Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Clear-cut   Listen
adjective
Clear-cut  adj.  
1.
Having a sharp, distinct outline, like that of a cameo. "She has... a cold and clear-cut face."
2.
Concisely and distinctly expressed.
3.
Distinct and unambiguous; unquestionable; as, a clear-cut advantage.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Clear-cut" Quotes from Famous Books



... became one-sided in their analysis and indulged in unwarrantable abstract speculations which went directly against experience. Thus if we go by experience we can neither reject the self nor the external world as some Buddhists did. Knowledge which reveals to us the clear-cut features of the external world certifies at the same time that such knowledge is part and parcel of myself as the subject. Knowledge is thus felt to be an expression of my own self. We do not ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... those strange days, already they seem remote and unreal. But, where other and more dreadful memories already are grown misty, the memory of that evening in my rooms remains clear-cut and intimate. It marked a ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... as she sat with hands loosely clasped in her lap; there was an inscrutable look upon her delicate face, upon the clear-cut features so attractively framed by her thick dark hair, brown in some lights, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... of Miss Archer to ask us to sit here?" whispered Marjorie in her friend's ear. "We have mother to thank for it. She is so dear that no one can help liking her." Marjorie looked adoring admiration at her mother's clear-cut profile. "Do you suppose anyone will mistake us ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester

... hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with clear-cut, sun-browned features ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... the leader had shown himself in seizing the salient elements of a complicated situation, and the man of affairs had found a style in which to express his clear-cut ideas. When the tide turns it rises without interruption. Buonaparte's pamphlet was scarcely written before its value was discerned; for at that moment arrived one of those legations now representing the sovereignty of the Convention in ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners there. This is the Cryptic ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... past week he had begun to wonder if she were not really a product of his own imagination. His fancy had played upon her so extravagantly that he feared he would not know her if ever they came face to face. His mental picture of her had lost all distinctness; her face was no longer clear-cut before his mind's eye, but so blurred and hazy that even to himself he could not describe ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... the man's clear-cut face—something beyond aristocratic repose—as he looked down into her eyes—something which Sir John Meredith might perhaps have liked to see there. To all men comes, soon or late, the moment wherein their lives are suddenly thrust ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... wielding the kalem. His aim was not to impart a precise regularity to the characters, but to indicate by the writing the matter and style. Proverbs or utterances of wisdom were indited by him in a firm, bold hand with unadorned simplicity; love-songs with delicate, clear-cut lines, attractive capricious curves, enigmatical, almost illegible minuteness, designed to set forth the type of female character. The chirography of the songs to wine and earthly pleasure is full of fire and flourish—that of the songs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... straight as an arrow, his shoulders squared, his slender form buttoned tightly in the gray uniform coat. The sun was upon his face, clear-cut, proud, aristocratic, and his eyes were the same gray-blue as his daughter's. Then he held out his hand and ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... gloried in Fujiyama from many a varied viewpoint. I had caught this great shrine of Japanese devotion in many of its numberless moods. I had seen it outlined against a clear-cut morning sunlight, bathed in the glory of a broadside of light fired from the open muzzle of the sun. I had seen it shrouded in white clouds; and also with black clouds breeding a storm, at even-time. ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger

... about my appearance which convinces people that, whatever evil is afoot, I, at least, am innocent. I have noticed this since boyhood, the phenomenon being most conspicuous when I was least deserving; whereas, with Alb, it is the other way round. His darkly handsome face, with its severely clear-cut features, his black hair and brows, his somber eyes, are the legitimate qualifications of the stage villain. Even the well-known cigarette is seldom lacking; therefore, if I wished for revenge, I have often had it. When I am ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... each busied with thoughts that might not be spoken, in their hearts emotions oddly at variance. The sky ahead of them was wide-streaked with gold, as if for a symbol, interlaid with sooty clouds in silhouette; on either side the mountains rose from penumbral darkness to clear-cut heights still bright from the slanting radiance. Here and there along the shadowy shore-line a light was born; the smell of the salt sea was in the air. Above the rhythmic pulse of the steamer rose the voices of men singing between ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... Forrestal doubtless hoped to pull backward branches into line with more liberal ones so that the progressive reforms of the past year would be accepted throughout the Navy. But if Forrestal's ultimate goal was plain, his failure to give clear-cut directions to his informal committee was characteristic of his handling of racial policy. He carefully followed the recommendations of the Chief of Naval Personnel, who wanted the committee to be a military group, despite having earlier expressed his ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... into a form beyond the ideal of the dreamers—a community, in the past, known but slightly to the outer world as the Red River Settlement, which is but the bygone name for the one Utopia of Britain—the clear-cut impress of an exceptional people living under conditions of excellence unthought of by themselves until they ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... well-developed organs of digestion; the loins should be short—that is, the space should be short between the last rib and the point of the hip; the head and neck should be well molded, without superfluous or useless tissue; this gives a clear-cut throat. The ears, eyes, and face should have an expression of alertness and good breeding. The muscular development should be good; the shoulders, forearms, croup, and thighs must have the appearance of strength. The withers are sharp, which means that they ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... the house. Herr Casper's unusual height permitted him to gaze over the heads of the party though, with the exception of Count von Montfort, they were all tall, nay, remarkably tall men, and the delicacy of his clear-cut, pallid, beardless face had never seemed to Els handsomer or more sinister. True, he was the father of her Wolff, but the son resembled this cold-hearted man only in his unusual stature, and a chill ran through her veins as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... classical literary criticism there is a clear-cut distinction between poetic and rhetoric. Aside from the metrical form of poetic, accepted by all but Aristotle as a distinguishing characteristic, and the non-metrical form of