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Contractor   Listen
noun
Contractor  n.  One who contracts; one of the parties to a bargain; one who covenants to do anything for another; specifically, one who contracts to perform work on a rather large scale, at a certain price or rate, as in building houses or making a railroad.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contractor" Quotes from Famous Books



... should leave the following spring, and meantime Jurgis sold himself to a contractor for a certain time, and tramped nearly four hundred miles from home with a gang of men to work upon a railroad in Smolensk. This was a fearful experience, with filth and bad food and cruelty and overwork; ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... of June, inclusive, 1831. Philadelphia, 1831." The meetings of this convention were held in the Wesleyan Church on Lombard Street. Richard Allen had died earlier in the year and Grice was not present; not long afterwards he emigrated to Hayti, where he became prominent as a contractor. Rev. James W.C. Pennington of New York, however, now for the first time appeared on the larger horizon of race affairs; and John Bowers of Philadelphia served as president, Abraham D. Shadd of Delaware and William Duncan of Virginia as vice-presidents, William Whipper of Philadelphia as secretary, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... now the names of those who, during nearly ten years, have contributed with entire disinterestedness to the completion of this colossal work. Over all stands a figure of very peculiar originality—that of M. Louis Favre, the general contractor of the great tunnel, whose name will remain attached to the creation of this work through the Helvetian Alps, like that of Sommeiller to the great tunnel of the Frejus, and that of De Lesseps to the artificial straits that henceforward join the oceans. Having myself had the honor ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.[475] ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... lounged smoking. One operatic figure in a long blanket stalked athwart an open space; but there was such poverty of drama in the spectacle at the distance we were keeping that we were glad of so much as a shirt-sleeved contractor driving out of the stockade in his buggy. On the heights overlooking the enclosure Gatling guns were posted at three or four points, and every thirty or forty feet sentries met and parted, so indifferent to us, apparently, that we wondered ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... known as Jerry—was a remarkable man. Thirty years ago he had come to the city from Maine as a "hand" on a coast schooner, obtained employment in a railroad yard, then as a freight conductor, gone West, become a contractor, in which position a lucky hit set him on the road of the unscrupulous accumulation of property. He was now a railway magnate, the president of a system, a manipulator of dexterity and courage. All this would not have come about if his big head had not been packed with common-sense brains, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... destroy it; and that it would not pay, even if built, and not destroyed. His reply was characteristic; that it should be built, if he had to build it alone. He went to Washington, procured the necessary legislation, and was the sole contractor with the Government. The Western Union Telegraph Company afterward assumed the contract, and built the line, under Mr. Sibley's administration as president, ten years in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... ringing a bell, And he gave him a mortal thrust; For himself, by law, since Adam's flaw, Is contractor for all ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... in the book is of most particular assistance to the contractor or engineer engaged in the actual work of making and placing concrete, it is believed that it will also prove highly useful to the designing engineer and to the architect. It seems plain that no designer of concrete structures can be a really good designer ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... Gaius Julius Caesar, who had made a reputation for himself as governor of Spain, was the second in command. The third was an indifferent sort of person by the name of Crassus. He had been elected because he was incredibly rich, having been a successful contractor of war supplies. He soon went upon an expedition against the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... the age of fifteen that I began to learn my trade, my master's name being Samuel Rogers, builder and contractor. I entered upon my duties full of life and ambition, determined to become a good mechanic, and at the end of five years my progress toward ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... perfectly plain ethics of secret commissions. The charge against the Ministers was that, while a government contract was being considered, they tried to make money out of a secret tip, given them by the very government contractor with whom their government was supposed to be bargaining. This was what their accuser asserted; but this was not what they attempted to answer by a prosecution. He was prosecuted, not for what he had said of the ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... together with their capacity in guns—a custom highly conducive to ease and satisfaction in social intercourse, if it could be adapted to mankind. By a plank more gracefully pendulous than substantial, I make bold to go aboard a transport ship (iron screw) just sent in from the contractor's yard to be inspected and passed. She is a very gratifying experience, in the simplicity and humanity of her arrangements for troops, in her provision for light and air and cleanliness, and in her care for women and children. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... offered no barrier to the damp breeze. Hollister stirred from his pleasant reverie and began to walk briskly about, inspecting the amount of work accomplished since his last visit. He kept very close track of the industry of his workmen and the competence of his contractor, and Lydia's father admired greatly the way in which his future son-in-law did not allow himself to be "done" by those past masters of the art. It argued well for the future, Judge Emery thought, and he called Lydia's attention to the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... blazes with a gold and purple wall paper, set off by ebonized wood work and furniture. The conscientious contractor has neglected no corner. Every square inch of the ceilings, walls, and floors has been carved, embossed, stencilled, or gilded ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... custom of the tribe, simply taking her to wife without ceremony, she is his legal heir, and her children are his legal heirs. This was established in a famous trial in the courts of Quebec. A trader became contractor and politician. When prosperity came, he discarded his Indian