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Construct   Listen
verb
Construct  v. t.  (past & past part. constructed; pres. part. constructing)  
1.
To put together the constituent parts of (something) in their proper place and order; to build; to form; to make; as, to construct an edifice.
2.
To devise; to invent; to set in order; to arrange; as, to construct a theory of ethics.
Synonyms: To build; erect; form; compile; make; fabricate; originate; invent.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Construct" Quotes from Famous Books



... a victor in World Wars I and II, France lost many men, much wealth, its extensive empire, and its rank as a dominant nation-state. France has struggled since 1958—arguably with success—to construct a presidential democracy resistant to the severe instabilities inherent in the parliamentary democracy of early 20th century France. In recent years, its reconciliation and cooperation with Germany have proved central to the economic integration ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... water which had been started, but after a time they pumped up sand. This told them that a plank had started, and that their labours were useless; the men left their work, but Philip again encouraged them, and pointed out that they could easily save themselves, and all that they had to do was to construct a raft, which would hold provisions for them, and receive that portion of the crew who could not ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... dear Watson"—he propped his test-tube in the rack and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class—"it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... future state; and although he showed that "the natural and moral constitution and government of the world are so connected as to make up together but one scheme,"[14] his real intention was not so much to construct arguments as to repel objections. His emphasis accordingly was laid upon the difficulties of the two schemes rather than on their positive lines; and so thoroughly has he made out this point that as is well known, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... America. "In Case of Accident" consists of instructions what to do in case of accident or injury when a doctor is not at hand, and is from the hand of an experienced physician. "Ways to Do Things" teach the boy reader how to construct ferneries, bookcases, how to bind magazines, how to make a toy railway and train, how to make curious kites, how to make and pitch a tent, and a variety of other things. All this information is for the boys, of course, but the girls will find as much to amuse and interest them in the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... ordinarily used consist of various pigments, ground and mixed in water, with a solution of glue. The principles of this mode of color printing have been satisfactorily tested, though the entire machine has not yet been constructed: and any person who may be disposed to construct and enjoy the exclusive use of this invention, may ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... shawls and cloaks enough to construct beds upon the barn floor, and the paechter's house, though substantial, was but a dark den, already stuffed full with wife and children. Must we, then, really return to the inn at Rein with its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... keel, and one hundred feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. Those illustrious adventurers who sailed in her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a marshy ground, where they could drive piles and construct dykes. They made a settlement at the Indian village of Communipaw, the egg from which was hatched the mighty city of New York. In the author's time this place had ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... suppose, in that case, you know all about ships, or, at all events, sufficient to be able to construct ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... airship was originally designed to act as a substitute for the Rigid, which, in 1916, was still a long way from being available for work of practical utility. From experience gained at this time with airships of the Coastal type it was thought possible to construct a large Non-Rigid capable of carrying out flights of twenty-four hours' duration, with a speed of 55 to 60 knots, with sufficient ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... their union is broken. After these observations, he will attribute the watch to the ingenuity of man; that is to say, to a being like himself, of whom he has some ideas, but whom he judges capable to construct machines to which he is himself utterly incompetent. In short, he will ascribe the honour of his watch to a being known to him in some respects, provided with faculties very far superior to his own; but he will ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... manner did the profound council of New Amsterdam smoke, and doze, and ponder, from week to week, month to month, and year to year, in what manner they should construct their infant settlement; meanwhile the town took care of itself, and, like a sturdy brat which is suffered to run about wild, unshackled by clouts and bandages, and other abominations by which your notable nurses and sage old ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... schoolman, common sense; a general appreciation which transcends particular appreciations and which can integrate the differentials of evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test or to construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing however laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, one has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... It may be said, that we beg the question by assuming that organization is not life; it may be so; but it is quite too much to allow the materialist quietly to take the opposite doctrine for granted. He must know the full extent of his task,—that it is necessary for him not only to construct the machine, but actually to set it in motion, so that it shall afterwards run on of its own accord. It is very easy to frame a partial definition of life, by merely describing one or two of its characteristic functions; and then, because some action can be detected between ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... are we truly saving a man if we bring about that he loves evil somewhat less than he loved it before; for we are helping that man to construct, deep down in his soul, the refuge where—against destiny shall brandish her weapons in vain. This refuge is the monument of consciousness, or, it may be, of love; for love is nothing but consciousness, still vaguely in search of itself; and veritable ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... to appreciate the vital truth of the much battered Shakespearian quotation, "The play's the thing." No trumped-up interest in one particular puppet will take the place of the drama itself. This is a pity. It is easier to create a marionette than it is to construct a play. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... And the young writer will not so much be helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its highest, as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... pastime was drawing mazes on paper, labyrinths of winding paths which must be traversed by a pencil point. The task was to construct a maze so complicated that the other could not find his way out, starting at the middle. We would sit down at opposite ends of the room to construct our mysteries of blind alleys and misleading passages, then each one ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... dismounted and drove off the men, and seized the horses, and thus provided themselves with cavalry, a species of force which it is obvious they could not easily bring, in any ships which they could then construct, across the German Ocean. Without waiting for Alfred to recover from the surprise and consternation which this unexpected treachery occasioned, the newly-mounted troop of Danes rode rapidly along the southern coast of England till they came to the ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... first case," Taggert admitted. "We'll have to probe everything out of him and construct symbol-theory around what we get. I'll be surprised if we get anywhere at all in ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett

... essential that the correlated terms should be exactly designated; if there is a name existing, the statement will be easy; if not, it is doubtless our duty to construct names. When the terminology is thus correct, it is evident that all correlatives ...