rhetoric, the essentially practical nature of rhetoric marked it off to the ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... both as to the final result which will be attained and as to how long it will take to reach this end, is in marked contrast to the distinct goal which is always kept in plain sight of both parties under task management, and the clear-cut directions which leave no doubt as to the means which are to be employed nor the time in which the work must be done; and these elements constitute the fundamental difference between the two systems. Mr. Halsey, in objecting ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... doorway, then paused and looked back at them. Sudden illumination came to her as she scanned their faces, the man's clear-cut, determined, eager—Carol's shy, and scared, and—hopeful. She turned quickly back toward her sister, pain darkening her eyes. Carol was the last of all the girls,—it would leave her alone,—and he was too old for her. Her lips quivered a little, ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... quiet, undemonstrative, spare little figure of at least 60 years of age. He appeared hard and fit, and showed no sign of the tremendous strain he had already undergone. On the contrary, he was smart and dapper, and looked like the light-weight horseman he is. His clear-cut face and small, regular features, denoted descent from the old noblesse, and he struck me in his bright tunic as one who might be most fittingly imaged in a piece of old Dresden china; but added to all this was the bearing of ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... restlessly on her poor couch, while Maggie crouched on a box at the foot. Mr. Leonard had not seen her for five years, and he was shocked at the change in her. She was much wasted; her clear-cut, aquiline features had been of the type which becomes indescribably witch-like in old age, and, though Naomi Clark was barely sixty, she looked as if she might be a hundred. Her hair streamed over the pillow in white, uncared-for tresses, and ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... regained my momentarily disturbed composure, and was studying the face of the man before me. It was a fine face, clear-cut, that of a clean liver, unmarked by sensuality, unharmed by wine, keen of intelligence, resolute of will. I could no longer deem him a madman. But I saw I had to do with one so filled with fanaticism that he could look upon murder as religion, plan it without ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... is your chief concern. In the case of some lectures it is an easy matter. The lecturer may place the outline in your hands beforehand, may present it on the black-board, or may give it orally. Some lecturers, too, present their material in such clear-cut divisions that the outline is easily followed. Others, however, are very difficult ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... streaked with white, above the lower and nearer ones, are in Basutoland. They play an important part in our programme, for it is against that huge barrier that we are pressing the Boers. There are some rounded, turf-clad hills, but most are rocky. Sharp points and stony ridges rise up with jagged and clear-cut outlines into the sky, with gorges and valleys retreating in between, full of deep blue shade, and often horizontal bands of strata, showing like regularly built courses of white masonry along the flanks of ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... vote. There are a great many new questions, social and economic, which are beginning to apply a salutary counter-irritant to old racial sores. The division between the two races, thank God, is not quite so clear-cut as it used to be. But this I know—that as there are undoubtedly more British voters in the Transvaal than there are Dutch, and as these British voters have not at any point in the Constitutional Settlement ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... the commander may have considered his assigned objective before studying his situation. If so, he may now desire to modify his earlier statement of that objective, before incorporating it in the formulation of his mission, to the end that a more clear-cut and concise expression may ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... had gone to bed he sat and talked to me. He was curiously attractive and curiously beautiful, but somehow like stone in his clear colouring and his clear-cut face. His temples, with the black hair, were distinct and fine ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... his eyes beneath the cedars, seeing her on that morning as a man sees in his dreams the face of his first love. Then another day dawned slowly to his consciousness—a day which stood out clear-cut as a cameo from all the others of his life. For weeks Cynthia's eyes had been red and swollen, and he commented querulously upon them, for they made her homelier than usual. When he had finished, she looked at him a moment without ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... by a woman! The plot well conceived and worked out, the characters individualized and clear-cut, and the story so admirably told that you are hurried along for two hours and a half with a smile often breaking out at the humor, a tear ready to start at the pathos, and with unflagging interest, till the heroine's release from ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... the two, both in intellect and character. Not so saintly, perhaps, he was more likely to influence others. Firmness showed in his forcible chin, energy in the large lines of his mouth, decision in his clear-cut features. Yet there was something contradictory in his face. And the flitting melancholy, already remarked, surely hinted at some secret instability, perhaps known only to Harding himself, perhaps known to ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... speaking as it were out of a dream of candle-light and reverberating sound and clearest darkness, towards this strange deliberate phantom with the unruffled clear-cut features—'surely then, in that case, he is here now? And yet, on my word of honour, though every friend I ever had in the world should deny it, I am the same. Memory stretches back clear and sound to my childhood. I can see myself with extraordinary ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... the appeal cannot be enforced by some definite incentive to action; but usually there is no such incentive advanced. There is no doubt or hesitation as to the positive part of salvation; but as to the negative part of it there is no clear-cut deliverance. ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... a job in your department there may be reasons why you hate to give him a clear-cut refusal, but tell him frankly that you see no possibility of placing him, and while he may not like the taste of the medicine, he swallows it and it's down and forgotten. But you say to him that you're very sorry your department ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... all hindrances to rapid work should be avoided. The designs of the old writing with their strokes sometimes broken, sometimes continuous, sometimes thick, and sometimes thin, wearied the writer and took much time, and at last it came about that the clay was attacked in a number of short, clear-cut triangular strokes each similar in form to its fellow. As these little depressions had all the same depth and the same shape, and as the hand had neither to change its pressure nor to shift its position, it arrived with practice at an ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... experts. I directed my fire against Rear Admiral T. B. Stratton Adair, who superintended the ordnance factories of the Beardmore Gun Works in Glasglow. The Admiral a typical English gentleman of