on the back part ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... worsted-work, and fell back into her own thoughts—as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she had not been in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the might of the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in the Arabian Nights—one moment stretching from earth to sky and filling all the width of the horizon, at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be borne ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is self-demonstration of the unusualness of the abbreviation. What is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign adjustment but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the tightening described. They alone would have amply established her identity. But it is not that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... is an adaptation to environment; and thus from every alteration in the conditions in which man lives, usually made by his discovery of new resources or of hitherto unknown natural laws, a change in his habits of life must flow. Every revolution is but an adjustment to a fresh situation, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... manufactured by the same tool. If the top of a circular box is to be made to fit over the lower part, it may be done in the lathe by gradually advancing the tool of the sliding-rest; the proper degree of tightness between the box and its lid being found by trial. After this adjustment, if a thousand boxes are made, no additional care is required; the tool is always carried up to the stop, and each box will be equally adapted to every lid. The same identity pervades all the arts of printing; the impressions from the same block, or the same copperplate, have a similarity ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... current generators and motors, the brushes which bear upon the commutator when the machine is in action need occasional adjustment. This is effected by shifting them until sparking between them and the commutator is nearly or ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... it looks horridly so!" cried Polly, longing to add a little beauty to her friend's sallow face by a graceful adjustment ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... I have met Ibsenite pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but there is nothing good about it or bad ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... shown in (b) may be placed on a table top or some other flat surface, but it operates on the same principle as the other. The coffee beans are placed in the chamber at the top, and the ground coffee drops into the drawer a at the bottom. The adjustment of the grinding rolls is regulated by the notched head at the ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... hierarchical and non-hierarchical command to control and direct our forces are likely to be required especially given the simultaneous application of capabilities throughout the given battle space by the full spectrum of our forces. To use these combinations of forces will require adjustment of current service doctrine and prescribed roles and functions. Rapid Dominance also means looking to invest in technologies perhaps not fully or currently captured by ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... Adjuster. Miter Boxes. Swivel Arm Uprights. Movable Stops. Angle Dividers. "Odd Job" Tool. Bit Braces. Ratchet Mechanism. Interlocking Jaws. Steel Frame Breast Drills. Horizontal Boring. 3-Jaw Chuck. Planes. Rabbeting, Beading and Matching. Cutter Adjustment. Depth Gage. Slitting Gage. Dovetail Tongue and Groove Plane. Router Planes. Bottom Surfacing. Door ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... with great effect in any other medium than that of candied sugars, conserves, and pastry. Say what you will about the identity of the reasoning process in all branches of thought, or about the advantage of coming to subjects with a fresh mind, the adjustment of butter to flour, and of heat to pastry, is not the best preparation for the office of prime minister; besides, in the present imperfectly-organized state of society, there are social barriers. David could invent delightful ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot

... foregoing remarks be just, it follows that the great problem of political philosophy is not precisely such as it is often taken to be by statesmen and historians. This problem, according to Mackintosh and Macaulay, consists in finding such an adjustment of the antagonistic principles of public order and private liberty, that neither shall overthrow or subvert the other, but each be confined within its own appropriate limits. Whereas, if we are not ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... which we moderns, whether we Hellenise or whether we Hebraise, are so apt to show, and arrived,—though failing, as has been said, to give adequate practical satisfaction to the claims of man's moral side,—at the idea of a comprehensive adjustment of the claims of both the sides in man, the moral as well [173] as the intellectual, of a full estimate of both, and of a reconciliation of both; an idea which is philosophically of the greatest value, and the best of lessons ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... the string. Already a piece of stick, several inches in length, had been fixed to the small of the stock, and, of course, behind the trigger. This was fastened transversely, but not so as to preclude all motion. A certain looseness in its adjustment gave it the freedom required to be worked as a lever—for that was ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... days were taken up with the embarrassed adjustment of their new relation to Mr. Ramy and to each other. Ann Eliza's ardour carried her to new heights of self-effacement, and she invented late duties in the shop in order to leave Evelina and her suitor longer ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton

... success which had attended the financial measures of the last session, as an encouragement for parliament to renew the consideration of such salutary objects; and he recommended the two houses to apply their utmost attention to the adjustment of such points in the commercial intercourse between this country and Ireland, as were not yet finally arranged. In both houses the addresses were carried ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... addition. In South Carolina, however, Laurens received little encouragement, and in 1780 he was called upon to go to France on a patriotic mission. He had not forgotten the matter when he returned in 1782; but by that time Cornwallis had surrendered and the country had entered upon the critical period of adjustment to the new conditions. Washington now wrote to Laurens: "I must confess that I am not at all astonished at the failure of your plan. That spirit of freedom which, at the commencement of this contest, would have gladly sacrificed everything ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... laws which account for the phenomena which he sees, which laws were operative for ages before he discovered them, and imply infinitely more intellect in their invention, so to speak, and imposition and nice adjustment with one another, than he shows in their mere discovery. A student, for instance, has a problem put before him, say upon the adjustments of the forces of the heavenly bodies. The solution, if it evinces intelligence in him, ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... read his able essay remember there are four other sets of nerves equal to, and just as important in their divisions of life, which are the motor, nutrient, voluntary and involuntary. All of which you as an engineer must know, and by proper adjustment of the body give them unlimited power to perform their separate and united parts in sustaining life and health. Now as I have tried to place into your hands a compass, flag and chain that will lead you from effect to cause of disease in any part or organ ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... were directed upwards. At this point of time a rope, with a running noose, was dexterously thrown by one of the firemen, after the manner of a lasso, over the head and round the bodies of the two men. True, it was with rude and slight adjustment: but slight as it was, it served as a steadying guide; it encouraged the sinking heart, the dizzy head. Once more Jem stepped onwards. He was not hurried by any jerk or pull. Slowly and gradually the rope was hauled in, slowly and gradually did he make the four or ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... millions of stories with regard to the adjustment and settlement of claims during this period. All kinds of pressure, all kinds of seduction and all kinds of bribes were offered the adjusters. There appeared to be in the minds of many a conviction that this was the time to make a claim against the insurance companies; that everything ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks

... when General Washington met the Count de Rochambeau at Hartford was selected for the final adjustment of the plan; and, as a personal interview was deemed necessary, Major Andre came up the river, and went on board the Vulture. The house of a Mr. Smith, without the American posts, was appointed for ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... creatures. The more prolific it becomes, the more enemies it can feed; and the more they multiply, the more prolific it grows." A vicious circle indeed! Even "earthquakes, storms, droughts, deluges," are explained as due to a certain want of balance and failure in adjustment.[21] ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson

... 13 was organized on the 18th of December, 1860, to consider the condition of the country, but its report was disagreed to by the Senate. Many other propositions of adjustment were made both in the Senate and House, but none of them were agreed to. Not only were no measures adopted to prevent secession, but it was proposed by Mr. Mason, that, to avoid the possibility of a conflict between the forces ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... crowded cars of the night express whistling away up the shores of the Hudson, shadowy yet familiar, fifty miles to the hour. His new civilian dress—donned that morning for the first time—bore something of the cadet about it in its trim adjustment to the lines of his erect, even gaunt figure. He sat very straight, looking silently across the aisle out on the starlit river to his left, and holding on his knees the new dark-blue cape and an old travelling-bag. A lone woman in search ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... has now come for that inevitable question, with which friendly readers unintentionally embarrass, and hostile ones purposely interrupt, any exposition of mal-adjustment in the order of the universe: But what remedy do ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... changes and distribution of spiritual power. The spirits, it was alleged, were provided with atmospheres, which combined with and interpenetrated each other, and considerable ingenuity was shown in demonstrating the necessity of time in effecting the adjustment of the atmospheres. A rearrangement of our positions was proposed and carried out; and soon afterwards my attention was drawn to a scarcely sensible vibration on the part of the table. Several persons were leaning on the table at the time, and I asked permission ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... 16, provided for the establishment of a neutral, unfortified zone on the common frontier south of the parallel 61 deg. and stipulated that all differences between the two nations which should prove impossible of adjustment by direct negotiation should be referred to the permanent court of arbitration at the Hague, provided such differences should not involve the independence, integrity, or vital interests of either nation. October 27 King Oscar formally ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... Allen, M.C., and "D" Lieut. Gresty, M.C. Lt.-Col. Manger commanded the battalion, while Capt. Creagh had returned and was Adjutant. Two days before the attack Capt. Nelson went into hospital with dysentery which had frequently recurred in a violent form during the preceding weeks. A slight re-adjustment was thus demanded amongst the officers to give every company a fair share of leadership and Lieut. Hammond was sent to command ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... the materials for the volumes I published under the title of "A History of the American Civil War," a work of very great labor, I had become accustomed to the comparison of conflicting statements, the adjustment of conflicting claims. The approval with which that book has been received by the American public, a critical judge of the events considered, has inspired me with additional confidence. I had also devoted much attention to the experimental investigation of natural ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... here they prospered in commerce and in military service, while an enormous class of beggars lived on the hospitality of their neighbours at home. In such conditions of inequality it was plain that, if there was to be a Union, the adjustment of proportions of taxation and of representation in Parliament would require very delicate handling, while the differences of Church Government were certain to cause jealousies ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... dependable than others, just as there are some more simple of adjustment than others. Some are cheap and less durable; others are expensive and last for years. There are some which for a quarter of a century have stood the test of certainty in Holland, France, England and the United States among the wealthier classes, as ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... to remind him of it; but unfortunately he was the possessor of a pair of grimy hands that nothing on earth could ever make clean, and even when he washed them in benzine they always left black thumb prints on a linen collar during the process of adjustment. He had long since ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... we realized that you came from a relatively immature culture because you made no response to our telepathy of welcome. We did our best after that to simplify your adjustment to our way of life, because we knew you would have to stay among us. Of course, we never really learned your language; we simply gave you the illusion that we had. Nor is there any such thing as a council ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox

... arrested the eastward current, detaching that conductor from the apergion; and, directing the whole force of the current into the downward conductor, I had the pleasure of seeing that, after a very little adjustment of the helm, the stars remained stationary in the mirror of the metacompass, showing that I had escaped from the influence of the Earth's rotation. It was of course impossible to measure the distance traversed during the invisibility of the Earth, but I reckoned that ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... small opportunity to make himself obnoxious by becoming a civic missionary before the time. He was busy enough with his adjustment to the business life of "Delafield and Madison county," this being the declared commercial sphere of the John W. Farwell Hardware Company. J.W. always had known hardware, but hitherto in a purely amateur and detached fashion. Now ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... astonished—and resentful—at every new discovery, but in a short time accepts it as a commonplace. The layman resents all new ideas, but the adjustment of the human mind to the inevitable is common even among savages." Her slight affectation of pedantry was very well done and Clavering could not detect the flicker of a lash as her eyes rested indulgently upon ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... the blame was to be allocated to the weather, the employer, the government or the Deity, she did not know, nor did Mrs. Makebelieve know; but they were agreed that there was an error somewhere, a lack of adjustment with which they had nothing to do, but the effects whereof were grievously visible in their privations. Meantime it had become necessary that Mrs. Cafferty should adjust herself to a changing environment. A rise or fall in wages is automatically ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... a couple more before she succeeded in heaving the saddle upon the back of the flinching sorrel. Because she took up the saddle by horn and cantle instead of doing it as Jean had taught her, she bungled its adjustment upon the horse's back. Then the sorrel began to dance away from her, and Robert Grant ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... private life of every one who attempts it. And at any particular time only a small minority have a personal interest in changing the established state of affairs. Habit and interest are in a constantly recruited majority against conscious change and adjustment in these matters. Drift rules us. The great mass of people, and an overwhelming proportion of influential people, are people who have banished their dreams and made their compromise. Wonderful and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... the adjustment of the preliminaries, "declining," says a contemporary, "the triumphal car which had been prepared for him, made his entrance into the city by the gate of St. Anthony, mounted on a white charger; and, as he rode along the principal streets, the sight of so many pallid countenances ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... torture until you were used to it, and I doubt whether you could get used to it without somebody to educate you—some scientist to show you how to defend your nerves against that outrageous racket. For the sounds were all out of adjustment and proportion. Nothing was in key. It was as if the laws of acoustics had been lifted, and sound ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... no embarrassment growing out of problems respecting the woman's future support, the division of property, or the adjustment of claims for the possession of the children. The independent self-support of every adult healthy Indian, male or female, and the gentile relationship, which is more wide-reaching and authoritative than that of marriage, have already disposed of these questions, which are usually ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... civilization has been developed; yet it was there, settled in its main outlines, before the national units which it required for internal harmony and cohesion had taken any definite shape. It is to the difficulties of their growth and mutual adjustment that we owe most of the conflicts of ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... much as it was, my daughter. The matter hath created quite a stir in the city. Nothing but retaliation is talked of. Report hath it that General Washington expects a speedy adjustment of the matter when the new British commander comes. They expect him in a few days. It is a sad affair. But oh, Peggy! I ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... age, unusually active and remarkably direct mentally, therefore little adjustment was needed as he entered that usually leveling community—boy-school-life. He was generous and good- hearted to a lovable degree and with such qualities and advantages he early became, and remained, leader in his crowd. After his father died, the boy, not unnaturally, placed ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... as cultivators of mathematics and physics. In our daily work we are led up to questions the same in kind with those of metaphysics; and we approach them, not trusting to the native penetrating power of our own minds, but trained by a long-continued adjustment of our modes of thought to the facts ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... enacted during his government. At the same time they gave Brutus and his followers the command of provinces, and other considerable posts. So that all people now thought things were well settled, and brought to the happiest adjustment. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... in Preussen, and at the Polish Court, were in fact immense. But after a space of eight or nine months, he did, by excellent management, not sparing money judiciously laid out on individuals, arrive at some adjustment, better or worse, and got Preussen in hand; [29th April, 1609. Stenzel, i. 370.] legal Administrator of the imbecile Duke, as his Father had been. After which he had to run for Brandenburg, without loss of time: great matters being there in the wind. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... ever-increasing commercial interest in Scotland by conceding freedom of trade in a complete form. They agreed that "all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain be under the same regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions, and liable to equal impositions and duties for export and import". The adjustment of financial obligations was admitted to involve some injustice to Scotland, and an "equivalent" was allowed, to compensate for the responsibility now accruing to Scotland in connection with the English National Debt. It ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... another attempt to strike him, but was prevented. The rest now interfered; and, in the course of an hour or so, an adjustment took place. ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... niceties of word adjustment to follow as for instance the substitution of "a thin dirk-slot" for "a dagger-slot," the word "thin" carrying a keen mental impression of a snaky, hissing sound-sensation as the idea unfolded of the dirk slipping through the flimsy ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock



Words linked to "Adjustment" :   loosening, synchronising, tightening, laxation, differentiation, modification, shakedown, calibration, fitting, tune-up, allowance, discount, synchronization, synchronizing, collimation, biological process, standardization, acclimatisation, tune, adaption, seasonal adjustment, cost-of-living allowance, alignment, acclimation, specialization, advance, synchronisation, adjust, depreciation allowance, standardisation



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