— The Categories • Aristotle

... rings of hair which shaded her forehead, but did not hide her laughing eyes, or the dimples in her pink cheeks. The fair, slender girl, the dark, stalwart young fellow so close to her, the rain, the half-sheltered horses,—it was easy enough to construct a little romance. ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... had eleven hundred miles to construct, while the California company's distance from the objective point was only four hundred and fifty; yet the indefatigable Mr. Creighton reached Salt Lake City with his completed line on the 17th of October, one week ahead ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... catalogue of their tools, and with these they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... pursued his wild designs. Morton soon joined his guide, who had been terrified by the fall of the oak. This he represented as accidental; and she assured him, in return, that the inhabitant of the cave would experience no inconvenience from it, being always provided with materials to construct another bridge. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the year 1756, Newcastle and Carlisle were only connected by a bridle way. In that year, Marshal Wade employed his army to construct a road by way of Harlaw and Cholterford, following for thirty miles the line of the old Roman Wall, the materials of which he used to construct his "agger" and culverts. This was long after known as "the ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... “points” this writer makes is the quality of air enjoyed by tenants, amusingly oblivious of the fact that at least three façades of each tall building will see the day only so long as the proprietors of adjacent land are too poor or too busy to construct ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... of the most characteristic verses; but in the last stanza she wishes to construct a dam at the foot of Beacon Hill and cause a flood that would sweep the rebel sympathizers ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... your experts!" exclaimed the priest with a sneer. "Only a fool needs experts! One must be more of a brute than the Indians, who build their own houses, not to know how to construct four walls and put a roof on top of them. That's ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... mean that Lady Brackenstall and her maid have deliberately lied to us, that not one word of their story is to be believed, that they have some very strong reason for covering the real criminal, and that we must construct our case for ourselves without any help from them. That is the mission which now lies before us, and here, Watson, is the ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... crime has not been explored; it has not even been entered. The book stalls have been filled to weariness with tales based upon plans whereby the DETECTIVE, or FERRETING power of the State might be baffled. But, prodigious marvel! no writer has attempted to construct tales based upon plans whereby the PUNISHING power of the State ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... upon them out of the desolate north before there was any chance of their being rescued. A dwelling which would be a protection from cold and snow and the biting blasts of a Canadian winter, must be erected. But how? And with what materials? Tools he had in plenty, but how to construct a dwelling out of the stunted and wind-twisted trees, which were all the timber the island afforded, was a conundrum he saw no ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... who was himself despatched to observe the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front, conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... the flock. Each pulls his own way, nobody cares for others, all are egoists; social interests have miscarried.—Such is Man nowadays, a disfigured slave that has to be restored. Our task, accordingly is two-fold: we have to demolish and we have to construct; we must first set free the natural Man that we may afterwards build up ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of the works that is devoted to the actual manufacture or mixing of explosive material is generally designated by the term "danger area," and the buildings erected upon it are spoken of as "danger buildings." The best material of which to construct these buildings is of wood, as in the event of an explosion they will offer less resistance, and will cause much less danger than brick or stone buildings. When an explosion of nitro-glycerine or dynamite occurs in one of these buildings, the sides are generally ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... to help him build a telegraph line; what Congress thought.—Professor Morse now asked Congress to let him have thirty thousand dollars to construct a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. He felt sure that business men would be glad to send messages by telegraph, and to pay him for his work. But many members of Congress laughed at it, and said they might ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... a scheme which always seemed to me very feasible for a ship-railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. His project was to construct a railway with a sufficient number of tracks, and to raise ships of the largest size on the principle applied in locks of ordinary canals. He had a contrivance made of stout beams which would hold and support a loaded vessel to which it was adjusted. The beams were to operate something like ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... the cud of our knowledge. Thus positive thought reduces all religions to ideals created by man; and as such, not only admits that they have had vast influence, but teaches us also that we in the future must construct new ideals for ourselves. Only there will be this difference. We shall now know that they are ideals, we shall no longer mistake them for objective facts. But our positive thinkers forget this. They forget that the ideals that were once active in the world were active amongst people who thought ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... know not; but the kinetic entities differed