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Adopt   Listen
verb
Adopt  v. t.  (past & past part. adopted; pres. part. adopting)  
1.
To take by choice into relationship, as, child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.; esp. to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
2.
To take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally; to select and take or approve; as, to adopt the view or policy of another; these resolutions were adopted.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adopt" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the monstrosity of turning the Ayin into a nasal. Bacon (as may be seen from the facsimile printed by Dr. Hirsch) left the letter Ayin unpronounced, which is by far the best course for Westerns to adopt. ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... his part, now at the English court, was furious with the States, and persuaded the leading counsellors of the Queen as well as her Majesty herself, to adopt his view of the transaction. Wingfield, it was asserted, was quite innocent in the matter; he was entirely ignorant of the French language, and therefore was unable to read a word of the letters addressed to him by Maurice and the replies which had been signed by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... art department of Shreve's, corner of Montgomery and Sutter streets. He began his voice lessons with Moretti. After a period he [Transcriber's Note: missing word supplied] discontinued and began his studies with Madam Blake-Alverson. After studying with her some time, he decided to adopt music as his profession. He went to Paris in 1890 where, upon the advice of Jean de Reszke, he studied several years with Sbriglia and then prepared himself for opera under Giraudet of the Conservatory of Music. He then went to London and prepared himself for oratorio under Randegger. His ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... win her for his wife. This placed Tyndarus in a difficulty. He was alarmed at the sight of so many suitors for the hand of his daughter, for he knew that he could not give her to one without offending all the rest. He therefore resolved to adopt the advice of Ulysses, the prince of Ithʹa-ca (an island on the west coast of Greece). Ulysses, also named O-dysʹseus, was famed for great wisdom as well ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke

... divulged to one after another of such men as the conspirators supposed most worthy of confidence in such a desperate undertaking, and meetings for consultation were held to determine what plan to adopt for finally accomplishing their end. It was agreed that Caesar must be slain; but the time, the place, and the manner in which the deed should be performed were all yet undecided. Various plans were proposed in the consultations which the ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... long time fires continued to be the mode of signalling, but as this way could only be used in the night, it was found necessary to adopt some method that would answer the purpose in daytime; hence signal towers were erected from which flags were waved and various devices displayed. Flags answered the purposes so very well that they came into general ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... the right way, my lord, to get out of your trouble. No lawyer would adopt your theory. If the remaining volumes of M. de Clinchain's diaries were produced in court, I imagine that other equally startling entries would be found ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... name names!" and quiet is instantly restored. What mysterious and appalling consequences would result from persistent disobedience, nobody in or out of the House has ever known, or probably ever will know,—at any rate, no Speaker in Parliamentary annals has been compelled to adopt the dreaded alternative. Shall I be thought wanting in patriotism, if I venture to doubt whether so simple an expedient would reduce to submission an insubordinate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... clear-sighted enough to see this course, which I think lies plain before him, or whether he has stoutness enough to adopt it, I know not; but sure I am of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... home have asked me how such thin things can keep out the wet of the snow. The reader must bear in mind that the snow, for nearly seven months, is not even damp for five minutes, so constant is the frost. When it becomes wet in spring, Europeans adopt ordinary English shoes, and Indians do not ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... think that a system which I found it indispensably necessary to adopt upon my first coming to this city, might have undergone severe strictures, and have had motives very foreign from those that governed me, assigned as causes thereof.—I mean first, returning no visits: second, appointing ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... far from giving that instruction, they fill the head with a set of wrong notions, from whence spring the tribes of Clarissas, Harriets, &c. Yet such was the method of education when I was in England, which I had it not in my power to correct; the young will always adopt the opinions of all their companions, rather than the advice ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... a stern, but a vindictive man. He was aware of the propriety of the suggestion made by his second in command, but having refused it, he would not acquiesce; and he felt revengeful against the commodore, whose counsel he must now either adopt, or by refusing it be prevented from taking the steps so necessary for the preservation of his crew, and the success of his voyage. Too proud to acknowledge himself in error, again did he decidedly refuse, and the commodore ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... blast of wind that shook the tent, and in windy weather would at least carry some of the smoke outside. A special course of engineering was almost needed to be able to properly handle those stoves. A little too much fire, and you had to adopt Pat's remedy when Biddy's temper got up—sit on the outside until it cooled down. Too little was worse than none, for your tent became a smoke-house. On the whole, they were much like the goose the aforesaid Pat captured and brought into ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... express