the naval officer type, long, lank with a rather ascetic, clear-cut Roman head, not unlike Chamberlain in general appearance, even to the single eye-glass, did not make much of a showing as an expert witness for the prosecution. The Admiral was called in on testimony concerning the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... these are merely mechanical devices to illustrate the fact that when the mind selects, or attends to, any impression, this impression is made to stand out clearly as an object in consciousness; or, in other words, the particular impression becomes a clear-cut ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... had entered the study and stretched his long limbs from the armchair. He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features and a small goatee beard which gave him a general resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle Sam. A half-smoked, sodden cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and as he sat down he struck a match and relit it. "Making ready for a move?" he remarked as he looked round him. "Say, ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and sensibility. Rossetti's portraiture retains the salient qualities of both portrait and mask. It represents Dante in his twenty-seventh year; the face gives hint of both poet and soldier, for behind clear-cut features capable of strengthening into resolve and rigour lie whole depths of tenderest sympathy. The abstracted air, the self-centred look, the eyes that seem to see only what the mind conceives and casts forward from itself; the slow, uncertain, half-reluctant gait,—these are profoundly ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... different from the picture she had drawn, so different from Walter; there was not the shadow of a resemblance between them. Many would have called Liz Hepburn beautiful. She was certainly handsome after her kind, having straight, clear-cut features, a well-formed if rather coarse mouth, brilliant blue eyes, and a mass of reddish-brown hair, which set off the extreme fairness of her skin. Gladys felt fascinated as she looked, though she ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... to the beautiful daughter of white men!" she said at length with native dignity. The contralto of her voice was full and rich and very musical, her English, deliberate and clear-cut. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... at her. Her face was averted: he could only see the side of her cheek, and the clear-cut ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... below. Indeed a principal feature of the scene to-day is these crows, their incessant cawing, far or near, and their countless flocks and processions moving from place to place, and at times almost darkening the air with their myriads. As I sit a moment writing this by the bank, I see the black, clear-cut reflection of them far below, flying through the watery looking-glass, by ones, twos, or long strings. All last night I heard the noises from their great roost ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... low down in the western sky, dropping swiftly to the clear-cut line of the horizon, the air growing misty with the coming night, the sunset sky glowing gold and flaming crimson, when Conniston awoke. He sat up rubbing his eyes, at first at a loss to account for his surroundings. Then he saw Hapgood sprawled at his side and remembered. And ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She has never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels—or, to speak more accurately, his interview with them—were to fill such a corner, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... clothes and the absence of all ornament contrasted with the flash and glitter which had marked the king's retinue. By his side walked a woman, tall and slight and dark, with lithe, graceful figure and clear-cut, composed features. Her jet-black hair was gathered back under a light pink coif, her head poised proudly upon her neck, and her step long and springy, like that of some wild, tireless woodland creature. She held her left hand in front of her, covered with a red velvet ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was deservedly popular: there was a frankness and a directness about her almost boyishly clear-cut face which inspired confidence, and the girls who brought their difficulties to her found in her a wise and sympathetic counsellor. Eleanor was not beautiful like Catherine, not brilliant like Patricia—in fact it was with difficulty that she held her ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... was President—the terrible sultry lull just before the great storm. You must picture the audience of the best people in Massachusetts, half-sympathizing with Captain Brown, half-afraid of being guilty of treason in so doing. You must picture the speaker, with his clear-cut, earnest features and penetrating voice. No preacher, no politician, no professional reformer, no Republican, no Democrat; a man who never voted; a naturalist whose companions were the flowers and the birds, the trees and the squirrels. ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... calmly but resolutely to sift the chaff from the wheat, to examine the theories of Luther in the light of the teaching of the Scriptures and the tradition of the Church as contained in the writings of the Fathers, and to give to the world a clear-cut exposition of the dogmas that had been attacked by the heretics. Never had a council in the Church met under more alarming conditions; never had a council been confronted with more serious obstacles, and never did a council confer a greater service on the Christian world than did the 19th ecumenical ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... was a broad-shouldered lad of fifteen, with clear-cut features and dark hair. His companion was of about the same age, but a good two inches taller. His complexion was florid, his hair of an auburn tint that narrowly escaped coming within the category of red or ginger. His features were full ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... spoke. Paul regarded him with renewed interest. The black hair streaked with white, banging over the temples on the side away from the parting, the queerly streaked beard, the clear-cut ascetic features, the deep, mournful eyes in whose depths glowed a soul on fire, gave him the appearance of a mad but sanctified apostle. Barney Bill, who profoundly distrusted all professional drinkers of water, such as Mr. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... father had too many children, real children and grown up children, in the Mission to be able to spend much time with his son; and the teaching of Sunday morning, the clear-cut uncompromising statement of hard religious facts in which the Missioner delighted, was considerably toned down by his wife's ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... realization of what real artistic portrayal meant. In voice, manner, action, in each minute detail of face and figure, she was truly the very woman she represented. It was an art so fine as to make the auditors forget the artist, forget even themselves. Her perfect workmanship, clear-cut, rounded, complete, stood forth like a delicate cameo beside the rude buffoonery of T. Macready Lane, the coarse villany of Albrecht, and the stiff mannerisms of the remainder of the cast. They were automatons as compared with a figure instinct with life animated by intelligence. She seemed to redeem ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... Pierre gloated in a freedom of speech, the which no man dared deny him. He turned to eye his companion cynically for a second time, and contempt was patent in his gaze. Willard appeared slender and pallid in his furs, though his clear-cut features spoke a