from matter in the one important particular of not possessing gravitational attraction. Such kinetic configurations we cannot consider to be matter. It was possible to construct matter by their summation or linkage as the configuration of the crystal is possible in the clear ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... it called in the help of measure and rhythm. It aimed at a rude form of art. Presently the critical faculty came into play. Scholars, acquainted with classical models and classical rules, began to exercise their judgment on their own poetry, to construct theories, to review the performances before them, to suggest plans for the improvement of the poetic art. Their essays are curious, as the beginnings of that great critical literature, which in England, in spite of much infelicity, has only been ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... well versed in his profession, and was a clever mechanic to boot, and who had made a special study of submarine craft, proposed to Ker Karraje that they should construct one of these boats in order to continue their criminal exploits ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... durable, and sinks deeper into the heart of his nation; and the danger of his unstable and capricious doctrines has passed away. In Voltaire we behold the fate of all writers purely destructive; their uses cease with the evils they denounce. But Rousseau sought to construct as well as to destroy; and though nothing could well be more absurd than his constructions, still man loves to look back and see even delusive images—castles in the air—reared above the waste where cities have been. Rather than leave even a burial-ground to solitude, we ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... to induce Shelburne and afterwards Gower to construct a Government but they speedily failed." (Lecky, vol. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... endeavored to construct for themselves codes of conduct, ideals of life, in which no possible good should be needlessly or recklessly sacrificed, and in which men might live together as happily as is permitted by the nature which is at once their life and their habitation. The Career of Reason in ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... these tables it will be interesting to construct a third, containing the subject and number of the books represented in ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... they will be at hand, anxious for employment, and you may use them according to your need. But some of your words will still stubbornly withhold themselves from memory. Weed these out from your lists, make a special list of them, copy it frequently, construct short sentences into which the troublesome words fit. By dint of writing the words so often you will soon make ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... acres. For most of this distance the grading of the walls resembles the heavy grading of a railroad track. Only one who has personally examined the walls can realize the amount of labor they represent for a people destitute of metallic tools, beasts of burden, and other facilities to construct it. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... "The good folks of this house I'm convinced, have not any Ill-will to a mouse; And those tales can't be true You always are telling, For they've been at such pains To construct us a dwelling. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... replied, "that Mr. Hornby was in actual pecuniary difficulties at the date of the robbery, it seems to me possible to construct a hypothesis as to ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... must have been an extremely eccentric individual. There is a comparatively level and very fertile belt near the sea-coast, extending right round the island. Here nearly all the produce is grown. Instead of building his railway through this flat, thickly populated zone, the engineer chose to construct his line across the mountain range of the interior, a district very sparsely inhabited, and hardly cultivated at all. The Jamaica Government Railway is admirably designed if regarded as a scenic railway, but is hardly successful if considered as a commercial ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... worthy of any man's brain," Caslor replied after a moment's thought. "Those small circles," pointing to the forty-foot hour and declination circles which Seaton had thought the ultimate in precise measurement of angular magnitudes, "are of course useless. I shall have to construct large and accurate circles, and in order to produce the slow and fast motions of the required nature, without creep, slip, play, or backlash, I shall require a pure torque, capable of being increased by ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... repetition a third time, he slowly lifted his head from contemplating his notes, and said: "Mr. Speaker, in the Netherlands, a man of small capacity, with bits of wood and leather, will, in a few moments, construct a toy that, with the pressure of the finger and thumb, will cry 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' With less of ingenuity, and with inferior materials, the people of Ohio have made a toy that will, without much pressure, cry, 'Previous question, Mr. Speaker! Previous question, Mr. Speaker!'" at ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... to the French. These two posts, (viz.) Niagara and Sclusser, were of great importance to the British, on the account of affording the means of communication with the posts above, or on the upper lakes. In 1760, a contract was made between Sir William Johnston and a Mr. Stedman, to construct a portage road from Queenston landing to Fort Sclusser, a distance of eight miles, in order to facilitate the transportation of provision, ammunition, &c. from one place to the other. In conformity to this agreement, on the 20th of June, 1763, Stedman had completed ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... these two Irelands, still more than in the misunderstanding of Ireland by England, is to be found the chief cause of the still unsettled state of the Irish Question. I shall not seek to