it more beautifully, and sets pretty theories going. The witness, to whom the questions are suggestive, becomes conceited, likes to think that he himself has brought the matter out so excellently, and therefore is pleased to adopt the point of view and the theories of the examiner who has, in reality, gone too far in his eagerness. There is less danger of this when educated people are examined for these are better able to express themselves; or again ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... nature-cure methods will carry us a certain part of the way, we find that there must be causes even deeper than those which are physical. We are confronted by the fact that there are many people who obey every known physical law of health, who bathe, exercise, breathe, eat and drink scientifically, who adopt nature-cure methods instead of drugs and serums, who yet cannot find health. Therefore we must search deeper and go to the mind in order to discover the ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin

... make strange noises in cordial welcome. In many respects he was the most superior pet John has ever had. He could affect boredom and his exhibition of the glad eye was considered by John's eldest sister to be positively deadly. It is, in fact, true to say that his keen desire to adopt as many human habits as possible often led us to mistake him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... low tones, exhausting every, as they considered, possible conjecture to endeavour to account for his mysterious predilection for that abode, but nothing occurred to them of a sufficiently probable motive to induce them to adopt ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... Why adopt means to learn from the admiral what the intentions of the United States were in regard to the Philippines if both he and Pratt had already promised recognition ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... eighteens, nine twelve and seven nine pounders. Finding the fort could be easily enfiladed, Gen. Lee advised abandoning it; but the governor refused, telling Moultrie to keep his post, until he himself ordered the retreat. Moultrie, on his part, required no urging to adopt this more heroic course. A spectator happening to say, that in half an hour the enemy would knock the fort to pieces. "Then," replied Moultrie, undauntedly, "we will lie behind the ruins, and prevent their men from landing." Lee with many fears left the island, and repairing to ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... consideration, it has seemed to me desirable to adopt the chronological arrangement in this particular edition; in which an attempt is made to trace the growth of Wordsworth's genius, as it is unfolded in his successive works. His own arrangement of his Poems will always ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... seemed to adopt the same resolution simultaneously; for each caught up his favourite weapon, and, leaving his defence behind, sprang to the door. I snatched up a long rapier, abruptly, but very finely pointed, in my sword-hand, and in the other a sabre; the elder brother seized his heavy battle-axe; ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... "cross-bearer," and certainly Charlotte Cushman did indeed bear the cross, long before and long after, she wore the crown. At first she was a vocalist, but, having broken her voice by misusing it, she was compelled to quit the lyric and adopt the dramatic stage, and when nineteen years old she came out, at New Orleans, as Lady Macbeth. After that she removed to New York and for the next seven years she battled with adverse fortune in the theatres of that city and of Albany and Philadelphia. From 1837 to 1840 she was ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... time, seize it with jaws grotesquely stretched, and return to his chosen seat near the trunk. But the immense size of the cones of the Sugar Pine—from fifteen to twenty inches in length—and those of the Jeffrey variety of the Yellow Pine compel him to adopt a quite different method. He cuts them off without attempting to hold them, then goes down and drags them from where they have chanced to fall up to the bare, swelling ground around the instep of the tree, where he demolishes them in the same methodical way, beginning at the bottom and ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... Tao began to adopt our tactics. Without warning one day a projector from a towering eminence near the city flashed down at the river encampment. That we were not entirely destroyed was due to the extreme watchfulness of our guards, who located it immediately with their rays. As it was, we lost nearly ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... permanent relief to the workers as a class. At the end of the third year of this enterprise, the American Workman published a sympathetic account of its progress unconsciously disclosing its fatal weakness, namely, the inevitable tendency of cooperators to adopt the capitalistic view. The writer of this account quotes from these cooperators to show that "the fewer the stockholders in the ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... No! I shall make of this war a ladder, and reach glory or die and to that I am determined as never was man before. If I come back it shall be as one famous for prowess, bearing heads that I have taken, and with chiefs eager to adopt me. Thus shall I return, an eat-bush no longer nor despised, but a David who has slain his Goliath, with the multitude applauding, and the greatest of the Tuamasanga vying to give me the title ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... devil with systems!' exclaimed I; 'I will not be so foolish as wilfully to adopt the role of roue when I feel called upon to play the plain role of true lover. Let those who like play the part of Lovelace! As for myself, I will love; upon the whole, that is what pleases best.' And I jumped headlong into the torrent without ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... to save souls; he had to be about his Father's business. This short-sighted view resulted in a doctrine that was actually Jesuitical in application. They had no serious ideas upon politics, and they were ready, nay, they seemed almost bound, to adopt and support whichever ensured for the moment the greatest benefit to the souls of their fellow-men. They were dishonest in all sincerity. Thus Labitte, in the introduction to a book[61] in which he exposes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... they see you coming because they think you slop over. One fellow won't like you because you're got curly hair, and another will size you up as a stiff because you're bald. Whatever line of conduct you adopt you're bound to make some enemies, but so long as there's a choice I want you to make yours by being straightforward and just. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that every enemy you make by doing the square thing is a rascal at heart. ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... sir," said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, "that we have been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the empire at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia. We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best—conscription or the militia—we can leave to the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... of a formidable insurrection being in contemplation. At the same time they bore testimony to the alarming distress of the manufacturing classes, and assigned hunger as a natural inducement with the poor to adopt pernicious doctrines, as projects for the amelioration of their sufferings. Other depositions stated that the practice of secret training prevailed to a great extent among the reformers, but merely with a view of enabling ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... was debated, and was thus decided. It was not to be allowed that Miles's paper should be negotiated at the table in the manner that Sir Felix had attempted to adopt. But Mr Grendall pledged his honour that when they broke up the party he would apply any money that he might have won to the redemption of his I.O.U.'s, paying a regular percentage to the holders ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... religion the other way about. They take up religious duties, attend religious Meetings, sing hymns, say prayers, put on what may be called the outward things of religion. Perhaps they adopt a dress, make a profession, or assume a religious manner, and hope to grow good in the process. But really it does not work out that way. I do not say that the things are not good. Far from that; but what I want to make ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard

... Carpenter," said Woodburn, coming forward and cordially offering the other his hand; "the approbation of a man like you more than reconciles me to the course which, I confess, cost me a hard struggle to adopt." ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... "Suppose you write a little note, and I will send it up to her room." The worldly-wisdom which prompted this suggestion contemplated a possible necessity for calling a domestic council, assembled to consider the course of action which Mrs. Linley would do well to adopt. If the influence of her mother was among the forms of persuasion which might be tried, that wary relative maneuvered to make the lawyer speak first, and so to reserve to herself the advantage of having the ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... seven months Anna Hinderer continued without ceasing to teach the children, nurse those who were sick, and adopt any little girl-baby who had been deserted by her inhuman parents. Then Mr. Hinderer, after six months' illness, was stricken with yellow fever, and it became imperative that he should go to England for his health's sake. On August 1, 1856, ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... characters and events are presented under radically false colours. But we who read the drama after an interval of three centuries can afford to be less perturbed than Jacobean playgoers at its audacious juggling with facts, provided that it appeals to us in other ways. We are not likely indeed to adopt Chapman's view that the elements that give it enduring value are "materiall instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to vertue, and deflection from her contrary." For these we shall assuredly look elsewhere; it is not to them that The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois owes its distinctive charm. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... the youthful and unwary, and shoving the old and helpless, into the wrong buss, and carrying them off, until, reduced to despair, they ransomed themselves by the payment of sixpence a-head, or, to adopt his own figurative expression in all its native beauty, 'till they was rig'larly done over, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... do not think that you can do better than adopt strictly the mode of obtaining positives recommended by MR. POLLOCK, and which we printed some time since; or that pursued by DR. DIAMOND, which we have in type, but have been compelled to postpone until ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs,—your part, my part In life, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... from the 25th of January till the 19th of February, when a bill came from the Senate providing for the admission of Maine into the Union, but containing a rider authorizing the people of Missouri to adopt a State constitution, etc., without restrictions respecting slavery. The bill providing for the admission of Maine had passed the House during the early days of the session, and now returned to the House for concurrence in the rider. The ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... gloomy one. If you can rationally adopt a cheerfuller, pray, do it. I do not wish for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... must out of courtesy to his hostess accept thankfully whatever she places before him. Any other course of conduct would be an affront. It now however becomes his personal property and he can adopt whichever of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... how can I advise you beyond saying that the only thing to do is to wait until Nicholas Forrester comes home. He is your husband and rightful guardian, and if you love him you know what course to adopt. Even if—if what your mother says is a fact, he has not injured you knowingly, at all events. You say he has been all that is kind and good. Well, that is all that concerns you! A man's ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres

... sciences in the University; a summons I readily accepted, since I hoped, by the study of a volcanic soil, to enlarge my knowledge of the globe's formation. Such in fact was the case, but to my surprise my researches led me to adopt the views I had formerly combated, and I now find myself in the ranks of the Vulcanists, or believers in the secondary origin of the earth: a view you may remember I once opposed with all the zeal of inexperience. Having firmly established every point in my argument according to the Baconian ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... feelings, reason, and sense entirely disapprove, is now very clear to me. I therefore write this to inform you that I am not willing on any account to see you again. Neither will I by any course you can adopt be prevailed upon to view the matter in a different light from what I now do. I leave you the alternative of forever preventing the public avowal of a disgraceful transaction, of which you yourself said you ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... temporis acti earnest within me yet, and strong. Nowadays, as it seems to me, there is but little originality of character in the still famous University; a dread of eccentric reputation appears to pervade College and Hall: every 'Oxford man,' to adopt the well-known name, is subdued into sameness within and without, controlled as it were into copyism and mediocrity by the smoothing-iron of the nineteenth century. Whereas in my time and before it there were distinguished names, famous in every ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... scare the cattle and drive them off. Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing, and, what is more, no man dare meddle with them. The sole remedy open to Mr. Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this course he will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured that the life of his bailiff will not be worth ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... diet of bread and water, and an enforced retirement to bed. He spent the remainder of the day in loudly-expressed expostulation and lamentation. On the Sunday (after a consultation with his mother) I decided to adopt a home treatment of kindness, which I trusted would prevent the necessity of calling in our family doctor. I give the remainder of the case in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various

... he had, I should have petitioned to bring them up and adopt them as my own. Poor children, when their mother died, their situation was indeed melancholy. Helpless orphans of ten and scarcely twelve, cast on a strange land, without one single friend to whom they could look for succour or protection. My heart bled for them, and never once have I regretted ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... Myanma Naingngandaw former: Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma note: since 1989 the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a conventional name for their state; this decision was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... hawk-nosed, high-cheek-boned professor," of part of whose Christmas Eve's discourse he proceeds to give the substance. The professor takes it for granted that "plainly no such life was liveable," and goes on to inquire what explanation of the phenomena of the life of Christ it were best to adopt. Not that it mattered much, "so the idea be left the same." Taking the popular story, for convenience sake, and separating all extraneous matter from it, he found that Christ was simply a good man, with an honest, true heart; ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... forwarded to Olaf, by Gudbrand's younger son at the head of 700 armed men; but did not terrify Olaf with it, who, on the contrary, drew up his troops, rode himself at the head of them, and began a speech to the Bonders, in which he invited them to adopt Christianity, as the one true ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... possessed a noble, glowing, generous heart, a superior mind, and a frank, pleasing gayety of spirits. The young girl, brought up with him, loved him as an unfortunate creature can love, who, dreading cruel ridicule, is obliged to hide her affection in the depths of her heart, and adopt reserve and deep dissimulation. She did not seek to combat her love; to what purpose should she do so? No one would ever know it. Her well known sisterly affection for Agricola explained the interest she took in all that concerned him; so that no one was surprised at the extreme ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... it is impossible to adopt either the mode of treatment by the adherent or the unadherent eschar, it is of great utility to apply the caustic first and then a cold poultice made without lard or oil: this plan is particularly useful in cases of punctured ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom

... but would a garland cull For thee who art so beautiful? O happy pleasure! here to dwell Beside thee in some heathy dell; Adopt your homely ways, and dress, A shepherd, thou a shepherdess! But I could frame a wish for thee More like a grave reality: Thou art to me but as a wave Of the wild sea; and I would have Some claim upon ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... of the year in which the vessel sank, a gentleman, named Tracey, living in the neighborhood, by means of diving-machines, ascertained the position and state of the ship, and made proposals to government to adopt means of raising her and getting her again afloat. After a great many vexatious delays and interruptions on the part of those who were to have supplied him with assistance, he succeeded in getting ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... gives no sign. I might be the Great Father—from the way he takes everything." She was delighted at this hit of her identity with that personage—it fitted so her character; she declared it was the title she meant henceforth to adopt. "And the way he sits, too, in the corner of my room, only looking at my visitors very hard and as if he wanted to start something! They wonder what he does want to start. But he's wonderful," Miss Barrace once more insisted. "He ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... Houses, who were appointed to consider 'what measures it may be proper for the Legislature of this Commonwealth to adopt, in the