certain strength and ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... or three in his establishment, among whom Candace reigned chief. The presence of these tropical specimens of humanity, with their wide, joyous, rich physical abundance of nature and their hearty abandon of outward expression, was a relief to the still clear-cut lines in which the picture of New England life was drawn, which an artist ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Divine things is to withdraw one of the supports on which Catholicism rests. Subjectivism, based on vital experience, mixes no better with this system than oil with water. Scholasticism prides itself on clear-cut definitions, on irrefragable logic, on using words always in the same sense. For Newman, as for his disciples the Modernists, theological terms are only symbols for varying values, and he holds that the moment they are treated as having any fixed connotation, error begins. It is no wonder if learned ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... for a minute. She stood gazing at all that was visible of the pale face below the darkened eyes. It was so clear-cut, so refined in feature, and the lips under the sweeping blonde moustache, though set and compressed, were delicate and pink. He turned his head eagerly towards the parade; but Sam was still far away. The music had scattered, and was ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... all that had occurred. It needed this one proof to complete the evidence. Lawrence Armitage was regarding Mignon with perplexed brow. "That is not the costume you wore last night, Miss La Salle," he said with cold abruptness. Scrutinizing her closely, amazement began to dawn on his clear-cut features. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... very complex social forces which, by determining the movements of demand and supply actually fix the rates at which goods exchange with one another. Politically, mechanical Socialism supposes a class war, resting on a clear-cut distinction of classes which does not exist. Far from tending to clear and simple lines of cleavage, modern society exhibits a more and more complex interweaving of interests, and it is impossible for a modern revolutionist to assail "property" ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... with an affectionate pressure; and they went down to their old-fashioned tea together in the little parlour behind the shop, looking out over the garden, and the beach, and the great cliffs beyond on either hand, to the very farthest edge of the distant clear-cut blue horizon. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... said, with a laugh, "Monsieur there sleeps soundly. It will be a great awakening in the morning. I should not advise you to be here, Pechaud." And with this he turned up the lantern, so that the light fell more strongly on his clear-cut face and blue eyes. He was a handsome man, and one well formed to win a woman's heart; but with all this there were the marks of a weak and irresolute nature on his countenance, and as I looked I thought to myself that here was one who, if he fell, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... in the rushes beside the brook, and the end of its beauty is slaughter! So is it with yonder company!" His finger sank until it indicated the little camp seated toy-like in the green meadow four hundred feet below them, with every man and horse, and the very camp-kettle, clear-cut and visible, though diminished by distance to fairy-like proportions. "So it is with yonder company!" he repeated sternly. "They play and are merry, and one fishes and another sleeps! But at the end of the journey is death. Death for their ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... to one of the islands, I was impressed by the extreme beauty of the scene. The cliffs rose to great heights, forming a dark, clear-cut line against the sky, while between the lofty walls, verdant valleys stretched down to the white, sandy beaches, upon which the waves broke in glistening spume. Toward a beach, somewhere about the centre of the island, our ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... not appear until late in June. Where there are no fruit-dots the hairs on the upper surface of the fronds will help to distinguish it from specimens of the Marsh fern tribe, which it somewhat resembles. The regular rows of nearly straight, clear-cut sori of the fertile fronds are very attractive, and the lower ones, as well as those at the slender tips of the ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... road. The gate was open; the grass and the flower-beds were trampled into a morass. The door was thrown wide and several women were standing about the threshold. At the window within view of the road and the mountains sat the mother—a young woman with large brown eyes, and clear-cut features, refined, beautified, exalted by suffering. Her look was that of one listening for a faint, far away sound upon which hangs the turn of the balances ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... to drink, and I think I cut in with ideas of my own. But one is apt to forget one's own share in a talk, I find, more than one does the clear-cut objectivity of other people's, and I do not know how far I contributed to this discussion that followed. I am, however, pretty certain that it was then that ideal that we were pleased to call aristocracy and which soon became the common property of our ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... the boy did not attempt to argue or even to answer. He stood looking uncertainly down at the Judge, as if for the moment he could not see anything in the room quite distinctly, the Judge's face, with its near-sighted blue eyes and red-gold beard and thinning hair, or Colonel Everard's clear-cut profile. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... the most envied! Farewell!"—and once more making that curious salutation which had in it so much imperiousness and so little obeisance, he walked backward a few paces in the full lustre of the set sun's after-glow, which intensified the vivid red of his costume and lit up all the ornaments of clear-cut amber that glittered against his swarthy skin,—then turning, he descended the hillock so swiftly that he seemed to have melted out of sight as utterly as a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... interested in the men serving under him has done wrongly in choosing the Army for his profession," replied Captain Cortland gravely. "I, too, am disturbed, for, like yourself, Mr. Prescott, I find it impossible to believe that such a clean, clear-cut young soldier as Corporal Overton has ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... eyes grew fixed and filled with utter amazement. Down the street, on a black horse that arched his curving neck and danced on light, fleet feet, rode a man in a uniform of green and gold. He sat erect, his clear-cut profile toward her. The next instant his horse, side-stepping at a blowing paper, turned his face into ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... notes, there was a tense silence of anticipation, and hundreds of pairs of eyes, which had some of the keenest brains in Europe behind them, were converged upon his spare, erect figure and his refined, clear-cut, somewhat sternly-moulded face. ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... be sure, but what a change! The little maiden with the dark braids of hair hanging far below her waist had developed into a tall, slender girl, with clear-cut, oval face, crowned by a mass of dark tresses. Her heavy, low-arching brows spanned the thoughtful, deep, dark-brown eyes that seemed to speak the soul within, and the beautiful face was lighted up with a smile that showed just a peep of faultless white teeth, gleaming through ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... been laid in the middle of the bed, and covered with a sheet. Superintendent Galloway quietly drew the sheet away, revealing the massive white head and clear-cut death mask of a man of sixty or sixty-five; a fine powerful face, benign in expression, with a chin and mouth of marked character and individuality. But the distorted contour of the half-open mouth, and the almost piteous expression of the unclosed sightless eyes, seemed ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... was wrong. One is apt to exaggerate things on a workaday Saturday afternoon. She looked more like a pretty bisque figurine; slim and clear-cut, and a little neglected, perhaps, by its owners, and dressed in working clothes instead of the pretty draperies it should have had; but needing only a touch or so, a little dusting, so to speak, to be ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer

... journalism, like politics, was about to be simplified by falling into regular lines. If Nathan had put his whole fortune into that newspaper he would lose it. This judgment, so apparently just and clear-cut, though brief and given by a man who fathomed a matter in which he had no interest, ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... Imagine Robert's clear-cut, handsome face looking over my shoulder. Does not the apparition make vividly manifest the obtuse mould of my heavy traits? There!" (he started), "I have been expecting that wire to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... it is an easy step to the statement that so far as the clear-cut confident sort of knowledge goes, the sort of knowledge one gets from a time-table or a text-book of chemistry, or seeks from a witness in a police court, I am, in relation to religious and moral questions an agnostic. I do not think ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... the hill above the great wreck. They led him to the big heap of broken masonry and then ordered him to sit down. He had to be thrown from his feet, after which they removed his shoes, and while two of them stood guard over him the others descended to the edge of the wall and found the clear-cut prints which had been first noted that morning and which, trailed, had led to his capture. They struck matches to be certain that there was no mistake and bent over while Rogers carefully pressed one of the shoes into the mud beside that first imprint. They were ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... a beautiful country, one of Nature's daintiest creations, where the sun and the moon and the sky seem to take the greatest delight in revealing their manifold charms, where the green fields and the clear-cut trees and the rushing rivers and the sluggish canals all seem to have been put in their place to conform to an artistic landscape design—for, truly, Holland is a vast picture. Its cattle are picture cattle, its myriad windmills seem to stand as alluring models to ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... reader, again it may be shown by inference, and lastly the events speak for themselves and give their own lesson. The author meant to teach adults as well as children. The graphic history of the Doasyoulikes is rather a clear-cut study in degeneracy for older people, as well as a lively warning for youngsters. But what is the author's main theme? Is his real text in the advice the poor Irishwoman gives to Grimes and Tom? "Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... there was his talk. What was it which gave it such distinction? His clear-cut positiveness upon every subject. But this is a sign of a narrow finality—impossible to the man of sympathy and of imagination, who sees the other side of every question and understands what a little island the greatest human knowledge must be in the ocean ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and how horribly black were her nails. Other figures come and go, and particularly the doctor, a young man plumply rococo, in bicycling dress, with fine waxen features, a little pointed beard, and the long black frizzy hair and huge tie of a minor poet. Bright and clear-cut and irrelevant are memories of the Basque hostess of my uncle's inn and of the family of Spanish people who entertained me and prepared the most amazingly elaborate meals for me, with soup and salad and chicken and remarkable sweets. They were all very kind and sympathetic people, systematically ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... be no atmosphere on the moon; or, at any rate, such an excessively rare one, as to be quite inappreciable. Of this there are several proofs. For instance, in a solar eclipse the moon's disc always stands out quite clear-cut against that of the sun. Again during occultations, stars disappear behind the moon with a suddenness, which could not be the case were there any appreciable atmosphere. Lastly, we see no traces of twilight ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... Vermont hills, so that she might, as it were, be her husband's hostess there. She hoped, through the ambiguous years, for Imogen's young-womanhood; looking forward to taking her place beside her when the time came for her first steps in the world. But here, again, Imogen's clear-cut choice interfered. Imogen considered girlish frivolities a foolish waste of time; she would take her place in the world when she was fully equipped for the encounter; she was not yet equipped to her liking and she declared herself resolved on a ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... keeping a light hand on its bridle. He wore a loosely fitting brown suit, and the hand that caressed the horse was almost as brown as his clothes. His head was closely cropped and his face clean-shaven, showing the clear-cut, decided mouth and chin, and the white, even teeth displayed by the smile ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... ember. As he leant forward to do so the fire got hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing the whole scene into strong relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking man he is! Calm, powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey eyes, yellow beard and hair — altogether a magnificent specimen of the higher type of humanity. Nor did his form belie his face. I have never seen wider shoulders or a deeper chest. Indeed, Sir Henry's girth is so great that, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... philosophical problems cannot be treated in isolation from one another, we shall hereinafter seek to become acquainted with general stand-points that give systematic unity to the issues which have been enumerated. Such stand-points are not clearly defined by those who occupy them, and they afford no clear-cut classification of all historical philosophical philosophies. But system-making in philosophy is commonly due to the moving in an individual mind of some most significant idea; and certain of these ideas have reappeared ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... a sudden stop, and sat with eyes fixed on the opposite wall, a curious expression of mingled desolation and contempt upon her cold, clear-cut face. For some reason or other Lesley felt afraid to hear what her ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... post, and as he neither looked up nor stirred at my intrusion, I had an excellent opportunity for observing again the clear-cut profile which had roused my admiration ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... hair, matching the color of her eyes, crowned a small, shapely head, and contrasted beautifully with a creamy complexion, the delicacy of which was relieved chiefly by the vivid scarlet of her lips. Her features were clear-cut and very attractive—at least so thought Miss Reynolds as she studied