apportion the blame between the two sections of the population; but as the mists clear away and we can begin to construct a united and contented Ireland, it is not only legitimate, but helpful in the extreme, to assign to the two sections of our wealth-producers their respective parts in repairing the fortunes of ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... greatly surprised to read how simple the manufacture of drinks under your formula is. You construct a cocktail without liquor and then rob intemperance of its sting. You also make all kinds of liquor without the use of alcohol, that demon under whose iron heel thousands of our sons and brothers go down to death and delirium annually. Thus you ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... to think seriously of building some sort of a boat or raft, and getting away from the island," went on the millionaire. "It will be perilous to go to sea with anything we can construct, but it is risking our lives to stay here. I don't know ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... dwell apart in the proud independence of the woodchuck and the musquash. Emerson had the largest and kindliest sympathy with their ideals and aims, but he was too clear-eyed not to see through the whims and extravagances of the unpractical experimenters who would construct a working world with the lay figures they had put together, instead of flesh and blood men and women and children with all their congenital and acquired perversities. He describes these Reformers in his ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... in the language to understand the Greek tragedies thoroughly in the original, my own attempts to construct a tragedy in the Greek form were greatly influenced by the fact that quite by accident I came across August Apel's clever imitation of this style in his striking poems 'Polyidos' and 'Aitolier.' For my theme I selected the death of Ulysses, from ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... line—hamlets long since fallen into the way-station rut of desuetude—awoke with a start, bestirring themselves joyfully to meet the inspiriting conditions. At Midland City, Stephen Hawk, the new right-of-way agent, ventured to ask municipal help to construct a ten-mile branch to Lavabee: it was forthcoming promptly; and the mass meeting, at which the bond loan was anticipated by public subscription shouted itself hoarse ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... items of news and information came to us from all sides, that barricades were everywhere being raised, and that firing was beginning in the central streets. Michel de Bourges exclaimed, "Construct a square of four barricades, and we will go ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... style which gives a smoothness to the sentence, so that when the words are sounded their connection becomes pleasing to the ear. It adapts sound to sense. Most people construct their sentences without giving thought to the way they will sound and as a consequence we have many jarring and discordant combinations such as "Thou strengthenedst thy position and actedst arbitrarily and derogatorily to ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... United States, it should be the duty of every man and every woman to see that the Senators from their State know the will of the people; know that the people will that something shall be done, even though not perfect; that there shall be a beginning from which we shall construct something more perfect by and by; that the will of the people is that this League shall be accepted and that if, in the Senate of the United States, there are men so blinded by partisan desire for present advantage, so blinded by personal pique and narrowness of vision, that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... continued for some time he ordered several waterfowl to dive to the bottom; they were all drowned but a muskrat, having been despatched on the same errand, was more successful and returned with a mouthful of mud out of which Woesackootchacht, imitating the mode in which the rats construct their houses, formed a new earth. First a small conical hill of mud appeared above the water; by and by, its base gradually spreading out, it became an extensive bank which the rays of the sun at length hardened into firm land. Notwithstanding the power that Woesackootchacht ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... of subjects, however, which require a complete knowledge of all the rules and processes of perspective. Whenever you have to construct a picture from details stated but not seen; when you have a complicated architectural interior or exterior; when figures are to be placed at certain distances or in definite positions, and they are too numerous or the conditions are otherwise such that ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... harbour. Also we had learned from our scanty records that a small church had been erected there for the benefit of the transient whalers. The existence of this building would mean to us a supply of timber, from which, if dire necessity urged us, we could construct a reasonably seaworthy boat. We had discussed this point during our drift on the floe. Two of our boats were fairly strong, but the third, the 'James Caird', was light, although a little longer than the others. All of them were small for the navigation of these notoriously stormy seas, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... philosopher who in our generation has acquired the European vogue most comparable to that of Spencer is Bergson. Now Bergson has dealt some of the shrewdest blows at Spencer's system, but he does not set out to construct a rival system of his own. He is most careful to say that he is not doing this, that any such work must be done by later workers, that he is only making suggestions for a new point of view. It is interesting to note in general terms what that point of view is, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... speculations in regard to the immediate history of the yacht he had picked up under such singular circumstances. He had not been into the cabin yet to obtain whatever evidence might be available in solving the problem; he had not yet had time to do so. But people speculate and construct theories even before there are any premises on which to ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic

... Luther, for his part, incarnates the spirit of revolt against tyrannical authority, urges the necessity of a return to the essential truth of Christianity, as distinguished from the idols of the Church, and asserts the right of the individual to judge, interpret, criticise, and construct opinion for himself. The veil which the Church had interposed between the human soul and God was broken down. The freedom of the conscience was established. Thus the principles involved in what we call the Reformation were momentous. Connected ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... be preserved only by an etheric body which on its part receives corresponding forces from the astral body. The etheric body is the builder, the architect, of the physical body. It can, however, construct in the true sense only when it receives from the astral body the impulse as to the manner in which it must build. In this latter are contained the models, according to which the etheric body gives the physical body ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... boy a third time, and licked him; how, when head boy himself, he had roused the whole school into a civil war, dividing the boys into Cavaliers and Roundheads; how clay was rolled out into cannon-balls and pistol-shots, sticks shaped into swords, the playground disturbed to construct fortifications; how a slovenly stout boy enacted Cromwell; how he himself was elevated into Prince Rupert; and how, reversing all history, and infamously degrading Cromwell, Rupert would not consent to be beaten; and Cromwell at the last, disabled ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rest, I do not think that a single one of my readers accuses me of knowing how to destroy, but of not knowing how to construct. In demonstrating the principle of equality, I have laid the foundation of the social structure I have done more. I have given an example of the true method of solving political and legislative problems. Of the science itself, I confess that I know nothing more than its principle; ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... how you would feel if you were cool; then how you would feel if you were cold; again, how you would feel if it were freezing. In this state you would be shivering all over. Now think of just the opposite conditions; construct such a vivid image of heat that you are able to experience the sensation of heat even in the coldest atmosphere. It is possible to train your imagination until you do this, and it can then be turned to practical account in making ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont

... torture the Muses to madness, to wire-draw poetry through inextricable coils of difficult rhymes and impossible measures; to hammer one golden grain of wit into a sheet of infinite platitude, with frightful ingenuity to construct ponderous anagrams and preternatural acrostics, to dazzle the vulgar eye with tawdry costumes, and to tickle the vulgar ear with virulent personalities, were tendencies which perhaps smacked of the hammer, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of getting light but the miserable taper; while to-day the architect, besides being a thorough artist, who knows how to design and to color, besides being thoroughly up in the history of his art, must know how to plan for comfort, to construct for strength and stability; must understand all the details of boilers, machinery, dynamos, electric-wiring, heating and ventilating systems, plumbing and sanitation, and lastly must be able to manage the ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... to you," she said, pointedly, "what I meant a few minutes ago by calling you 'a man of the world.' You recognize at a glance what I had to construct from my imagination." ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... agitate their politics in the projection of railroads that could never be completed, or, if completed even, would not pay, in our time, the expense of repairs, or endure the severity of the climate; to construct which the material must be imported from England, and after every severe winter would require to be renewed, was, in effect, quitting the substance for the shadow, and, if begun in folly, could not fail to end ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... taking up some of the loose bits and piling them along on one side of the top of the frame, "if the better to shelter your crew in an engagement, you construct your rail in the manner proposed—as thus—then, by the excessive weight of the timber, you will too much interfere with the ship's centre of gravity. You will have that ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... absence of wharves on the Upper Amazon and its tributaries, vessels lay alongside of the banks whilst discharging or receiving cargo. The banks at the usual stopping places afford good landings; wharves are not needed and it would be difficult to construct them so that they could be used at all ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle

... by the energy of his will and his passion for posthumous fame, was the true son of the Renaissance, asked Michael Angelo to construct a monument worthy of a pontiff who should surpass all his predecessors in glory. When the design proved too gigantic for any existing Church, he commanded Bramante to pull down the Basilica of Constantine, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... hurry, and always had leisure to give to his friends, to poetry, romance, and the publications of the day; he read indiscriminately almost every new book he could procure. He assisted his father in his business, and soon learned to construct with his own hands several of the articles required in the way of his parent's trade; and by means of a small forge, set up for his own use, he repaired and made various kinds of instruments, and converted, by the way, a large silver coin into a punch-ladle, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... characteristics—i.e., high piston