expression of their sentiments and views, relative to the interesting subject, now before Congress, of interdicting slavery in the New States, which may be admitted into the Union, beyond the River Mississippi,' respectfully ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... soldier should train his own horse, will be made easy by the introduction of the Rarey system. Country horse-breakers are too ignorant, too prejudiced, and too much interested in keeping up a mystery that gives them three months employment, instead of three weeks, to adopt it. The reform will probably commence in the ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... and subjective sense, then, work is the disparaging term and play the eulogistic one. All who feel the dignity and importance of the things of the imagination, need not hesitate to adopt the classification which designates them as play. We point out thereby, not that they have no value, but that their value is intrinsic, that in them is one of the sources of all worth. Evidently all values must be ultimately intrinsic. The useful is good because ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... to whether the act of revenge should take precisely the same form of ambush. For had the mountain code of ethics been explained to him—that what was fair for one was fair for the other; that the brave man could not fight the coward who shot from the brush and must, therefore, adopt the coward's methods; that thus the method of ambush had been sanctioned by long custom—he still could never have understood how a big, burly, kind-hearted man like Jason Hawn could have been brought even to tolerance of ambush by environment, public sentiment, private policy, custom, ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... of hundred yards apart, thickly dotting the country in all directions, while watch-towers are seen perched on peaks and points of vantage, the whole scene speaking eloquently of the extraordinary precautions these poor people were compelled to adopt for the preservation of their lives and property. No wonder Russian intrigue makes headway in Khorassan and all along the Turco-inan-Perso frontier, for the people can scarcely help being favorably impressed by the stoppage of Turcoman deviltry in their midst, and the wholesale liberation ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... extreme personal freedom could they have sprung up; and as little in any where men did not know how to use this freedom with moderation and self-restraint, could they long have been endured. It was comparatively easy to adopt the word; but the ill success of the 'club' itself everywhere save here where it is native, has shown that it was not so easy to transplant or, having transplanted, to acclimatize the thing. While we have lent this and other ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... of this period had two very marked effects on my opinions and character. In the first place, they led me to adopt a theory of life, very unlike that on which I had before acted, and having much in common with what at that time I certainly had never heard of, the anti-self-consciousness theory of Carlyle. I never, indeed, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... before found herself in the company of such a completely grown-up and such a very pretty girl. Nora could give herself little airs when occasion required. She could put on rather a killing grown-up sort of would-be society manner. She never dared adopt it when Guy and Harry were near, but she contrived to get Annie away by herself, and then indulged in what the other ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... course best to adopt was hard to determine, but they began a guarded departure from the spot, stepping as carefully and ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... in the postscript to Polycarp's Epistle. The letters of which he speaks could afford to wait until some one happened to be travelling to Syria; and then, it is suggested, he might take them along with him. If we adopt the reading to be found in the Latin version, and which, from internal evidence, we may judge to be a true rendering of the original, we are, according to the interpretation which must be given to it by the advocates of the Ignatian Epistles, involved in hopeless ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. For my part, I find it impossible to conceive that any one believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of any weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice. It is the business of the speculative philosopher to mark the proper ends of government. It is the business of the politician, who is the philosopher in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ them ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... with a telescope, except in the criminal classes. There are no Pharisees there, God be praised! For my part, I see both sides of every question that was ever asked, and usually—don't you think?—both of them are right. I first adopt my point of view and subsequently prove it. Obviously, this is where the pickings come in. My grandfather started this paper on two hundred and fifty dollars, fifty dollars of which, I have heard, was his own. I could knock off for life as an idle member of the predatory classes, I suppose, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed the garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen or fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants, ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained in the country districts, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... forbade taking general vengeance for the misdeeds of particular people, stands out strongly in the conduct of Laperouse. He acknowledged in letters written from Botany Bay, that in future relations with uncivilised folk he would adopt more repressive measures, as experience taught him that lack of firm handling was by them regarded as weakness. But his tone in all his writings is ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... her escape. He made himself quite charming in their brief interview, but liberty is sweet. Finding a friend unexpectedly in this quarter of the world, I have made every arrangement with him; he is a great master of disguises, and, though the travelling costume which I shall adopt will make me look hideous, I hope it will enable me, before sunrise, to pass a private ford, known to my friend alone, and reach the opposite bank ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... part of his very art as a warrior. He wished to strike, to rouse; and here the extraordinary is ever more effective than the ordinary. It was the same design which made the otherwise generous, tender Wendell Phillips adopt a personal mode of warfare in his struggle against slavery with a bitterness almost Mephistophelian. And the same purpose made Turgenef, against the dictates of his muse, choose strange characters for his sketches. Both Phillips ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... an air of finality, "I will make one concession. I will adopt any method of restitution he may prefer. But it must be by direct dealing between Mackenzie and myself, with Drummond present as well as Mr. Taylor, president of the Trust Company, who is now also in New York. ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... estimation of the See Apostolic if this course is persisted in. You see in what dangerous times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course he now pursues will drive the King to adopt remedies which are injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the King's mind."[586] On one occasion Clement confessed that, though the Pope was supposed to carry the papal laws locked up in his breast, Providence had not vouchsafed him the key wherewith ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... workers of the "profession." Like the class just mentioned, they enter buildings by means of false keys. They adopt a thoroughly systematic course, which requires the combined efforts of several persons, and consequently they operate in parties of three and four. They first make the safe so fast to the floor, by means of clamps, that it will resist any degree of pressure. Then they ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... Tummell so big and strong, from one to five pounds, and so scarce, while those in Loch Awe are numerous and small? One occasionally sees examples of how quickly trout will increase in weight, and what curious habits they will adopt. In a county of south- western Scotland there is a large village, populated by a keenly devoted set of anglers, who miss no opportunity. Within a quarter of a mile of the village is a small tarn, very picturesquely situated among low hills, and provided with the very tiniest feeder and outflow. There ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... it so; but from the volumes which have been recently written on diet and digestion, we might gather the alarming information that nearly every thing we eat is pernicious. Far be it from me to adopt such a discouraging theory. My object is rather to point out what is good, than to stigmatize what is bad—to afford the patient, if I can, the means of comfort and enjoyment, and not to tell him of his sufferings, or of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... be justified in taking such a step? Mrs. George Brattle had told him that people knew what was good for them without being dictated to by clergymen; and the rebuke had come home to him. He was the last man in the world to adopt a system of sacerdotal interference. "I could do it so much better if I was not a clergyman," he would say to himself. And then, if old Brattle chose to turn his daughter out of the house, on such provocation ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... a forcible representation to the Bombay Government in this strong case, they will adopt the measure if they have the power, or ask the power from the supreme Government; and I think the supreme Government will give it. I would say a special Commission for the trial of commitments under XXX. of 1836, and XXIV. of 1843, or a special Commission for the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... of the readers for Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, and that it had been his duty some time ago to decide unfavourably against a story which I had submitted to the notice of his firm, but that he had intended to write to me a private note urging me to adopt literature as a profession. His principal object in writing at that time was to suggest my trying the fortunes of the novel which he had already read with Messrs. Routledge, and he kindly added a letter of introduction to that firm in the Broadway—an introduction ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... said I could easily procure a dug out and refused to express anything but the paddles. I even thought of sending my horse, but father said that would scare Mrs. Neal to death, as she was expecting a visitor and had not offered to adopt me. I understand you have a fine saddle mare; I shall ride her and you can ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... characteristic peculiarity of organization," we have a definition which will compel us to neglect altogether the amount of difference between any two forms, and to consider only whether the differences that present themselves are permanent. The rule, therefore, I have endeavoured to adopt is, that when the difference between two forms inhabiting separate areas seems quite constant, when it can be defined in words, and when it is not confined to a single peculiarity only, I have considered such forms to be species. When, however, the individuals of each locality vary ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... through shortly before the battle of Diamond Hill. In February, 1901, another conference for peace was held at Middelburg in the Transvaal between Lord Kitchener and L. Botha, who after parleying for a fortnight, abruptly broke off the negotiations. If, as seems probable, he was led to adopt that course by the news of the escape of De Wet from the Cape Colony, a historical parallel may be found in the sudden dissolution of the Congress of Vienna, when the courier brought the news of Napoleon's escape ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... a new Army Bill, and, above all, the prospect of the triumph of Boulangist militarism in France, kept the Continent in a state of tension for many months. In May, Katkoff nearly succeeded in persuading the Czar to dismiss de Giers and adopt a warlike policy, in the belief that a strong Cabinet was about to be formed at Paris with Boulanger as the real