wife and married an English girl. On his death the Indian wife and children sued for his estate. It was awarded to them by the courts and established a precedent ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... had heard what he had said and was ready to go as his substitute, if he liked. For a minute or two the poor fellow could hardly believe his good fortune; but when he found that he was in earnest he was delighted, and hurried off to the contractor in charge of the train—Rupert stopping with him by the way to buy a blouse, in which he looked more fitted ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... go into the city. We might lie hid for a few days in some deserted hut but, sooner or later, our presence there would excite comment. It will be best, I think, to go into the city. In the quarters of the Parsee merchants there are assuredly some who would give you shelter. Domajee—who was the contractor for the supply of the mission—would, I should think, be best to go to. There is little danger, for none will suspect your presence there. His servants are ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... charter vessels from his neighbours at a much higher rate than the Government pay him, in order to fulfil the conditions of his contract. Considerable care is requisite in loading this tobacco, as, should there be a mistake made even of one bale, the contractor is forced to account for it to Government at the price they sell it at, which is about three times as much as they pay for it; and this regulation is no doubt found to be very requisite, in order ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... ribbon at the Garden. Alderman Martin would give $1,000 for him as he stands. He has hunted the State for him. You remember Martin—Reddy Martin—who used to be on the mounted squad! Didn't you hear? An old uncle who made a fortune as a building contractor died about a year ago and left the whole pile to Reddy. He's got a fine country place up in Westchester and is in the city government. Just elected this fall. But he isn't happy because he can't find his old horse—and ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... glanced through the paper by his side signed by the governor at Kiakhta, and saying that the prisoner had been most favourably reported upon by a wealthy Buriat, a government contractor with whom he had been living ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... stone gargoyle. The man was transformed, now that he understood; he became a geyser of eloquence. He poured forth his appreciation in rounded sentences; his splendid musical voice softened and swelled and broke with a magnificent and touching emotion. Through it all the Irish contractor remained uncomfortably silent, for he could not help thinking that this fulsome outburst was aroused rather by the man who had ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... gaining much distinction. Mr. William F. Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), whose renown has since become world-wide, was one of the men thus selected. He received his sobriquet from his marked success in killing buffaloes for a contractor, to supply fresh meat to the construction parties, on the Kansas-Pacific railway. He had given up this business, however, and was now in the employ of the quartermaster's department of the army, and was ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... to happen to you?" said a voice from the group. The speaker was Radway, but the contractor kept himself well in the background. "We're going to burn your mill; we're going to burn your yards; we're going to burn your whole ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... an Act was passed empowering a turnpike-road to be constructed between Harrogate and Boroughbridge. The business of contractor had not yet come into existence, nor was the art of road-making much understood; and in a remote country place such as Knaresborough the surveyor had some difficulty in finding persons capable of executing the necessary ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... infernal contract with their blood, has been very busy in certain parts of the State, trying to get signatures, under the miserable pretence that party pays better than patriotism, and that times of whirlwind and disaster are those in which he, the contractor, has most power to advance the interests of his adherents. But some of those who listened most greedily to the glozings of the arch deceiver begin already to repent, and are ready to call upon higher powers to interfere and efface the record ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... project here at home, securing the hearty cooperation and good-will of all the roads now made continuous, and bringing the enterprise to a successful issue with a skill possible only to first-class commercial genius. The former of these gentlemen is Financial Director and Contractor, the latter, Engineer-in-Chief, Vice-President, and General Manager of the line. At any other period than this their success would have been widely talked of as a great national benefit. Even now let us not forget the public-spirited men whose hopeful hands, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... tender, in accordance with the conditions drawn up by the controller of H. M. stationery office, with the assistance of the chief chemist of the inland revenue department, to whom the inks supplied by the contractor are from time to time submitted for analysis. Suitable inks for the various uses are thus obtained, and their standard maintained. The last form of 'invitation to tender,' or 'proposal,' as we term it, is appended, ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... had been supplied with these improved hammers, the contractor came and ordered two more. He seemed to think, and, in fact, said as much, that the blacksmith ought to make his hammers a little better than those he ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... perhaps the more important was Mr. Freake, a big contractor who had built Cromwell Road, in which he lived, and who was not on the best of terms with his workmen. Some of this unpopularity reflected itself on the allied candidature of Dr. W. H. Russell, whose expenses Mr. Freake was said to be paying. But the contest led to a lasting ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... in. Among the vanquished was the master chimney-sweeper, whilom incredulous at Staggs's Gardens, who now lived in a stuccoed house three stories high, and gave himself out, with golden flourishes upon a varnished board, as contractor for the cleansing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... and at one period I lived in a timber camp, consisting of working elephants and mahouts. I saw a shrewd young elephant-driver soundly flogged for stealing an elephant, farming it out to a native timber contractor for four days, and then elaborately pretending that the animal had been "lost." Later on I saw elephant performances in the "Greatest Show on Earth" and elsewhere, and for eighteen years I have been chief ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... any shadow of personal self-respect could endure to live under any other postal letter than W. or S.W. Better not to be at all than to drag out a miserable existence in the painful obscurity of N. or S.E. Happily for people situated like Lady Le Breton, the metropolitan house-contractor (it would be gross flattery to describe him as a builder) has divined, with his usual practical sagacity, the necessity for supplying this felt want for eligible family residences at once comparatively cheap and relatively fashionable. By ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... tables and computations, the quantities used have been those paid for. The quantity taken out, however, has been 10% more than that paid for, and 28% more than the contractor was actually required ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis

... certain Saturday the girls saw Neale drive by early in the morning with a handsome pair of young horses, drawing loam to a part of the Parade ground which was to be re-seeded. The contractor had only recently bought these young horses from the West, but he trusted Neale with them, for he knew the boy was careful and seemed able to handle almost any ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... the architect: and then, with his plans and schemes, he saw the builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six or seven hundred—but James had better see the plumber and fitter who was going to instal the new hot water and sanitary system. James was a little dashed. He had calculated much less. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... He promotes the natural advantages of my lands, and I encourage the traffic in tobacco and literature. He works from morning till night, is his own engineer, contractor, overseer, and master-mason. He does everything, and does it well. If we were less barbarous in our bachelor establishment I would ask you to come and see us—in earnest this time—and visit the work we are doing. It is well worth while. Perhaps you would consent as it is. We will ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... from US Fish and Wildlife Service only and generally restricted to scientists and educators; visited annually by US Fish and Wildlife Service Johnston Atoll: in previous years, an average of 1,100 US military and civilian contractor personnel were present; as of May 2005 all US government personnel had left the island Midway Islands: approximately 40 people make up the staff of US Fish and Wildlife Service and their services contractor living at the atoll Palmyra Atoll: four to 20 Nature Conservancy, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Built by Contractor otherwise. For Estimates and Machinery apply to Oil Machinery Manufacturing Co. of N.Y. city, 96 Liberty ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... woods and a tornado came along and blew the woods down. If the big cats had known how frightfully dangerous that trap was they'd have jumped overboard and left the island by swimming. I made two other traps something like it—the best contractor in New York wouldn't have undertaken to build one just like it at any price—and then it came around to be the seventh day, so to speak; and, like the six-day ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... kindness of the officers, I must say she was a most indisputable tub; and if there is an individual who deserves to be turned slowly before the fire in her engine-room, so as to be kept in a state of perpetual blister, it is the Parsee contractor who furnished the provisions, for so meagre was the supply that we could barely satisfy ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... fighting, was dead. The work had been done by soldiers from the Presidio, who blew up buildings too close to the flames and so only scattered them. Lane stood on the slope of Russian Hill, watching the fire approach Van Ness Avenue, when a contractor named Anderson came along. 'That fire always catches at the eaves, not the foundations,' said Lane. 'It could be stopped right here if some one would dynamite all the block beyond Van Ness Avenue. It could never jump across ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... was a contractor and one of the ring. "This is not the shortest way to settlement," ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss

... newspapers and current magazines and sip coffee and smoke while they are cooling off. It would surprise a visitor in New York or Chicago to be informed that his broker or his lawyer or his banker or a contractor with whom he has business, had gone to a bathhouse or gymnasium at three o'clock in the afternoon, but in Stockholm it is a common reply to an inquiry. During winter afternoons you can usually find anybody you want by going to his favorite gymnasium or bathhouse, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... will tell me,— Where are they all? Dunk's a sanatorium doctor, Up at Waterfall; Sid's a city street-contractor; Tom has fifty clerks; And Jamesy he's the "Iron ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley

... is—so it is. Well, then, about this time o' day you'll find him in that cigar-store with the sign out—below there. He's a contractor himself, who furnishes labor for the quarries. A man about your height and breadth he'll be, but a trifle fuller in the waist. A stout, strong man, and not many able to look him down. An eye in his head, has Buck! I wouldn't want to see the ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... characteristic of the "stiff-necked generation;"—he bowed to others—galvanism could not have procured the tithe of a salaam for me. His till was afflicted with a sort of sinking-fundishness. I was the contractor of "the small bill," whose exact amount would enable him to meet a "heavy payment;" my very garments were "tabooed" from all earth's decencies; splashes seemed to have taken a lease of the bottoms of my trousers. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... of Indian character. Workpeople rude to their employers. Disobedience of female workers. The contractor's pay-day. The labourers cheated. The caretaker of the wood-store; the risk of fire; the caretaker's fidelity; his cheerful poverty; the tyranny of clothes; his ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... choose. Two more enactments deal with the earnings of the workmen of contractors and sub-contractors, make them a first charge on all contract money, give workers employed on works of construction a lien thereon, and compel a contractor's employer to hold back at least one-fourth of the contract money for a month after the completion of a contract, unless he shall be satisfied that all workmen concerned have been paid in full. A Wages Attachment Act limits without entirely abolishing a creditor's right to ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... as one likely to give trouble in the future, and hence to be handled with care. He was a forthright, upstanding, lantern-jawed man of the people, by the name of James E. Winter. A contractor by profession and a former member of the city council, he represented the city on the board of trustees. For the city appropriated seventy-five hundred dollars a year, for the use of the college, and in return for this munificence, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... that there was something out of the usual about that vacant lot. I had wondered myself why it wasn't built upon. There was a story about it's being undertaken once, and the contract made, and the contractor dying; then another man took it and one of the workmen was killed on his way to dig the cellar, and the others struck. I didn't pay much attention to it. I never believed much in that sort of thing anyhow, and then, too, I couldn't find out that there ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... believe, if you ask me, 'twas just a little notion of the contractor's, for convenience of getting in his material and carting away the rubbish. He'll fix up the wall again as soon as the job's over, and the place will ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... showing great anger, compelling her to return Gluck's strange assortment of presents. This man, William Sherbourne, was a gross and stolid creature, a heavy-jawed man of the working class who had become a successful building-contractor in a small way. Gluck did not understand. He tried to get an explanation, attempting to speak with the girl when she went home from work in the evening. She complained to Sherbourne, and one night he gave Gluck a beating. It was a ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... accepted as security by creditors. This kind of occupation, therefore, though clearly distinguished from ownership (dominium), was yet regarded as a perfectly secure form of tenure. All occupiers of public land paid dues to the state through a state contractor (publicanus.) These dues varied in amount, and in the method of their collection. We learn from Appian that the ordinary dues paid by occupiers of arable land in Italy were 1/10 of seed crops and 1/5 of plant produce. Owners who turned cattle or sheep on pasture land belonging to the state ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... unprecedented accidents, for which no one was to blame. Rival lines, I know not how many, were cutting each other's throats for its legitimate business. At this juncture dear George invested all his earnings as a contractor, in the despised original stock,—he actually bought it for 3 1/4 per cent,—good shares that had cost a round hundred to every wretch who had subscribed. Six thousand eight hundred dollars—every cent he had—did George thus ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... Walpole spent a long life in luxurious ease because of offices with high pay and few duties secured in the distant days of his father's political power. Contracts to supply the army and the navy went to friends of the government, sometimes with disastrous results, since the contractor often knew nothing of the business he undertook. When, in 1777, the Admiralty boasted that thirty-five ships of war were ready to put to sea it was found that there were in fact only six. The system nearly ruined the navy. It actually happened that planks of a man-of-war fell out ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth century. Mlle. d'Esgrignon was then twenty-seven years of age. She was a beautiful woman. An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady. The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... contractor, at the birth of industry, negotiating on equal terms with his comrades, who have since become HIS WORKMEN. It is plain, in fact, that this original equality was bound to disappear through the advantageous ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... is not the builder of a public library or a public school. These are built by the people who are united in sentiment for a library or a school; the contractor is only the hired man who does the bidding of the people. The residents of a city themselves bring into existence beautiful streets, magnificent public buildings and ideal health conditions; or else they bring to themselves ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... The contractor, however, rather than leave his work of destruction incomplete, put a ridiculous price on them. He refused to accept a larger sum than he could ever have cleared by cutting them down. This is what Cowper would ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... out of work for three months and had five small mites to feed and clothe, and so forth. At the end of this expedition rather less than 15s. remained in his pocket, and once more he sought employment. This time he got taken on by a contractor who asphalted the London streets, a work done entirely by Italians. Here he remained for nearly two months, during which time he organised the men into a union and induced them to strike for better conditions. The men won their point, and returned to work on the condition that ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... merchandise and mails. In winter, the only communication with Montreal and Quebec was by stage, and in the fall and spring it was maintained with no small difficulty. One of the wonders of swift travelling of the day was the feat of Weller, the mail contractor and stage proprietor, in sending Lord Durham through from Toronto to Montreal in thirty-six hours. Many a strange adventure could be told of stage rides between Toronto and Quebec, and of the merchants in their annual trips ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... things that the soldier misses most and most frequently longs for. It is not the feather bed or the warm biscuits that he thinks of, but that dainty little penwiper, with his initials worked in it, and those embroidered slippers, that she gave him. He would not give a contractor's conscience for sweet milk; but he would like to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... man I mentioned at the consulate—the biped Peter Measel, missionary on his own account, who keeps a diary and libels ladies in it? Well, he's foul of a thalukdar* from Rajputana, and of a Prussian contractor, recruiting men for work on the Baghdad railway. I wasn't allowed to murder him. I see why now—finger of justice—I'd have been too quick. Sit down, you idiots! You've no idea what he wrote about Miss Vanderman. Let him scream, I ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... Excellency, is Obadiah Howl-man. I had the distinguished honour, your Excellency, of showing your Excellency over the grounds of the new Mission College. I was the contractor for the erection of that ornament to our little town." And again the oily creature smirked and bowed and did the invisible ...
