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Adoption   Listen
noun
Adoption  n.  
1.
The act of adopting, or state of being adopted; voluntary acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child.
2.
Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.
3.
The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adoption" Quotes from Famous Books



... hierarchy, they could no longer remain inactive. Bribed by the delusive promise of Sir Henry Vane, and Marshall, the parliamentary commissioners, that the church of England should be reformed, according to the word of God, which, they fondly believed, amounted to an adoption of presbytery, they agreed to send succours to their brethren of England. Alexander Lesly, who ought to have ranked among the contented subjects, having been raised by the king to the honours of Earl of Leven, was, nevertheless, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... is a science. It necessitates a thorough comprehension of each work, a lucid insight into the tendencies of the age, the adoption of a system, and faith in fixed principles—that is to say, a scheme of jurisprudence, a summing-up, and a verdict. The critic is then a magistrate of ideas, the censor of his time; he fulfils a sacred function; while in the former case he is but an acrobat who turns ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... had not contaminated many of the American officers and troops—whether Washington was popular with the army, and what means might be employed to induce the men to desert. To these various interrogatories, some of which were perplexing, Champe answered warily; exciting, nevertheless, hopes that the adoption of proper measures to encourage desertion, would probably bring off hundreds of the American soldiers, including some of the best troops, horse as well as foot. Respecting the fate of Andre, he said he was ignorant, though there appeared to be a general wish ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... envoys watched the coast disappear in the haze of evening with mingled feelings of regret and relief. For twelve weary years Gallatin had labored disinterestedly for the land of his adoption and now he was recrossing the ocean to the home of his ancestors with the taunts of his enemies ringing in his ears. Would the Federalists never forget that he was a "foreigner"? He reflected with a sad, ironic smile that as a "foreigner ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... of simplicity and to unity of effect. He came at a moment when constructive problems had been solved, when mechanical means were perfected, and when the sister arts had reached their highest point. His early training in Lombardy accustomed him to the adoption of clustered piers instead of single columns, to semicircular apses and niches, and to the free use of minor cupolas—elements of design introduced neither by Brunelleschi nor by Alberti into the Renaissance style of Florence, but which were ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... Spirit, we no longer think of God as if we were serving under constraint and bondage but we are sons living in joyous liberty. We do not fear God, we trust Him and rejoice in Him. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we do not receive a Spirit of bondage again to fear but a Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Rom. viii. 15). This name of the Holy Spirit is one of the most suggestive of all. We do well to ponder it long until we realize the glad fullness of its significance. We shall take it ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey

... that existed between all Colonel Coleridge's children, and concentrated itself upon the only sister among them, made marriage with her an adoption into a group that could not fail to exercise a strong influence on all connected with it, and the ties of kindred will be found throughout this memoir to have had ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... but till they be advanced far beyond their present station, let no false hopes be excited that the moment of their liberation is at hand. Many measures for their improvement have been adopted since the year 1814, and many more are in daily process of adoption; but it is greatly to be apprehended that much of the benefit which these measures promised to bring about, has been obstructed by the indiscreet zeal of those who profess, and probably feel, the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... an independent State. The parish assembly is convoked by the priest, M. Carion, who is appointed member of the administrative committee and of the new military staff. In full session he secures the adoption of a complete code, political, judiciary, penal and military, consisting of sixty articles. Nothing is overlooked; we find ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... necessities of everyday life, and few seemed able to see that a grand and beautiful future was coming to the new territory. The university secured its charter in 1868, but it was not until the adoption of the new constitution in 1879 that it was placed on a firm basis which could not be ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... offices.[160] And it can be established on the best of all authority—Knox's own testimony—that he neither approved of nor was willing to conform to the communion office. Then no sooner was he beyond the restraint of English law than he proposed for adoption in his congregation, first at Frankfort and then at Geneva, the form ultimately adopted in Scotland after his ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... other. They keep his ordinances, and grow in grace, in knowledge, and in numbers. They may take one step farther. Since this last sentence was written, the converted Nestorians have proceeded even to the adoption of a ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... Though this adoption was below the son of a grand vizier, Buddir ad Deen was glad to accept of the pastry-cook's proposal, judging it the best thing he could do, considering his circumstances. The cook clothed him, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... the Constitution toward question of suffrage qualifications. Effect of Civil War amendments. Growth of woman suffrage movement and adoption of Suffrage Amendment. How far the amendment constitutes a federal encroachment on state power. Effect of woman suffrage on questions ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson

... machinery, in the old phrase, of a poet becomes obsolete, though when he used it, it had vitality enough to be a vehicle for his ideas. The imitative tendency described by Bagehot clearly tends to preserve the old, as much as to facilitate the adoption of a new form. In fact, to create a really original and new form seems to exceed the power of any individual, and the greatest men must desire to speak to their own contemporaries. It is only by degrees that the inadequacy of the traditional ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... either of these positions. The rule which prescribes as a qualification for a witness the belief in a Supreme Being who will punish falsehood, without which he is deemed wholly incompetent to testify, is established for the protection of personal rights, and not to compel the adoption of any system of religious belief. It came with all our fundamental principles from England as a part of the common law which the colonists brought with them. It is supposed to prevail in every country in Christendom, whatever may be the form of its government; and the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... might tend to throw it into disrepute, so the whole question was dropped for the space of seven years. Queen Constance, in this interval, carried on a quiet campaign which she hoped would lead eventually to the adoption of the much discussed and twice rejected liturgy, and at no time did she give up her hope. Rome, to her narrow mind, must reign supreme in matters spiritual if the kingdom of Spain was to have relations with the kingdom of heaven, and she did ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... prevailed, in one form or another, in England, Germany, Italy and France before the war, it is possible to give doctrinaires a relatively free rein, for even if they succeed in converting the mob to their whim-wham, there remain insuperable impediments to its adoption and execution as law. In England, as every one knows, the impediment was a ruling caste highly skilled in the governmental function and generally trusted by a majority of the populace—a ruling caste firmly intrenched in the House of Lords and scarcely less powerful ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... increased loads of goods to be transported is the fact that man power must be conserved. Heretofore the farmer has done his own hauling to market, but adoption of the rural motor express will enable him to delegate his hauling and to devote his own time to farm operations. An enormous waste of time and labor of both men and teams can be prevented by consolidating the small loads from a number of farms into a single load to be carried by ...
— The Rural Motor Express - Highway Transport Commitee Council of National Defence, Bulletins No. 2 • US Government

... involved more or less in the fortunes of the Earl of Tyrone, who wielded sovereign power over this portion of Ulster. The plantation scheme was said to be the work of the Privy Council of Ireland, and submitted by them for the adoption of the English Government. It was part of the plan that all the lands escheated in each county should be divided into four parts, whereof two should be subdivided into proportions consisting of about 1,000 acres a piece; a third part ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... lend him all that they possessed; for they fondly hoped that, if he succeeded, they should be restored to the country of their birth; and they feared that, if he failed, they should scarcely be safe even in the country of their adoption. [454] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... upon my hereditary, if not my native heath; and you are, at most, Frenchmen by adoption. That ancestry whose deeds will live when the present poor representative of its name is departed drew from this martial land its blood ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... steeling myself to the adoption of an equally cold manner of speech; "I think I understand your wishes in this matter, and will endeavour to carry them out; if the strangers yonder can be induced to take us both out of the hands of these ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... boy. Strong in the prejudices of the class among whom she had been born and reared, she looked upon the new machinery as an invention of the evil one to ruin the working classes, and had been deeply grieved at Ned's adoption of its use. Nothing but the trouble in which he was could have compelled her to keep her opinion ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... CHILDREN.—A very beneficent action is now required by law in Germany and Switzerland, by which holidays are obligatory in all public and private schools when the temperature reaches a certain height. These heat-holidays are called hitzlenien, and are worthy of adoption in other schools. In Basle new regulations have just been issued concerning heat-holidays. When the temperature rises to seventy-seven degrees in the shade at ten o'clock in the morning, holiday is to be proclaimed ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various