speed and revolutions, solid engine bed, and babbitt-metal bearings; but there was no electric driving until 1880, when Mr. Porter installed a high-speed engine for Edison at his laboratory in Menlo Park. Shortly after this he was invited to construct for the Edison Pearl Street station the first of a series of engines for so-called "steam-dynamos," each independently driven by a direct-coupled engine. Mr. Sprague compared the relations thus established ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... that policy we have been led to build many frontier forts, to construct roads, to annex territories, and to enter upon more intimate relations with the border tribes. The most marked incident in that policy has been the retention of Chitral. This act was regarded by the tribesmen as a menace to their independence, and by the ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... of the thing, he had considered that he had better not make his proposal quite at once. He was to remain eight days at Belton, and as eight days was not a long period of acquaintance, he had reflected that it might be well for him to lay what foundation for love it might be in his power to construct during his present sojourn, and then return and complete the work before Christmas. But as he was shaving himself, the habitual impatience of his nature predominated, and he became disposed to ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... passengers, an officer in the army, to all appearances died. They were about to resort to sea-burial, when, through the interposition of the husband, who was anxious to take her home, the ship-carpenters started to construct a coffin suitable for a long voyage, a process which took several days, during which time she lay in her berth, swathed in robes and ready for interment. When the coffin was at last ready the husband went to take his last farewell, and removed ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... for future operations. After the Bucharest-Ploechti line had been lost, according to one unofficial report, the Russians had sent some strong cavalry divisions to support the Rumanian retreat. The Russians offered strong resistance in the region of Buzeu so as to permit their engineers to construct a defensive front between Rimnik Sarat and the marshes at the mouth of the Danube. On that same date Berlin announced an advance of the Teutonic forces in northern Dobrudja. It was in this latter section that the Teutons now centered their activities. The Russo-Rumanians ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... subject Janet found her quite inspired. She made a valiant effort to illumine her thoughts of Kendal by the light Elfrida threw upon such matters, and although she had to confess that the future was still hid in embarrassed darkness, she did manage to construct a theory by which it was possible to grope along for the present. She also cherished a hope that this trouble would leave her, as a fever abates in the night, that she would awake some morning, if she only had patience, strong and well. In other things Miss Cardiff, ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... use formerly made of the tall willows, he set to work to construct a covering to protect him from the dew. As he had no blanket or buffalo skin, he used leaves and grass instead, and found it a better shelter than he had expected, especially when the fire was lighted, and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... colour, bloated of body, slothful, and of most retiring disposition. Huddled up into almost spherical form, it lurks in dark places, which it soon makes insanitary. In the open it crouches among dead leaves which have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... been merely a training school for the clergy of Paris, quite sufficient for its purpose, but strictly confined to the object prescribed by the law. The new superior chosen by the archbishop had far higher aims. He set to work to re-construct the whole fabric, from the buildings themselves, of which only the old walls were left standing, to the course of teaching, which he re-cast entirely. There were two essential points which he kept before him. In the first place he saw that a petty seminary which was altogether ecclesiastical could ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... the female population who had not repaired to the coast. Her first rosary was torn from her to adorn an almost naked baby; but the Abbe began to whimper, and to her surprise the mother restored it to him. She then made signs that she would construct another necklace for the child, and she was rewarded by a gourd being brought to her full of milk, which she was able to share with her two companions, and which did something to revive poor Victorine. Estelle was kept threading these necklaces and bracelets all the wakeful hours ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... marvelously and beautifully made, the highest work of my hands. Some of you shall be men. To these men I will give the task of labor in the fields, of warfare with wild beasts. It shall be your duty to subdue wildernesses, and to construct and defend a dwelling-place for this other one whom I am going to make a woman. Therefore I shall give you men large bones to deal strong blows, and a heavy skull to withstand the like. I shall give you courage and physical power and ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... depict it, to isolate it, to emphasize it. The process becomes gradually, as the life of the world continues, more and more complex. It seemed enough at first just to record; but then there follows the desire to contrast, to heighten effects, to construct elaborate backgrounds; then the process grows still more refined, and it becomes essential to lay out materials in due proportion, and to clear away all that is otiose or confusing, so that the ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... experience, however, may have enabled me to gather together materials for a more solid and substantial chess structure, than at present exists and I am not without confidence that competent and skilful workers will be found to construct an edifice more worthy