the symmetrical brow, the large, thoughtful eyes, the tender mouth and prettily rounded chin curving so gracefully into ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... terrifying as that of the men, and they sometimes, though rarely, smiled. As soon as we had alighted they gathered round us and examined us with curiosity, but without excitement. Leo's tall, athletic form and clear-cut Grecian face, however, evidently excited their attention, and when he politely lifted his hat to them, and showed his curling yellow hair, there was a slight murmur of admiration. Nor did it stop there; for, after regarding him ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... extraordinary transformation throughout the field of war in France, one thing stands out clear-cut and distinct. Having been thwarted in their purpose to walk through the western way to Paris by the enormous forces massed on their flanks, the Germans have adopted an entirely new plan of campaign and have thrust their armies deep down into the centre of France in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... with Peter. It simply had to come, for we couldn't continue to play-act and evade realities. The time arrived for getting down to brass tacks. And even now the brass tacks aren't as clear-cut as I'd ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... inclined to be definite and clear-cut to the point of hardness. She did not know the meaning of over-wrought nerves, nor the difficulties of a nature more imaginative than her own. She had found her will-power sufficient to meet all the emergencies of her life, and she was disposed to feel a little contemptuous, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... act of creeping upon me. I saw nothing, and nevertheless my sense of another presence grew steadily. I increased my pace, and after some time came to a slight ridge, crossed it, and turned sharply, regarding it steadfastly from the further side. It came out black and clear-cut against the darkling sky; and presently a shapeless lump heaved up momentarily against the sky-line and vanished again. I felt assured now that my tawny-faced antagonist was stalking me once more; and coupled with that was another ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... stamping in his own corral, lifted his beautiful head, scanned the wide reaches that spread away in living green, and tossing up his muzzle, sent out on the silence a ringing call. He cocked his silver ears and listened. No clear-cut human whistle answered him. Once more he called ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... will be heard from one of these days," was the unanimous verdict of those who listened to his clear-cut and finished sentences, and noted the ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... improved in appearance. When sitting one day where the light and angle brought out the perfect profile of her features and the golden sheen of her hair, he first became aware that she was a beautiful woman, with as clear-cut and classic a face as the best cameo ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... sight of the figure of a Chinaman emerging from the shadow of the jungle which surrounded the fort on its landward side. The man's figure stood out plain and clear-cut in the moonlight, which was so bright that Frobisher could easily distinguish his every movement, could even see how the man was dressed; and he wondered what the fellow could be doing there ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... the American public went through this process of reasoning at once, or arrived at such clear-cut conclusions; Demos seldom indulges in the luxury of logic; but the shock caused by the Winona speech vibrated through the country and never after that did the public fully trust Mr. Taft. It knew that the Interests had crawled back and dictated ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... strongly on the face of my captain, whom I had already begun to adore, as did every one who came into close companionship with him. I gazed admiringly at his broad, white brow, clear-cut features, and firmly knit figure, a little square of build, but looking every inch the frontier soldier in his leathern doublet and leggings and high-laced moccasins. Over one shoulder he had thrown his blue military cloak, for the trip across the river promised to be a cold ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... Virginians. On the other hand the King, and the English merchants and associates through whom he dealt, desired to buy Virginia's tobacco at the lowest possible prices and in moderate quantities. The tug of war between the two sides continued for many years without any clear-cut resolution. ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... backwards and forwards. Lancaster's eyes rested on him thoughtfully. The man had altered during the last few weeks—altered incredibly. He was a stone lighter to start with, and his blond, clear-cut face had the worn look born of mental conflict. His eyes were red-rimmed as though from ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... Intelligent missionaries of bygone days used to ply savages with questions such as these: Had they any belief in God? Did they believe in the immortality of the soul? Taking their own clear-cut conceptions, discriminated by a developed terminology, these missionaries tried to translate them into languages that had neither the words nor the thoughts, only a vague, inchoate, tangled substratum, out of which these thoughts and words later differentiated ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... him, too, was noticeable. That wonderful impassivity of feature which never even in his lighter moments passed altogether away, seemed to deepen every line in his hard, clear-cut face. His mouth was close drawn, his eyes were suddenly colder and expressionless. There was about him at such times as—these an almost repellent hardness. His emotions, and the man himself, seemed frozen. Lady Caroom had seen him ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... down and wrote one of those short, clear-cut articles which served to amuse and mystify the public. Who does not recall the sensation that followed that article ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... his eldest son, Lord Westholt, sauntered together smoking their after-dinner cigars on the broad-turfed terrace overlooking park and gardens which seemed to sweep without boundary line into the purplish land beyond. The grey mass of the castle stood clear-cut against the blue of a sky whose twilight was still almost daylight, though in the purity of its evening stillness a star already hung, here and there, and a young moon swung low. The great spaces about them ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... exception to that rule. It seems to me that Sophocles was feeling his way towards a technique which would have approached that of the New Comedy or even the Elizabethan stage, and would perhaps have done without a Chorus altogether. In Aeschylus Greek tragedy had been a thing of traditional forms and clear-cut divisions; the religious ritual showed through, and the visible gods and the disguised dancers were allowed their full value. And Euripides in the matter of outward formalism went back to the Aeschylean type and even beyond it: prologue, chorus, messenger, ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... before Thanksgiving and came in thick storms. There were great drifts in all the door-yards, the stone walls and fences were hidden, the trees stood in deep, swirling hollows of snow. Now and then a shed-roof broke under the frozen weight; one walked through the village street as through clear-cut furrows of snow, all the shadows were blue, there was a dazzle of glacier light over the whole village when the sun arose. However, it was a fine winter for Jerome, as far as his work was concerned. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... 22), gehenna (v. 22), mammon (vi. 24); and we should add the peculiar use of "righteousness" in vi. 1, where the word is used in the sense of "alms" in accordance with a Jewish idiom. But the Greek phrases are often neat and clear-cut. They sometimes seem to imply a play upon words, e.g. in vi. 16 and xxiv. 30. This is another indication that the Gospel, as it stands, was first written in Greek. The Greek is smoother than that of St. Mark, though not so vivid. The evangelist writes ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... effort a certain smoothness of emotional tenor were to be desired; or we burn the candle at both ends. Dr. Bell perceived the evil that was being done; he pressed Mrs. Jenkin to restrain her husband from too frequent visits; but here was one of those clear-cut, indubitable duties for which Fleeming lived, and he could not pardon even the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hold, and overflowing in light from her eyes, he would have found this poor reed of comfort break in his hand and pierce his heart. Nor could all his hatred have blinded him to the fact that Beauchamp looked splendid—his pale face, with its fine, regular, clear-cut features, reflecting the glow of hers, and his Highland dress setting off to full advantage his breadth of shoulders and commanding height. Kate had at last found one to whom she could look up, in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... "Minuet," Op. 14, No. 1. Modern minuets are echoes of the classical period. Compositions of this kind are to be found in the sonatas and symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and even further back in the suites of Bach. Accordingly the Paderewski "Minuet," in keeping with the form, is simple and clear-cut and gracefully melodious. At the same time, however, it is modern in the brilliant ornamentation introduced in the middle part of the composition which in a minuet is called ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... but that Tom would add another count to his score, though he was already reckoned an ace, being accredited with seven clear-cut victories. ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... one another's face, eyes to eyes—and suddenly Chauvelin felt an icy sweat coursing down his spine. The eyes into which he gazed had a strange, ironical twinkle in them, a kind of good-humoured arrogance, whilst through the firm, clear-cut lips, half hidden by a dirty and ill-kempt beard, there came the sound—oh! a mere echo—of a ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... long spit of fand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in an amethystine haze. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... and his hair was growing grey. He had fine thin hands, and he was dressed in old but well-fitting clothes. He had an atmosphere of great distinction about him. I had expected something incisive and clear-cut about him, but he was conspicuously gentle, and even deprecating in manner. He greeted Father Payne smilingly, and shook hands with me, with a courteous little bow. We strolled a little in the garden. Father Payne did most of ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... tall, sinewy, graceful man, then a little past thirty, singularly handsome, with clear-cut features, dark hair and fierce gray eyes which could, upon occasion, soften to tenderness. The hands which lifted the spy-glass ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... peered in. The room was fairly well lighted, and what she saw was clear-cut and unmistakable. In the middle of the room was a long table, and seated about it, in perfect silence, sat an ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... towards her destination with a masculine stride and in as great a hurry as though she had entered herself for a Marathon race. It was a warm, misty day, and the pale August sunshine radiated faintly through the smoky atmosphere. Nothing was clear-cut and nothing was distinct, so hazy was the outlook. The hedges were losing their greenery and had blossomed forth into myriad bunches of ruddy hips and haws, and the usually hard road was soft underfoot ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... need of unanimity; for while France was stamping out revolt, and Great Britain felt increasingly the drag of Ireland, Pitt encountered an antagonist of unsuspected strength. Over against his diffuse and tentative policy stood that of Bonaparte, clear-cut, and for the present everywhere victorious. While Pitt pursued that will o' the wisp, a money-bought peace, the Corsican was bullying the Austrian negotiators at Udine and Campo Formio. Finally his gasconnades carried the day; and on 17th October Austria signed away her Netherlands to France ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... the recipient mind. My own glimpses of the writer's meaning were necessarily most indistinct. I cannot attempt to transfer them. I was controlled by a force not my own. The shadow of a mysterious power was over me. The mists of sentimental pantheism were left far below the clear-cut summits whither the reader was invited to ascend. There was an interpretation of Revelation far more removed from the apparent letter than that of Swedenborg. Here was reaffirmed (though for a widely different purpose) what the Romish Church has ever declared,—that the Scriptures, recording ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of his articles Darwin has been quoted as saying that it was the best exposition of his theory that had then appeared. After his untimely death in 1875, Wright's papers were collected and published under the title of "Philosophical Discussions." [1] Their style is clear-cut and faultless in logical form, yet requiring such close attention to every word as to be less attractive to the general reader of to-day than that of Spencer. In a more leisurely age, when men wanted to think profoundly as they ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... problem of sex is solved even so far as the biologist can ever expect to solve it. The possibilities are many, and many a fresh set of facts is needed before we can hope to decide among them. Yet the occasional glimpses of clear-cut and orderly phenomena, which Mendelian spectacles have already enabled us to catch, offer a fair hope that some day they may all be brought into focus, and assigned their proper places in a general scheme which shall embrace them all. Then, though not till then, will the problem of the nature of ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... equably. He had lived long enough among Germans to copy their impassive manner and, coupled with a natural contempt for his fellow-monkeys in the cage, he knew that perhaps in a day a new man would receive all these unwelcome attentions. Moreover, his work, clear-cut, unobtrusive, and capable, pleased M. Joseph. And when the patron himself dined at the cafe, Ambroise was the garcon selected to wait upon him. Hence the jealousy of his colleagues. Couple to this the fact that he was reported ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... a different calibre. Still apparently in the early thirties, tall, and with clear-cut aristocratic features, he was decidedly good to look upon. His face, fair as that of a woman, was perhaps slightly marred by the expression of weakness which lurked round the finely-moulded lips; but for all ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... street forsook the chaffer of the town to climb amidst arching elms and maples, above whose gaudy autumn masses rose the dome of the courthouse and the spires of many churches. It was an old-fashioned Georgian structure with white columns clear-cut against its weathered brick; at either side of the low steps a great hydrangea, its glory waning with the summer, lifted its showy clusters from an urn; while walk and carriage drive alike sauntered to the street through hedgerows ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... for the plot that Lucan's epic is read. It has won immortality by the brilliance of its rhetoric, its unsurpassed epigrams, its clear-cut summaries of character, its biting satire, and its outbursts of lofty political enthusiasm. These features stand out pre-eminent and atone for its astounding errors of taste, its strained hyperbole, its foolish ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... Browning calls Byron a 'flat fish', and Arnold sees the poet of Prometheus appropriately pinnacled in the 'intense inane', they are expressing a kindred repugnance to a poetry wanting in intellectual substance and in clear-cut form. ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... herself to the subjects of which she was thinking. All the new books, the literature of the hour, were lighted up by her keen, searching, yet always kindly criticism; and it was charming to get her fresh, genuine, clear-cut modes of expression, so different from the world-worn phrases of what is called good society. Her opinions were always perfectly clear and positive, and given with the freedom of one who has long stood in a position to judge the world and its ways from her own standpoint. But it was not ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Spencer, who lays it down as an axiom that "every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the like freedom of every other man;" but basing themselves squarely on experience,—not individual but universal experience,—they can, and do present clear-cut, definite solutions. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... position is and has been used as a justification of Atheism. Atheist is really "a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term," it admits of no paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is for clear-cut issues ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... never excite one to be called "an unjustifiable hypothecator" as it does to be called a thief. At the very foundation of the strength of the literature of the English Bible there lies this tendency to short, clear-cut words. ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... reflecting the sunlight with brilliant red and purple. The valley seemed filled with a delicate haze, almost like smoke. White Slides Ranch was hidden from sight, as it lay in the bottomland. The gray old peak towered proud and aloof, clear-cut and sunset-flushed against the blue. The eastern slope of the valley was a vast sweep of sage and hill and grassy bench and aspen bench, on fire with the colors of autumn made molten by the last flashing of the sun. Great black slopes of forest gave sharp contrast, and led up to the red-walled ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... arrived at Death Valley Junction—a weird, strange sunset in drooping curtains of transparent cloud, lighting up dark mountain ranges, some peaks of which were clear-cut and black against the sky, and others veiled in trailing storms, and still others white with snow. That night in the dingy little store I heard prospectors talk about float, which meant gold on the surface, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... and head did not appear till he was past sixty. After that, I have little doubt, it was the finest head this age or country has seen. Every artist who saw him was instantly filled with a keen desire to sketch him. The lines were so simple, so free, and so strong. High, arching brows; straight, clear-cut nose; heavy-lidded blue-gray eyes; forehead not thrust out and emphasized, but a vital part of a symmetrical, dome-shaped head; ear large, and the most delicately carved I have ever seen; the mouth and chin hidden by a soft, long, white beard. It seems to me his ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... the sea. The sea is blue before us, dotted with shining bergs or ice floes, whilst far over the Sound, yet so bold and magnificent as to appear near, stand the beautiful Western Mountains with their numerous lofty peaks, their deep glacial valley and clear-cut scarps, a vision of mountain scenery that ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... and the shapely melaleuca. This flat, here about 150 yards in breadth, ends abruptly at a steep bank which gives access to a plateau 60 feet above sea-level. The regularity of the outline of this bank is remarkable. Running in a more or less correct curve for a mile and a half, it indicates a clear-cut difference between the flat and the plateau. The toe of the bank rests upon sand, while the plateau is of chocolate-coloured soil intermixed on the surface with flakes of slate; and from this sure foundation springs the backbone of the island. On the flat, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... repressed a ripple that ran around. But there was no smile on the smooth-shaven, clear-cut face of the young Southerner. Turning to the attorney for the defence, he said: "Will you take the witness?" But that gentleman, waving one helpless ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... her face towards him, and he saw her clear-cut profile sharply outlined against the glowing water as he looked down at her. Although the young man struggled against the emotion, which is usually experienced by any man in his position, yet he felt reasonably sure of the answer to his ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr

... manners of these old men and women were gentle and courteous. The younger ones could pass on to us only traditional memories of slavery times, as given them by their parents; on some points a few were vague, while others could give clear-cut and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... of the masses from above; the crashing din was deadening to his ears. They were safe—and his eyes were upon a savage figure, black and tall, that stared and stared, silently, across a sea of yellow sand. He watched it, clear-cut, motionless—until it vanished beneath the roaring flood ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... have in the past been so hampered by the traditions of a tortuous diplomacy, so tossed and perturbed within by the cross-currents of intrigue, that they have shown themselves almost childishly incapable of arriving at clear-cut decisions. Old policies, old formulae, old jealousies, old dynastic influences still hold control of the majority of the chancelleries of Continental Europe, and these things it is that have made questions simple in themselves seem complex and ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... my right hand, the line of life broke abruptly halfway in its length, indicating a sudden and violent death. But the point at which it broke was terminated by a perfectly marked square, extraordinarily clear-cut and distinct. Such a square, occurring at the end of a broken line means rescue, salvation. I had long been aware of this strange figuration in my hand, and had often wondered what it presaged. But now, as once more I looked at it, it came upon me with sudden conviction that in some way I was destined ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from the first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of his, but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up to his task that day. For the effect he intended, his ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington



Words linked to "Clear-cut" :   distinct, clearcutness, clear, clean-cut, trenchant



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com