motive power. After a long ministerial crisis the proposed ministerial combination broke down; Boulanger was shelved, and the Czar is believed to have ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... Randolph, her chosen instrument for these occasions, to tamper with various party-leaders, while Sussex, whose character inclined him more to measures of coercion, exhorted her to put an end to her irresolution and throw the sword into the scale of Lenox. She at length found reason to adopt this counsel; and the earl, re-entering Scotland with his army, laid waste the lands and took or destroyed the castles ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... according to the account of the interpreter, each was absolutely ignorant of what the other said. They were of hostile tribes, brought together by the influence of the American government; and it is worthy of remark, that a common policy led them both to adopt the same subject. They mutually exhorted each other to be of use in the event of the chances of war throwing either of the parties into the hands of his enemies. Whatever may be the truth, as respects the root and the genius of the Indian tongues, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the girl, and by her strong sense of the necessity of immediate operations, that he proceeded at once to make preparations for the journey. They would seem to have discussed the dress she ought to wear, and Jeanne decided for many obvious reasons to adopt the costume of a man—or rather boy. She must, one would imagine have been tall, for no remark is ever made on this subject, as if her dress had dwarfed her, which is generally the case when a woman assumes the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... had such a kind, fatherly manner toward me, that I fell in love with him at once. I believe I'd be glad to have him adopt me if he was badly in want of another daughter about my age," she added, with a ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... be remarked that if the Iowa farmer, who gets his results by the use of machinery, was to adopt also the intensive practice of the Bavarian farmer, he would secure at once the greatest efficiency per acre and per man, and that is the true purpose ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... does not begin with the words I think or I know, but with the statement "I believe." "Belief" is used in various senses, but here it means the assent of the mind and heart to the doctrines expressed in the Creed. When we repeat the form we declare that we accept and adopt all the statements which it covers. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... Parnell found that the British Parliament insisted upon turning a deaf ear to Ireland's claim for justice. He resolved to adopt the simple yet masterly device of preventing Parliament doing any work at all until ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... for persons of this class to adopt the son of a relative or stranger. And when the infirmities of age render such persons unfit for toil, the youth whom they brought up, and who is now by his labor repaying their early attentions to him, should, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... I know it!" returned Jim, with masculine candour. "You have done quite enough mischief for the time, old chap, and had better lie low until things have blown over. I've a great deal too much respect for Maud, to suggest that she should adopt you as her lover the moment you are dropped by Lilias. Wait a year or two until you have made your position, and then come down and ask ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... rag rolled two or three times round the temples, and leaving the crown bare. But the natives of Hindustan, and even their descendants to the second and third generation, always wear the jamah, or long muslin robe, out of doors, though in the house they adopt the Bengali custom. The author of the Kholasat-al Tow[a]rikh, (an historical work,) says that both men and women formerly went naked; and no doubt he is right, for they can hardly be said to do otherwise now." Such are the peasants of Bengal—a race differing from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... are colored with beautifully soft vegetable dyes. Among Inca ruins one may find small stone mortars, in which the primitive pigments were ground and mixed with infinite care. Although the modern Indian still prefers the product of hand looms, he has been quick to adopt the harsh aniline dyes, which are not only easier to secure, but produce more ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... price as would justify his committing murder; furthermore, the presence of the unfortunate Jewess in the case was not accounted for by the ingenious narrative of Hi Wing Ho. I was standing staring at him and wondering what course to adopt, when yet again my restless door-bell clamoured ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... done "en plein jour," and with the whole establishment awake and active; the noise of mopping, scrubbing, and polishing, which is eternally going forward in a foreign inn amply testified there was nothing which I could adopt in my present naked and forlorn condition, save the bizarre and ridiculous dress of the postillion, and I need not say the thought of so doing presented nothing agreeable. I looked from the narrow window out upon the tiled ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... veriest jot or tittle of their much prized provincial liberty for any amount of protection. And if they rejected this plan—a very mild and harmless plan, ministers were bound to think—it was not likely they could be induced, in time of peace, to adopt any plan that might be thought adequate in England. Such a plan, for example, was that prepared by the Board of Trade, by which commissioners appointed by the governors were empowered to determine the military establishment and to apportion the expense of maintaining it among the several colonies ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker



Words linked to "Adopt" :   pick out, take in, abide by, adoptive, latch on, adhere, writing, dramatise, comply, seize on, take on, change, stick, re-assume, dramatize, borrow, espouse, have, adoptee, penning, indite, composition, adopter, hook on, accept, select, take up



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