of our day, which present, and pending, grand developments will still further consolidate in interest and glory; a building in fact cemented by the noblest and most worthy, praiseworthy, and commendable ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... construct in the corners of the verandahs clay cells for their larvae, are very numerous in the neighbourhood of Rio. These cells they stuff full of half-dead spiders and caterpillars, which they seem wonderfully to know how to sting to that degree as to leave them paralysed but alive, until ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... manufacture, bring about, construct, fashion, occasion, bring into being, create, force, perform, bring to pass, do, frame, reach, cause, effect, get, render, compel, establish, make out, require, compose, execute, make up, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though worn with that purpose. She well knew the great architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never condescended to construct a decoration. But when we have said that Mrs Stanhope knew how to dress, and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose in life she had none. It was something, indeed, that she did not interfere with the purposes of others. In early life she had undergone great trials ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... of the smaller islands and put all the anarchists of the world there and let them live out their precious theories. Just think what a hell it would be! What infernal engines of hatred and destruction they would construct, if they were left to themselves—machines charged with dynamite and bristling with all sorts of ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... were great, considering the extent and population of the little kingdom over which he ruled, but inconsiderable in comparison with the revenues of England at the present day. To build fortresses, construct a navy, and keep in pay a considerable military force,—to say nothing of his own private expenditure and the expense of his court, his public improvements, the endowment of churches, the support of schools, the relief of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... ambition to soar to Dimensions above the Third; but, since then, he had received fresh insight, and he was not too proud to acknowledge his error to a Pupil. Then he proceeded to initiate me into mysteries yet higher than those I had witnessed, shewing me how to construct Extra-Solids by the motion of Solids, and Double Extra-Solids by the motion of Extra-Solids, and all "strictly according to Analogy", all by methods so simple, so easy, as to be patent even ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... home-built structure. But with generous and no less judicious freedom, they are endeavoring to extend the knowledge of this wholesome and economical process of domestic sanitary engineering as widely as possible, and so allow us to present the following instructions for those who may desire to construct their ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Majesty's service was furthered. Commodities nave been cheap, and all necessary supplies have been procured without our having felt the much-feared failure of iron, bronze, and tin from Japon. Through my diligence, there is abundance in the warehouses, with which we could construct and cast [cannon for] fifty moulds which I have had made for more than four months, whereby the islands are fully supplied with the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... been very busy. Yet for all its business, he had not arrived at much. Morris, Godfrey Mills, and himself; he had placed these three figures in all sorts of positions in his mind, and yet every combination of them was somehow terrible and menacing. Try as he would he could not construct a peaceful or secure arrangement of them. In whatever way he grouped ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... too, and I saw him nobly washing a cooking-pot for his family, dressed in little but his white clerical choker and a sort of undivided skirt. A few white families have gone to the same place, and I helped some of them to construct their new homes in the rocks amidst great merriment. The boys were as delighted as children with a spade and bucket by the sea, and many an impregnable redoubt was thrown up with a dozen stones. What those homes will be like at the end of a week I don't know. A picnic where ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... the desire not to die. I have always been impelled— not that evening alone—by the need to construct the solid, powerful dream that I shall never leave again. We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... and they were without wood to dress it, had it been even more palatable. They had no shelter but a snow-house, which they constructed with the help of the Esquimaux. The women, however, had forgotten their lamps, and the brethren had no resource for rendering their habitation comfortable, but to construct a kind of temporary lamp from a piece of whale's flesh, into which they cut a hole and put a piece of moss, and then to kindle it, but the smoke and disagreeable smell were insupportable; they also suffered greatly from the want of water, as they could get nothing to ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... to construct a fleet for the purpose of adding to his dominions the isles of the Aegaean, but is said to have been dissuaded from his purpose by a profound witticism of one of the seven wise men of Greece. "The islanders," said the sage, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a very disturbed state, and it was impossible to keep all hints of danger from the children's sharp ears. Beth knew a great deal of what was going on and what might be expected, but then a few chance phrases were already enough for her to construct a whole story upon, and with wonderful accuracy generally. Her fine faculty of observation developed apace at this time, and nothing she noticed now was ever forgotten. She would curl up in the window-seat among the fuchsias, and watch ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... been stated that applications