... pilgrimage of the children of Israel. And is not Peter's saying the same as Paul's, in his picture of the suffering creation: "But ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8: 23). Not yet have we reached the consummation of our hope, at the "appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2: 13, R. V.); but the Spirit, through whose inworking ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... operations; the other, George Sabellicus, expressly named himself Faustus Junior, also Faustus Minor. Both were celebrated necromancers and astrologers, who probably availed themselves of the advantage derived from the adoption of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... skinful of pride! look out!" cried Maikar, rendering the adoption of his own advice impossible by thrusting the butt of his staff against the scout's nose, and thereby filling his eyes with water. At the next moment he rendered him still more helpless by bestowing a whack on his crown which laid him flat on ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... to suspect the existence of a plot against him, has recently fallen on a new style, which, as being very difficult to countermine, may necessitate the organisation of a new conspiracy. One of his masterly letters, lately, disclosed the adoption of this style—which was remarked with profound sensation throughout Tattlesnivel—in the following passage: "Mentioning literary small talk, I may tell you that some new and extraordinary rumours are afloat concerning the conversations I have previously ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... eyes must have been this sunny view of the land of their adoption! How must their hearts have leaped within them as they pressed for the first time its shores, and heard once more the sound of the church-going bell, and kneeled in gratitude before that type of salvation ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... he said; "don't tetch it. You'll break a rule. No member of the family—an' that means me an' you, for we can claim kin by adoption, if not by blood—no member is allowed to do dirty work o' any sort. Ben never allowed it, an' Het says the same rule must hold. She says it would spile the help an' git 'em out o' the right sort o' habits. She told me to whistle whenever I wanted a thing done, and ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... unfortunately for him, the word, having been in possession of the field before the process was understood, has been adopted merely because displacing it by another word seemed impracticable. And this adoption of it has been joined with a caution against misunderstandings arising from its unfitness. Here is a part of the caution:—"Evolution has other meanings, some of which are incongruous with, and some even ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... which Giotto has dwelt with so great force, represents, not the child's assertion of his independence, but his adoption ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... mild eyes, and the sunny smiles of this young Indian beauty. As she approached them, the grim old warriors regarded her with pleasure, for they had a secret pride in the hope of engrafting so rare a scion on the stock of their own nation; adoption being as regularly practised, and as distinctly recognized among the tribes of America, as it ever had been among those nations that submit to the sway ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... architecture; but it is now agreed, that this stile is Saracen rather than Gothic; and, I suppose, it was first imported into England from Spain, great part of which was under the dominion of the Moors. Those British architects who adopted this stile, don't seem to have considered the propriety of their adoption. The climate of the country, possessed by the Moors or Saracens, both in Africa and Spain, was so exceedingly hot and dry, that those who built places of worship for the multitude, employed their talents in contriving ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... returned to slavery by the Courts. An owner of slaves in Mississippi brought them voluntarily into California before the adoption of the Constitution by the State. The slaves asserted their freedom and for some months were engaged in business for themselves. The owner under the provision of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1852 brought ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... organized another convention in St. Andrew's Hall. Their business was of course to report substantially the platform rejected by the Douglas men, and for the rejection of which they had retired. Mr. Yancey then explained to them that the adoption of this platform was all the action they proposed to take until the "rump democracy" should make their nomination, when, he said, "it may be our privilege to indorse the nominee, or our duty to