— Officer And Man - 1901 • Louis Becke

... after the time with which we are now dealing, when he was a professor in Edinburgh, some of his students were carrying on mission work in a growing district of the city. An iron church was erected for them, but the contractor, an Englishman, before his work was finished was seized with illness and died. He was buried in one of the Edinburgh cemeteries, and Dr. Cairns attended the funeral. Having ascertained from the widow of the dead man ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... compliment me on my arrival. In the afternoon, I waited upon him in person, accompanied by some of my officers; and, before I returned to my ship, bespoke some corn and straw for the live stock; ordered a quantity of wine from Mr McCarrick, the contractor, and made an agreement with the master of a Spanish boat to supply us with water, as I found that we could not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... different. They ship you out for two dollars to where the job is. The contractor deducts your fare from your first month's pay and refunds it to the railroad company, or sticks it in his pocket if he's wise. Le's see—where they shippin'?" He glanced at the column again. "N' Mexico, eh? Yes, they'll ship you down there for two dollars, and you c'n go to work and grow up with ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... incapable of drawing his own plans. By the aid of his master, Dequersonniere, he gained a medal for a plan of a villa, and this brought him prominently under the notice of Margaillan, a wealthy building contractor, whose daughter Regine he married soon afterwards. The marriage was not a success; his wife was always ailing, and the two children which were born to them were so delicate as to cause constant anxiety. His business relations with his father-in-law were a failure, some ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... was enticed away by the devil (so the complainant made it appear), in the likeness of a black man, to Kingstoun Hills, East Lothian. In consideration of the poor man renouncing his baptism, and promising to obey his Satanic master, that grim contractor, on his part, engaged that the accused should never want. The panel thereafter often called Satan up by means of beating the ground three times with a fir-stick; and he answered to the summons, sometimes like a corbie, and sometimes like a cat or dog. By the devil's assistance, Hamilton ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... are under his control, he would betray himself from his desire to shine; but as it is, he leaves others to do all the drudgery for him. He signs his name in the title-page or at the bottom of a vignette, and nobody suspects any mistake. This contractor for useful and ornamental literature once offered me two guineas for a Life and Character of Shakespear, with an admission to his converzationi. I went once. There was a collection of learned lumber, of antiquaries, lexicographers, and other 'illustrious ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... down by his guild, and at the same time had the right of equal enjoyment with his fellow-guildsmen of all advantages pertaining to the particular branch of industry covered by the guild. Every guildsman had to work himself in propria persona; no contractor was tolerated who himself "in ease and sloth doth live on the sweat of others, and puffeth himself up in lustful pride." Were a guild-master ill and unable to manage the affairs of his workshop, it was the council of the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... Joe, I was telling you about, Mr. Brady," said Bob, by way of introduction, as the contractor came up ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... this man's relations with their wives, and they openly agreed to the sale of the honor of their women folk in return for what he gave them in the shape of contracts, at which they could make more money than their neighbors, or good "places," where the coal was easier won. In fact, to be a contractor was a synonym for this sort of dealing, for no one ever got a contract from Walker unless his wife, or his daughter, was a woman of easy virtue, and at ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... A ship-canal or railroad across the Isthmus had been proposed, and commended, and surveyed for and estimated upon, by French, South American, and other officials and engineers; but the execution of the work was left to our countrymen, and not in vain. Contractor after contractor abandoned the undertaking in despair; hundreds, if not thousands, of laborers—Irish, Chinese, and others—were sacrificed to the deadly miasma of the swamps and tropical jungle which ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... ] Architectural Draftsman [ ] Building Foreman [ ] Concrete Builder [ ] Contractor and Builder [ ] Structural Draftsman [ ] Structural Engineer [ ] Electrical Engineer [ ] Electrical Contractor [ ] Electric Wiring [ ] Electric Lighting [ ] Electric Car Running [ ] Telegraph Engineer [ ] Telephone Work [ ] Mechanical Engineer [ ] Mechanical Draftsman ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... a man submitting to circumstances with good humour and good sense, so remarkably as in my friend Alexander Willemott. When I first met him, since our school days, it was at the close of the war: he had been a large contractor with government for army clothing and accoutrements, and was said to have realised an immense fortune, although his accounts were not yet settled. Indeed, it was said that they were so vast, that it would employ the time of six clerks for two years, to examine them, previous to the balance ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... bribe the secretaries of the Treasury, in order to find out really where the alloyed ducats come from; but, in fact, he wants it to play of evenings, when he makes his party with Calsabigi, the lottery-contractor, the Russian attaches, two from the English embassy, my Lords Deuceace and Punter, who play a jeu d'enfer, and a few more. The same set meet every night at supper: there are seldom any ladies; those who come are chiefly French ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... is a demand for all, for skilled workers, unskilled, semi-employables, Negroes. The employment agencies cannot meet the demand. Construction camps which formerly relied on Italian or Polish laborers now seek to secure an alternative supply of Negroes. Formerly the big contractor in the North could pick a few hunkies from a long line of eager applicants for work. He could get Poles, Italians, Greeks, in any number.... To-day he is willing to take black men, and finds it hard to get ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... required two-thirds of all the members elected to each house to override the governor's veto; authorised the veto of individual items in an appropriation act; and prohibited extra compensation being paid to a canal contractor.] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... fact that you had violently forced another man out of his position here—a contractor ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... parentage. Her voice was shrill and unpleasant, while her hair was black and her eyes dark blue and lovely, her face was covered with freckles and she dressed loudly and in bad taste. Pat Casey—her father—-was one of the wealthiest men in town. He was a contractor and an honest, respectable man, but his wife was a pusher, trying to bluff her way into society. She was ignorant and disagreeable. People refused to receive her. Nora had been only half educated at a convent. Mrs. Casey, hearing of the Camp Fire Girls, bethought herself that it would ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... fine, perhaps not so passionate as with her eldest. It was the rule that Paul should fetch the money on Friday afternoons. The colliers of the five pits were paid on Fridays, but not individually. All the earnings of each stall were put down to the chief butty, as contractor, and he divided the wages again, either in the public-house or in his own home. So that the children could fetch the money, school closed early on Friday afternoons. Each of the Morel children—William, then Annie, then Paul—had fetched the money on Friday ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... you as to the application of the machinery for that work. You suggested the driving of drills in a manner similar to a piston-rod, with other details. On my return to Savoy, I communicated these ideas to Mr. Bartlett, the contractor's agent, and I recommended him to get a small trial machine made. This he had done in a few months, and then he claimed the whole idea as his own. The system has since been carried out (see Times, 4th April 1863) by compressed air instead of steam. I call your attention to ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... the paper. It was mighty cute in the young feller, wasn't it?" he said, scanning his daughter's pretty puzzled face a little anxiously; "and don't you see ez I ain't goin' to sell the Pontiac, it's just about ez cute in me, eh? He's a contractor somewhere around yer, and wants to be near his work. So he takes the room next to the Frenchman, that that ship captain quit for the mines, and succeeds naterally to his chest and things. He's might peart-lookin, that ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... Nabob's millions would have re-established the balance and even made the scale lean to his side. But Paris does not yet place money above every other force, and to realize this, it was sufficient to observe the great contractor wriggling amiably before the great gentleman and casting under his feet, like the courtier's cloak of ermine, the dense vanity of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... was, in a disheartening number of instances; on a railroad grading force in an adjoining county, on city buildings where I asked to be taken as an unskilled helper, with a sewer contractor in another city, as a shoveler in a village brick-yard. Finally I landed a job as a stacker in a lumberyard; and now I found another of the day-laborer difficulties lying in wait for me. At the time of my commitment ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... ain't long before he's cheating the people at home who sent him here. There isn't a man in this nitrate row that isn't robbing the crowd he's with, and that wouldn't change sides for money. Schnitzel's no worse than the president nor the canteen contractor." ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... resolved to go out upon the Plain, and persuade some Mongol to allow him to share his tent. On December 13, 1870, he left Kiachta and journeyed out into Mongolia to the first cluster of tents, named Olau Bourgass. There he found a friendly Mongol. 'Grant's contractor. Found him at his prayers. He motioned me to sit down, and when his devotions were finished he gave me a warm welcome. He lives alone in his tent, having nothing to care for but the horses for the courier service, and a couple of lamas[2] ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... convalescence that followed—a small army of workmen had been engaged in rebuilding the Circle L ranchhouse, the bunkhouses, and the other structures. On the second day following his return to consciousness Lawler had called in a contractor and had made ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... manner which suggests that she is much trampled on by her domineering husband. How on earth she ever induced herself to marry him I can't make out. The chief guests were Sir CHARLES and Lady PENFOLD. Sir CHARLES'S father was a large Billsbury contractor, who made no end of money, and represented Billsbury in the House a good many years ago. He was eventually made a Baronet for his services to the Party. The present Sir CHARLES doesn't take much interest in politics, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various

... Neither your father nor your mother would have stirred from sober little Grant Street had you not felt the pressing necessity for a career. Rumor got hold of you first on the South Side, and had it that you were experimenting with some small contractor. The explosion which followed reached me even in Vienna. Did you feel that you could go farther, or did you courageously run the risk of wrecking him then instead of wrecking yourself and him later? Oh well, he's comfortably married now, ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... a character worth knowing. He was exiled, I should tell you, years ago, for some absurd political reason, and has lived in England ever since. All the money he inherits from his father, who was a mail contractor in the north of Italy, goes in books and experiments; but I think I can answer for his solvency, at any rate, for the large sum of five pounds. If you are not very much occupied just now, go and see him. He ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... profit-sharing type, and required an audit, by the Railroad Company, of the contractor's books, and a careful system of cost-keeping by the Company's engineers, so that it is possible to include in the following some of the unit costs of the work. These are given in two parts: The first is called the unit labor ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace, Francis Mason and S. H. Woodard