have been made for sixty steamers. A Dutch mercantile paper lately published a list of twenty steamers in course of construction for the Japanese. As American steamers have been found best adapted for the Chinese waters, we ought to construct more for our Japanese neighbors than ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Lalande's methods at the Ecole Militaire, and of Maskelyne's at the Royal Observatory; and returned to Palermo in 1789, bringing with him, in the great five-foot circle which he had prevailed upon Ramsden to construct, the most perfect measuring instrument hitherto ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... curved claws, which bear a very striking resemblance to those of the ant-eaters—especially the large tamanoir of South America—are used for the same purpose: that of breaking up the glutinous compost with which the termites construct ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... understand it myself," Tom Sr. confessed. "The message didn't explain how or in what form the energy would arrive. But, at any rate, they want us to construct some sort of container ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... Afro-American blood, since it first streamed from the land of the Pharaohs, whose wills were inscribed in hieroglyphics—long before Ph[oe]nicia invented the alphabet; long before the conquest of Alexander the Great had enabled Eratosthenes and Appollodorus to construct their synchrony of Egyptian antiquity; long before the construction of the Pyramids (those silent but eloquent tributes to the grandeur and majesty of the African intellect) had proclaimed the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... human mind leads it to forget the facts with which it is not occupied. All special culture of the intellect risks consequently the paralyzing a part of our faculties. Hegel, lost in abstractions, persuades himself that he will be able to construct by pure reasoning the history of nature and that of the human race. A geometrician, who no longer saw in the world anything but theorems and demonstrations, asked, after the representation of a dramatic masterpiece, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... of the year which supplies the nourishment proper for the expected brood, the birds enter into a contract of marriage, and with joint labour construct a bed for the reception of their offspring. Their choice of the proper season, their contracts of marriage, and the regularity with which they construct their nests, have in all ages excited the admiration of naturalists; and have always been attributed to the power ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... afterwards explained, the invasion of Uther and Pendragon, the rightful princes, who soon after landed with a great army. Vortigern was defeated, and afterwards burned alive in the castle he had taken such pains to construct. On the death of Vortigern, Pendragon ascended the throne. Merlin became his chief adviser, and often assisted the king ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Mexicans. From there to Austin there was not a single residence except at New Braunfels, on the Guadalupe River. At that point was a settlement of Germans who had only that year come into the State. At all events they were living in small huts, about such as soldiers would hastily construct for temporary occupation. From Austin to Corpus Christi there was only a small settlement at Bastrop, with a few farms along the Colorado River; but after leaving that, there were no settlements except the home of one man, with ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... had first to be constructed. This occupied a good while; but at length a stout rough article was knocked up, which served the purpose admirably. It gave them access to the lowermost limb; and from this they could construct steps ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... hast not done so, but hast utterly ruined Roumania; and we know full well that thou wilt do unto us as thou hast done unto others." And when Johannizza heard this, he laid siege to Demotica, and erected round it sixteen large petraries, and began to construct engines of every kind for the siege, and to waste all the ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin

... present in existence are reflectors. It is much easier to construct a very large mirror than to construct a very large lens; it is also cheaper. A mirror is more likely to get out of order than is a lens, however, and any irregularity in the shape of a mirror produces a greater distorting effect than in a ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... to construct in Paris that handsome building called the Observatory, the King himself chose the site for this. Having a map of his capital before him, he wished this fine edifice to be in a direct line of perspective with the Luxembourg, to which it should ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... sagacious and animating, his particular precepts failed in his hands, and are now practically useless;" and assuming that Bacon's method is not the right one, and not complete as far as the progress of science up to his time could direct it, proceeds to construct a Novum Organum Renovatum. But Bacon's writings have recently undergone the closest examination by two editors, whose care for his memory is as loyal and affectionate as their capacity is undoubted, and their willingness to take ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church



Words linked to "Construct" :   groin, retrace, theory, linguistic rule, notion, create, idea, abstract, set up, whole, channelize, raise, misconception, etymologize, put up, hypothesis, etymologise, corduroy, abstraction, category, theorise, property, delineate, conceptuality, frame, create mentally, make, draw, possibility, fact, law of nature, raft, regulation, rebuild, conceptualisation, erect, constructor, quantity, manufacture, conception, attribute, conceptualization, division, law, describe, hypothesize, part, mass-produce, thought, build, customise, line, cantilever, lock, geometry, rule, conjecture, revet, channelise, wattle



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