proceed to make a nomination." Other ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... had sold his patrimonial estates in Corsica for a sum of money—enough to have enabled him to live without labour in any country, but particularly in that free land of cheap food and light taxation—the land of his adoption. He was, therefore, under no necessity of following any trade or profession in his new home—and he followed none. How then did he employ his time? I will tell you. He was an educated man. Previous to his entering the French army he had studied the natural sciences. He was a naturalist. A ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... Bethlehem. A plea for the world-wide adoption of the spirit of the Angels' song—"Good-will to Men." The context and import of this great principle has never been more understandingly ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... presume that any among us are equipped with that knowledge of other tongues, which shall enable us to detect of ourselves and at once the nationality of all or most of the words which we may meet—some of them greatly disguised, and having undergone manifold transformations in the process of their adoption among us; but only that we have such helps at command in the shape of dictionaries and the like, and so much diligence in their use, as will enable us to discover the quarter from which the words we may encounter ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... again at Springfield, at which the party's platform was laid, and a committee, of which Lincoln was a member, was appointed to prepare an "Address to the People of Illinois." In this address the convention system was earnestly defended. Against this rapid adoption of the abominated system many of the Whigs protested, and Lincoln found himself supporting before his constituents the tactics he had once warmly opposed. In a letter to his friend John Bennett of Petersburg, written in March, 1843, and now ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... poor old woman nearly eighty years old. She is infirm and partially blind. She has a little grandson, and she has no means with which to take care of him. We hope to persuade her to give him to us, and let us find a good home, by adoption, for him." ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... style, Mrs. Pimble moved the adoption of the resolutions, vouchsafing no word of comment on the impertinent interruption. A brawling, discordant shout of "Ay—ay—ay," in every possible variety of tones, from a swarm of boisterous boys and ranting rowdies, was declared ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... and influence necessarily brought them into connection with the ruling powers; and as the language of the camp, it was carried into every part of the country where the duties of the soldiery sooner or later conducted them; the result of which relations between the conquerors and conquered was the adoption into the popular dialects of India of an infinity of modern Persian words, not merely those of science, such as it exists in the East, and of luxury and refinement, but even those which serve to ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... friendship was sought by an Indian chief, Wawatam. Between these two men a remarkable attachment developed. They became brothers by mutual adoption. At this time the fort was garrisoned by ninety British regulars. One day, outside the walls on the surrounding plateau, several hundred savages were encamped, ostensibly for purposes of trade, some of them killing time by playing the Indian game of ball—the baggatiway ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... quite on that line. She was only one of Boothbay's fairest daughters by adoption, havin' drifted in from some mill town—Biddeford, I think it was—where a weaver's strike had thrown her out of a job. She was half Irish and half French-Canadian, and, accordin' to Ira's description, she was ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... humanity, resolved to unite their exertions to endeavour to save the prisoner's life, by offering a ransom to the war-chief, which he, however, refused, because he said it was an established rule among them, that when a prisoner, who had been given as a present, was refused adoption, he was irrevocably doomed to the stake, and it was not in the power of any one to save his life. The two generous Englishmen, however, were not discouraged, and determined to try a last effort. They well ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... still largely those of a century earlier. Slow preparation of the steel by cementation or in crucibles meant a disproportionate consumption of fuel and a resulting high cost. Production in small quantities prevented the adoption of steel in uses which required large initial masses of metal. Steel was, in ...
— The Beginnings of Cheap Steel • Philip W. Bishop