... be it further enacted, That whenever any contractor for subsistence, clothing, arms, ammunition, munitions of war, and for every description of supplies for the Army or Navy of the United States, shall be found guilty by a court-martial of fraud or willful neglect of duty, he shall be punished by fine, imprisonment, or such ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... let out to shrewd and skillful moneyed men; these again subdivided became the means of employing thousands of idle hands—while each sub-contractor became a missionary to the mob to preach ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... who pretends to be dead in order that he may, under a changed name, investigate the character and eligibility of the young woman whom an erratic father has destined to be his bride. A golden-hearted old dust contractor, who hides a will that will give him all that erratic father's property, and disinherit the man aforesaid, and who, to crown his virtues, pretends to be a miser in order to teach the young woman, also aforesaid, how bad it is to be mercenary, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... the eldest son, Mr. James A. Campbell, younger of Stracathro (who is married to a daughter of Sir Morton Peto, the eminent contractor), now administers his father's interest in the business. His other and younger son, Mr. Henry Campbell, has, since 1868, represented the Stirling Burghs in Parliament, and now occupies a responsible post in the Government of his country as Financial Secretary ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... his coarse shoes, which seemed to have been bought with the agreement that they were never to wear out, were ill-conditioned with general dust and the special grime of melted pitch from the typical contractor's cheapened asphalt; one of his stockings had a fresh rent and old ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen

... by sailing, fishing, and shooting, and even the continuity of sport was broken twice a month, generally, by the arrival of the mail- boat. But at length this diversion failed us. Some difference occurred between the United States Post-office Department and the mail-contractor on the St. John's River, and we got no mail for three months. Then the commanding officer ordered me to go to Charleston by the sloop that had brought us supplies, and bring back the mail by the regular route. I made the round ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... case, which was noticed by my honorable fellow Manager yesterday. Mr. Belli, the confidential secretary of the prisoner, was agent and contractor for stores; and this raised a suspicion that the contracts were held by him for the prisoner's advantage. Mr. Belli was here during the whole time of the trial, and six weeks after we had closed our ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... St. Germain was undoubtedly owing to the talents, experience, and excellent principles of Madame Campan, seconded by public opinion. All property had changed hands; all ranks found themselves confusedly jumbled by the shock of the Revolution: the grand seigneur dined at the table of the opulent contractor; and the witty and elegant marquise was present at the ball by the side of the clumsy peasant lately grown rich. In the absence of the ancient distinctions, elegant manners and polished language now formed a kind of aristocracy. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser of a gunboat, who had broken his leg falling down a hatchway; and a kind of railway contractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by some mysterious tropical disease, who held the doctor for an ass, and indulged in secret debaucheries of patent medicine which his Tamil servant used to smuggle ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... his misgivings about the City's offer. It was a handsome offer he acknowledged, "and if well managed might be done," but he had his fears lest the work should be put into ill hands.(1278) The work was put out to tender, but the final selection of a contractor was left to the king.(1279) Precepts were issued to the livery companies to "excite and persuade" their members in every possible way to subscribe to the undertaking.(1280) The money, however, was very slow in coming in, no more than L4,200 having been subscribed ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... the duties under section 302, the Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, may draw upon the expertise of any laboratory of the Federal Government, whether operated by a contractor or the Government. (2) Laboratories.—The Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, may establish a headquarters laboratory for the Department at any laboratory or site and may establish ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... chests, closed the lids and went out to take a look at the post. Towards evening, a soldier came for orders for beef, and I learned how to manage that. I was told that we bought our meats direct from the contractor; I had to state how much and what cuts I wished. Another soldier came to bring us milk, and I asked Jack who was the milkman, and he said, blessed if he knew; I learned, afterwards, that the soldiers ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... remembered that a friend of mine—a railway contractor, Mr. Louis Schnoor—must be at that time in Araguary, looking after the construction of the new railway line which will eventually join Araguary to the capital of Goyaz. I went in search of him, stumbling along the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... portion of the politic savages came to the place of muster. Other disappointments also combined to paralyze the British force: the Indians had failed to provide more than half the number of canoes necessary for the transport of the troops across the lake, and the contractor of the army had imprudently neglected to supply sufficient provisions. No alternative remained for Winthrop but to fall back upon Albany ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... resume it is a question whether the town will be rebuilt. The Hungarians were beginning to pillage the houses, and the arrival of police was most timely. Word had just been received that all the men employed by Peabody, the Pittsburgh contractor, have ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... usual to the Piazza of Saint Mark, and had no difficulty in recognizing there the various persons he had seen in the hut, and in ascertaining their names and families. One of the citizens he had failed to recognize was a large contractor in the salt works on the mainland. The other was the largest importer of beasts for the supply of meat to the markets ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty

... firmly pressing to the one desired end—the crushing, crumpling and destroying of the war machinery of Germany. At the beginning England could not turn out 10,000 rifles a week; and a rifle can shoot well for only about 1000 rounds. Yet in December a single contractor in England was turning out 40,000 a week, and every possible contractor there and elsewhere had his ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... should take an interest in the matter. Moreover, he felt not a little complacency over the fact that his son was chosen as a companion by Lawyer Lloyd's son. Engrossed as he was in the making of money, a big, burly, gruff, uncultured contractor, he found time somehow to acquire a great respect for Mr. Lloyd. He thought him rather too scrupulous and straightforward a man to be his lawyer, but he admired him greatly, nevertheless; and, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... known in the City, the "White Lady of Threadneedle Street" was a daily visitor to the Bank of England. She was, it is said, the sister of a poor young clerk who had forged the signature to a transfer-warrant, and who was hung in 1809. She had been a needle-worker for an army contractor, and lived with her brother and an old aunt in Windmill Street, Finsbury. Her mind became affected at her brother's disgraceful death, and every day after, at noon, she used to cross the Rotunda to the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... merchant, that it was the only subject upon which he was ever seduced into a eulogium. He strictly practised what he professed, and both as a merchant, and afterwards as a commissioner for victualling the navy, his conduct was without stain. He would not accept the slightest favour of any sort from a contractor; and when any present was sent to him whilst at the Victualling Office, he would politely return it, with the intimation that "he had made it a rule not to accept anything from any person engaged with the office." When he found his powers failing, he prepared for death ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... one; it was no tale of inordinate ambition, no Odyssey of a perilous search for the prizes of life, but the bald recital of a mere struggle for existence. Peter had stayed by his master until his master's death. Then he had worked for a railroad contractor, until exposure and overwork had laid him up with a fever. After his recovery, he had been employed for some years at cutting turpentine boxes in the pine woods, following the trail of the industry southward, until one day his axe had slipped and wounded him severely. When his wound was healed ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... Mrs. Gardiner the names of several contractors whom she knew to be reliable. Mrs. Gardiner was a little breathless at the speed with which things were moving, but there was no stopping Migwan once she was started. A contractor was engaged and work begun on the house one week from the day Migwan had thought of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... before him speechless and in servile posture. One at his back upheld an umbrella of immense spread. He indulged few words, and they were strictly business. He wanted a full outfit for the Hajj; could the contractor furnish him twenty camels of burden, and four swift dromedaries? Two of the latter were to carry a litter for himself; the other two were for his personal attendants, whom he desired furnished with well-shaded shugdufs. The camels he would load with provisions. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... was distinctly of the nouveau riche. She came from an eastern city where money is the god of things. Why her father, a kindly soul who had risen from hod carrier to contractor, happened to choose Leslie Manor for his youngest daughter must remain one of the unanswered questions. Perhaps "mommer" made the selection on account of the name which had appealed to her. Manors or manners were all one to her. At any ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... imperfect construction is inevitable is where companies admit their inability to be their own financiers by giving some influential contractor his price, and allowing him to "do his own engineering," in consideration of his taking such securities as they have to offer, and which he undertakes to float by means of his superior connections. Having the thing his own way, and being naturally anxious to build his road for as little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... was not to seek antiquities or to enjoy famous prospects, but to visit one after another a series of doleful suburbs, for which it was the old gentleman's chief claim to renown that he had been the sole contractor, and too often the architect besides. I have rarely seen a more shocking exhibition: the bricks seemed to be blushing in the walls, and the slates on the roof to have turned pale with shame; but I was careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged artificer at my side; and when he ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... sixteen years of age, all but four of whom belonged to the drinking classes. Packer, Prentice & Co., large furriers in Albany, employed 400 persons, none of whom used ardent spirits, and there were only two cases of cholera among them. Mr. Delevan, a contractor, said: 'I was engaged at the time in erecting a large block of buildings. The laborers were much alarmed, and were on the point of abandoning the work. They were advised to stay and give up strong drink. They all remained, and all quit the use of strong drink except ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen



Words linked to "Contractor" :   muscle, bridge player, contractile organ, contract, ship-breaker, musculus, organ, haulier, hand



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