... government. Nor do we know, bad as our condition is rapidly getting to be, strong as are the tendencies to social dissolution, and to the abuses which demand force to subdue, that anything would be gained by the adoption of any substitute for the present polity of the country to be found in Europe. The abuses there are possibly worse than our own, and the only question would seem to be as to the degree of suffering ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper

... Mrs. ——— mentioned the origin of Franklin's adoption of the customary civil dress, when going to court as a diplomatist. It was simply that his tailor had disappointed him of his court suit, and he wore his plain one with great reluctance, because he had no other. Afterwards, gaining great success and praise by his ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... proposal on the 17th of April; the Tenure and Improvement of Land (Ireland) Bill, on which he spoke at length and with force on the 17th of May, then practically initiating the movement in favor of land-reform, which he partly helped to enforce in part with regard to Ireland, and for the more complete adoption of which in England he labored to the last; the Jamaica outbreak, and the conduct of Governor Eyre, on which he spoke on the 31st of July; and the electoral disabilities of women, which he first brought within the range of practical politics by moving, on the 20th of July, for a return ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... a full conviction that the infant system will flourish most where I once least expected its adoption: I mean in Scotland, because of the high importance attached to the essential qualifications of teachers, and because of the attention and ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... of the engines by which Great Britain intended to enforce the submission of the colonies, nothing could be more conducive to the excitement of this passion than the co-operation of the Indians. Policy, not cruelty, led to the adoption of this expedient, but it was of that over refined species which counteracts itself. In the competition for the friendship of the Indians, the British had advantages far superior to any possessed by the colonists. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... PHYSICIAN IN CONFINEMENT CASES.—The physician should be notified just as soon as it is known that labor has begun. The adoption of this course is necessary for a number of reasons. It is only just that he should have an opportunity to arrange his work so that he may be at liberty to give his whole time to your case when he is wanted. He may not be at home at the moment, but can be notified, and can arrange to be on ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... black scorpion of Southern India," he said softly. "Its venom is the basis of the priceless formula, F. Katalepsis, upon which the structure of our Sublime Order rests, Dr. Stuart; hence the adoption of a scorpion ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... the charter of John. The barons claimed it as part of the unwritten law. But Henry III in his charter cannily dropped it out—which is a trick still played by legislatures to-day. This Magna Charta was confirmed and ratified something like thirty times between the time of its adoption under John and the time it got established so completely that it wasn't necessary to ratify it any more. There are four sections of Magna Charta that are most important. Chapter 7, the establishment of the widow's ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... surely Caxton's own foreman, who almost certainly came over to England with him. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that type No. 1 is totally unlike any type that we know of as used by a Cologne printer, and, moreover, Caxton's methods of working, and his late adoption of spacing and signatures, point to his having learnt his art in a school of printing less advanced than that of Cologne. In the face of the statements of Caxton himself and Wynkyn de Worde, we seem bound to believe ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... Du Chaillu do those of Africa. The time is less now to Japan, and about the same to New South Wales, with both which countries we have postal conventions-i.e., a practically consolidated service—far cheaper and more convenient than that maintained on the adoption of the present Constitution between our own cities. Our foreign service with leading countries is combined, moreover, with an institution undreamed of in that day—the money-order system. Under this admirable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... realized that he had given her up, that he had turned her into ridicule, that he had said "Clotilde!" to her mother, that he had called her dear—she!—the woman she had so adored, so venerated, her best friend, her father's wife, her mother by adoption! Everything in this world seemed to be giving way under her feet. The world was full of falsehood and of treason, and life, so bad, so cruel, was no longer what she had supposed it to be. It had ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... T. M. Crawford's metrical translation of the Kalevala has been quite closely followed, even to the adoption of his Anglicised, or rather Anglo-Swedish, forms for proper names, though in some instances the original Finnish form has been reverted to. This was done reluctantly, but the actual Finnish forms would seem formidable to children in many instances, and would probably be pronounced even farther from ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind

... morning, bright and early, Mr. Hunt proposed to resume his journeying. He took a ceremonious leave of the Crow chieftain, and his vagabond warriors, and according to previous arrangements, consigned to their cherishing friendship and fraternal adoption, their worthy confederate Rose; who, having figured among the water pirates of the Mississippi, was well fitted to rise to distinction among the land ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... law by all rational beings.' But when he begins to deduce from this precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... 8; Diamonds, 6; Clubs, 4; and Spades, 2. The change was first suggested by the author, and it, therefore, seems only appropriate that he, having had the good fortune to conceive a system which has been endorsed by general adoption, should have the privilege of giving to the Auction-loving public his views upon the most advantageous methods of playing the game under the new conditions, and thus possibly help to allay the confusion created by the introduction of an ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... the past few years made rapid progress in the adoption of Western ways and Western ideals, thanks to the progressive King, and this is attracting visitors from Europe and America more and more. The country's position has kept it rather isolated; it is out of the beaten track, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck

... patiently the decision of the Councilmen, who were convening behind the closed doors of the room to their left. It was the occasion of the regular weekly meeting of the body, but the fact that the town fathers were debating the adoption of a town flag made the session the most important in the history of Woodbridge, so far as the three ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump

... the last quarter of a century, the public opinion of England has been undergoing a great change, especially that part of it which is influenced by the lower-middle class. The people have been growing up to the adoption of liberal principles of government. The Reform Bill of 1832 was a great stride in that direction; and the measures which have followed upon it have widened the observation of the masses, made the sense of political wrong quicker, and the appreciation of a free system much more vivid. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of the city. The mother with her little family, who has been left, by desertion or death, without the father's protection comes to this home and remains until she can gather up the thread of existence once more. Often she is saved from placing her children in institutions or giving them for adoption. An average of 105 women and children are cared for in the ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... Philemon Henry was becoming quite captivated with the city of his birth and his later adoption. And as he began to understand Madam Wetherill's views for his own future as well as that of his cousin, he was amazed at her generosity. "Nay, it is not simple generosity," she declared with great vigor. "There is no reason why you two should ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... to their great abilities, advantages seldom found united in the same man. From the study this history we may also learn how a good government is to be established; for while all the emperors who succeeded to the throne by birth, except Titus, were bad, all were good who succeeded by adoption; as in the case of the five from Nerva to Marcus. But so soon as the empire fell once more to the heirs by birth, its ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... the cost to the North of two hundred days of war, to be allotted among those States in proportion to the property in slaves which each had lost. One half of this sum was to be paid at once if the war ended by April 1, and the other half upon the final adoption of the Constitutional Amendment. It would have been a happy thing if the work of restoring peace could have lain with a statesman whose rare aberrations from the path of practical politics were of this kind. Yet, considering the natural passions which even in ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... of the Conference of The Hague originated in an avowed desire to obtain relief from immediate economical burdens, by the adoption of some agreement to restrict the preparations for war, and the consequent expense involved in national armaments; but before its meeting the hope of disarmament had fallen into the background, the vacant place being taken by the project of abating the remoter evils of recurrent warfare, by ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... the country of my adoption," said Westerman. "I ceased to be a German when I took up the arms of France; but my soldiers are my children, and an insult to them is ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... Mercuries but Hans-en-kelders. The Countess of Zealand was brought to bed of an almanac, as many children as days in the year. It may be the legislative lady is of that lineage, so she spawns the diurnals, and they at Westminster take them in adoption by the names of Scoticus, Civicus, Britannicus. In the frontispiece of the old Beldam diurnal, like the contents of the chapter, sitteth the House of Commons judging the twelve tribes of Israel. You may ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... answered Mr. Perkins; "but if Chester ever wants me to, I will. At present he is prosperous, and requires no help or adoption." ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr

... of authors' rights, whatever may be thought of the present position of the matter, led at a very early date to the adoption of such safeguards against plagiarism as it was in the power of specialists, at all events, to impose. Some time after its original publication in 1530, we find John Palsgrave, compiler of the Eclaircissement de la Langue ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... was almost guilty of hypocrisy in naming his nephew and his two nieces together, as though they were the joint heirs of his love. Bernard was his adopted son, and no one had begrudged to the uncle the right of making such adoption. Bernard was everything to him, and as being his heir was bound to obey him in many things. But her daughters were no more to him than any nieces might be to any uncle. He had nothing to do with their disposal in marriage; ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... in religion lay chiefly in her refinement of nature worship and in the beautiful marble forms in which Greek genius enshrined her divinities. From Greece the stream reached Italy in Magna Graecia, and later by the adoption through Roman assimilation of the gods of the Greek Pantheon. The worship of Isis and Osiris came from Egypt to Rome, and became an influential cult there, as witness the abounding symbols of that worship still preserved ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell

... humble relatives, dazzled by this opportunity, began secretly to consider the favor as almost equivalent to his adoption as a son. (The Baron had once been married, but his wife and only child had long been dead.) The old man, of course, came to look upon the growing intelligence of the youth as his own work: vanity and affection became inextricably blended in ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... image-worship has been abolished. Do you know that Moses is considered by the Church as no better than a heretic, and though, for particular reasons, it has been obliged to adopt his writings, the adoption was merely a sham one, as it never paid the slightest attention to them? No, no, the Church was never led by Moses, nor by one mightier than he, whose doctrine it has equally nullified—I allude to Krishna in his second ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... and have often inserted, from philosophical writers, words which are supported perhaps only by a single authority, and which, being not admitted into general use, stand yet as candidates or probationers, and must depend for their adoption on the suffrage of futurity. The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... of course, an adoption by the Christian church of a pagan aid to worship, and at S. Mary's church, Wareham, which is thought to stand on the site of a Roman temple, are some pieces of stone considered by antiquaries to be portions of a pagan altar, on which burnt ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... only member of the family who was limited to one cognomen, so she answered unthinkingly, "Hannah; plain Hannah!" and instantly descrying the twinkling appreciation in that stranger's eyes, she twinkled herself, and henceforth led the adoption of the title. Long use had almost deadened its meaning in the ears of the family, but strangers still suffered at ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... anti-submarine measures employed, prior to the North Sea Barrage and the Zeebrugge attack, the adoption of the convoy system was undoubtedly the most effective in checking the loss of tonnage at the height of the submarine campaign. Familiar as a means of commerce protection in previous naval wars, the late adoption of the convoy system in the World War occasioned very general surprise. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... above-quoted paragraphs thus attributes the decline both of the birth-rate and of the Protestant Churches to the general adoption of artificial birth control. With that explanation I disagree, because it puts the horse behind the cart. When the Protestant faith was strong the birth-rate of this country was as high as that of Catholic lands. The Protestant Churches have now been overshadowed by a rebirth ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... consisted of a string of little cars, with the baggage piled on the roof, and when they reached a hill they sometimes had to be pulled up the inclined plane by a rope. Yet the traveling in these earliest days was probably more comfortable than in those which immediately followed the general adoption of locomotives. When, five or ten years later, the advantages of mechanical as opposed to animal traction caused engines to be introduced extensively, the passengers behind them rode through constant smoke and hot cinders that made railway travel an ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... was carried, and a committee was sent to Col. Sumner to inform him of its adoption. His answer was one to draw the hearts of the people to himself: "I knew," said he, "that you were loyal ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... years ago that they made the year ten days shorter in France.—[By the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.]—How many changes may we expect should follow this reformation! it was really moving heaven and earth at once. Yet nothing for all that stirs from its place my neighbours still find their seasons of sowing ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... Holles Secretary of State, while Lords Essex, Mandeville, and Saye and Sele occupied various posts in the administration. Foreign affairs would have been entrusted to Lord Holland, whose policy was that of alliance with Richelieu and Holland against Spain, a policy whose adoption would have been sealed by the marriage of a daughter of Charles with the Prince of Orange. With characteristic foresight Hampden sought only the charge of the Prince of Wales. He knew that the best security for freedom in the after-time would ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... middlings as possible, for they can be purified while the flour can not, and that whenever any dirt is once eliminated it should be kept out afterwards. This leads me to say that if a miller thinks the adoption of rolls or reduction machines is all there is of the system, he is very much mistaken. If anything, more of the success of the mill depends upon the careful handling of the stuff after the breaks are made, and here the miller who ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... two last-named writers was English by descent, they were both so by adoption, and the same may be said of the next author, Farquhar, who was born at Londonderry in 1678, but whose Irish characters want the charm of the pure national comicality. He was the son of a clergyman who sent him ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... from the first, the old nobleman treated him like a son. He spoke freely to him of the most private family matters, of the most important State affairs. He consulted with him, he seemed to lean upon him. He alluded often, in oblique phrase, to adoption and succession. In the castle Philip was treated as though he were in truth a high kinsman of the Duke. Royal ceremony and state were on every hand. He who had never had a servant of his own, now had a score at his disposal. He had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a general register; and every member contributes to the local funds, these again to the general: thus sufficient sums are obtained for all proper and legitimate purposes. A somewhat similar modus operandi I would advocate for our adoption: the country congregations, being relieved from all expences except those of a religious or congregational character, would be enabled to support with more honour and better remuneration the clergy—who, feeling themselves (as their education should command) ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown

... gentleman from Kentucky considered well the claim he now advances? If it were not disrespectful I would ask, has he ever read the decision which he now tells us is an insuperable barrier to the adoption of this ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passer-by. (4) No plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them into despair - if anything happens during their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza

... this point appeared a man who in an age "so uncivilized and sombre," says Pierre Robiquet, "by wonderful instinct laid down and nearly succeeded in obtaining the adoption of the essential principles on which modern society is founded—the government of the country by elected representatives, taxes voted by representatives of the taxpayers, abolition of privileges founded upon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Proclamation": "It had got to be mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy; and without consultation with, or the knowledge of, the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject.... I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, and ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... written to her aunt, Miss Humphreys, in January, 1821, arranging for the little girl's return to Trumpington Street, Cambridge, from London, where she had been spending her holidays with the Lambs. The Lambs had met her at Cambridge in the summer of 1820. The exact date of her adoption by the Lambs cannot be ascertained now. Emma Isola married Edward Moxon in 1833, and lived ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Have this right, and all will be right,—politics, religion, and all else. Slowly these truths are being unfolded to the comprehension of the human mind. Some have seen them for years; and they whose views of life have been broadened and deepened by the adoption of a spiritualistic faith, long since became familiar with them. Such are now catching glimpses of the coming light, and have the assurance that ere long will ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... unpleasant days of his life, as McTavish confessed afterwards. He was not a "conscientious objector," but he had no pressing wish to exterminate his opponent, as that would have necessitated a sudden and forcible exile from the land of his adoption; still less did he fancy an early demise in the interests ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various

... The mechanical method, that is, the adoption of measures which keep the male and the female cells apart from ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout

... head of the family, but there was early a social demand for one chief wife whose offspring should inherit the family power. Although even in this fixed demand there were loopholes of "legal fiction of adoption" by which some favorite child not of the actual line of inheritance might be given the place of honor and control. Again, if the father under the patriarchal system was the recognized economic master he was also legally held to the financial support of wife ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... forms of comedy, history, and tragedy in use on the English stage, but the elements of these were to some extent blended in the freedom and variety of the Gothic Drama. The usage also of dramatic blank-verse stood up inviting his adoption; though no one before or since has come near him in the mastery of its capabilities; his genius being an inexhaustible spring of both mental and verbal modulation. Nor can all this be justly regarded as any alleviation of his task, or any abatement of his fame. For, to work thus with ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... this stranger's ardor for the country of his adoption. I think that I appreciated better, through him, the free openness of our institutions. It is of great advantage to meet an intense man, of associations different from your own, who, by his very intensity and narrowness, instantly ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... invention of the Huns, and came to Japan through China. It had holes in the head, and the air passing through these produced a humming sound. As for the Chronicles, they are permeated by Chinese influence throughout. The adoption of the Chinese sexagenary cycle is not unnatural, but again and again speeches made by Chinese sovereigns and sages are put into the mouths of Japanese monarchs as original utterances, so that without the Records for purposes of reference and comparison, even the small measure of solid ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... once in three days for boats loaded with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The State kept its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a small minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. Accordingly, the act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the right to compel the adoption of a complete system of slack-water navigation from Easton to Stoddartsville if the service given by the company did not meet "the wants of ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... their conclusions—and yet they were undoubtedly mad. One might converse with them for an indefinite time on the three divisions of their subject without eliciting any proofs of insanity, but directly one inquired what means they proposed to employ in order to bring about the adoption of their plan, they replied that they hoped to do so by reasoning ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell



Words linked to "Adoption" :   legal proceeding, adopt, acceptance, espousal, naturalization, proceeding, acceptation, crossover, approving, blessing, appropriation, law, jurisprudence, misappropriation, naturalisation, embrace



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