Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Deflect   Listen
verb
Deflect  v. i.  To turn aside; to deviate from a right or a horizontal line, or from a proper position, course or direction; to swerve. "At some part of the Azores, the needle deflecteth not, but lieth in the true meridian." "To deflect from the line of truth and reason."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Deflect" Quotes from Famous Books



... would insure a steadier current of national policy, subject to fewer variations. There would not be so many fads to deflect sound and sane statesmanship. So by all means, young man, begin your career as a citizen by making your wife a partner in every ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... during which Tony, while appearing to look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... little creek may display on its meadow as perfect curves only a rod or so in radius. On the flood plain of either river or creek we may find examples of the successive stages in the development of the meander, from its beginning in the slight initial bend sufficient to deflect the current against the outer side. Eroding here and depositing on the inner side of the bend, it gradually reaches first the open bend whose width and length are not far from equal, and later that of the horseshoe meander whose diameter transverse ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... is, that if you clutch the cylinder firmly with the right hand, leaving the left perfectly passive, the needle in the galvanometer will move from west to south; if, in like manner, you exert the left arm, leaving the right arm passive, the needle will deflect from west to north. Hence, it is argued that the electric current is induced through the agency of the nervous system, and that, as human Will produces the muscular contraction requisite, so is it human Will that causes the deflection ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thoroughly enjoyed; so he had brought it to him thus, as on a little silver breakfast-tray, familiarly though delicately—without oppressive pomp; and he was to bend and smile and acknowledge, was to take and use and be grateful. He was not—that was the beauty of it—to be asked to deflect too much from his dignity. No wonder the old boy bloomed in this bland air of his own distillation. Strether felt for a moment as if Sarah were actually walking up and down outside. Wasn't she hanging ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... agents at work, which modify and disturb what we may call the legitimate flow of the wind; and these agents are diverse in different places, so that the atmosphere is turned out of a straight course, and is caused to deflect, to halt, and to turn round: sometimes sweeping low as if in haste; at other times pausing, as if in uncertainty; and often whirling round, as if in mad confusion. To the observer, who sees only the partial effects around his own person, all this commotion seems but the disorderly action of ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... power in his grasp. In other words, a victory for Wu Pei Fu may either accelerate or may retard the development of provincial autonomy according to the course he pursues. It cannot permanently prevent or deflect it. ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey

... have. It set the young lady who was called Belinda asking about ways and means of getting to Salisbury; it brought to light the distressing fact that V.V. had the beginnings of a chafed heel. Once he had set things going they moved much too quickly for the doctor to deflect their course. He found himself called upon to make personal sacrifices to facilitate the painless transport of the two ladies to Salisbury, where their luggage awaited them at the Old George Hotel. In some way too elusive to trace, it became evident that he and Sir Richmond were to stay ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... telephoned to Langley to join him in his private room at a hurried luncheon. Next he sent for the afternoon papers. Not a line as yet, however; and Langley and Denning having evidently decided it to be unwise to deflect his thoughts from matters in hand, did not mention Mahr. Even when he brought up the name himself with a casual mention of the possibility of acquiring the Heim Vandyke, there was nothing said to give him an opportunity to speak and he was breathless for details, to learn if his ruse had ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... and sent the ball like a shot to Melvin. It was a pretty play, and nine times out of ten would have got by, but just as it had almost reached Melvin's outstretched hands, Barton, the opposing left tackle, touched it with the tips of his fingers, just enough to deflect it from its course. Ensley grabbed it, and it was ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... to the left, a bullet struck my right thigh and, peeling the skin off that, cut a deep gash through the saddle to the opening in the center. The saddle caused it to deflect upwards, or it would have gone through the other leg. At the moment I supposed it had gone through the right leg. Meeting General Custer I told him with some pride that I was wounded and needed a surgeon. Not finding one I investigated for myself and found that it was one of those ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... curtains of dressed skins, ornamented in various styles. The bed of the chief was perhaps the most gorgeous; on it could be seen the labor of five jealous women, each more anxious than the other to propitiate her lord by some extravagance of decoration, which would deflect the sunshine of his favor on her head to the envy and exclusion of the remaining members of the family. Suspended from stakes driven into the ground near the head of his couch rested the implements of warfare; lance, shield, bow, and quiver, together with the deadly tomahawk ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... gyrate, rotate, wheel, veer, shift, swivel; deflect, inflect; reverse, revert; divert, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... subdivide experiments into periods as short as 1 or 2 hours, it is necessary to deflect the air-current at the end of each period from one set of purifiers to the other, in order to weigh the set used and to measure the quantity of carbon dioxide and water-vapor absorbed. The conditions under which these ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... Birkenhead side of the river, and accordingly a "Pluckington bank" unfortunately grows under the Liverpool stage. Should this tendency to silt up the gates of our docks increase, land can be reclaimed on the other side of the river between Tranmere and Rock Ferry, and an embankment made so as to deflect the water over Liverpool way, and give us a fairer proportion of the current. After passing New Brighton the water spreads out again to the left; its velocity forward diminishes; and after a few miles it has no power to cut away that sandbank known as the Bar. Should ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... of the restaurant. Caroline, who took herself more seriously, and was busy with a dozen enterprises that had to do with the welfare of the race, was concerned chiefly with the humanitarian side of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it only such energy as she felt to be essential to its scientific betterment. She was tentatively engaged to Billy Boynton,—for what reason no one—not even Billy—had been able to determine; since she systematically disregarded him in relation to all the interests ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... time to parry the downward slash of the second guard's bronze sword. It was a narrow thing, because the bronze sword, though of softer stuff than the commander's steel, was also heavier, and thus hard to deflect. As it sang past him, the commander swung a chop at the man's neck, cutting it halfway through. He stepped quickly to one side to avoid the falling body and thrust his blade through a third man, who was aiming a blow at the neck of one of the commander's ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... which varies from 5FeS, Fe{2}S{3}, to 6FeS, Fe{2}S{3}, and is a sulphide of iron, is responsive both positively and negatively. Bismuth and antimony also are inactive, whilst almost all minerals containing even a small percentage of iron will deflect the magnetic needle, at least under the influence of heat. So that from the lodestone—the most powerfully magnetic mineral known—to those minerals possessing no magnetic action whatever, we have a long, graduated scale, in which many of the precious stones appear, those containing iron ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... from the strange aeroplane, although they could see several figures moving upon her. It swooped down upon them, and Jack had to deflect his planes again and slant downward toward ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... where primitive likes and dislikes are interpreted as coarseness, there is no emotional freedom. A child must have these experiences if he is to come to his own later: this is not the time to stamp out but only to deflect and guide; otherwise he becomes a weak and pale reflection of his elders, with little resource ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... with those forces (in Smeaton's phrase) that 'are subject to no calculation'; and still he must predict, still calculate them, at his peril. His work is not yet in being, and he must foresee its influence: how it shall deflect the tide, exaggerate the waves, dam back the rain-water, or attract the thunderbolt. He visits a piece of sea-board; and from the inclination and soil of the beach, from the weeds and shell-fish, from the configuration of the coast and the depth of ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in a laboratory experiment. Taking a slide with a wide and long slot in it, a portion is occupied by a right angled prism, one of the angles of 45 deg. being toward the center of the slot. By sliding this prism in front of the spectrum I can deflect outward any portion of the spectrum I like, and by a mirror can reflect it through a second lens, forming a patch of light on the screen overlapping the patch of light formed by the undeflected rays. If ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... upon the animated scene was Penrod's great-uncle Slocum. This elderly relative had come to call upon Mrs. Schofield, and he was well upon his way to the front door when the mutterings of war among some shrubberies near the fence caused him to deflect his ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... they reached the end of the canyon and firm ground simultaneously. Helen saw that her rescuer had now a revolver in his hand, and that he was firing in such a way as to deflect the leaders to the left. At first the change in course was hardly perceptible, but presently she noticed that they were getting closer to the outskirts of the herd, working gradually to the extreme right, ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... surface mines had been demonstrated beyond a doubt. He thought it possible, given the necessary time, to rig a device which would be practically invisible. A fresh set of dummy poles, which the Indians would probably avoid in the event of a second attack, might deflect the canoes into the area of new ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... when the enemy is close. They should cut the parapet diagonally, not directly to the front, and should be concealed by vegetation and by a curtain over the opening when they are not in use. Sheet steel plates with small peep holes are used on the parapet. They are set up with a slope to the rear to deflect bullets. ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... leads not, as we are nowadays taught to believe, to instant ruin, but to edifying considerations of the life and glory of St. Peter; and a pack of cards suggests, straightway, intransigent fine points of martyrology. Always this churchman's thoughts deflect to the most interesting of themes, to the relationship between God and His children, and what familiary etiquette may be necessary to preserve the relationship unstrained. These problems alone engross Coignard unfailingly, even when the philosopher has had the ill luck to fall simultaneously ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... for adjacents in experience are always interfused, the smallest real datum being both a coming and a going, and even numerical distinctness being realized effectively only after a concrete interval has passed. The intervals also deflect us from the original paths of direction, and all the old identities at last give out, for the fatally continuous infiltration of otherness warps things out of every original rut. Just so, in a curve, the same direction is never ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... national education, a Chartist in his youth, had become the gaoler of Parnell and the protagonist of coercion in Ireland. Joseph Chamberlain alone seemed to realise the significance of the social problem, and unhappily political events were soon to deflect his career from what then seemed to be its ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... In France the inability of political parties to coalesce into two great opposing groups largely defeats the best ends of the parliamentary system. In Austria the numerous and ineradicable racial divisions deflect the system further still from the lines upon which theoretically it should operate. No political group is sufficiently powerful to rule alone, and no working affiliation can long be made to subsist. The consequence is, not only that the Government can ordinarily play ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... was sent through the helix B and the galvanometer, so as to deflect the needle of the latter 30 deg. or 40 deg., and then the battery of one hundred pairs of plates connected with A; but after the first effect was over, the galvanometer-needle resumed exactly the position due to the feeble current transmitted by its own wire. This ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... doorway. It was well that the beast had formed curved corners in the room, otherwise the scheme would not have worked. The exhausts which did not point toward the door, directly, were toward the curved walls which would deflect ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart

... shall be for good or for evil. We cannot take away power from any child—he shall move the affairs of nations—but we can direct this love of power, or crush it; strengthen it, or weaken it; turn it toward the highest help of man, or deflect it ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... their heads. Past the veranda they raced, pouring a deadly fire into the kneeling Waziri who discharged their volley of arrows from behind their long, oval shields—shields well adapted, perhaps, to stop a hostile arrow, or deflect a spear; but futile, quite, before the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... brought. As the Vicomte cleared a path for her to the porch, where Endymion stood shaking hands and bidding adieu, Dorothea caught her first and last glimpse of this traveller, who—without knowing it, without seeing her face to remember it, or even learning her name—was to deflect the slow current of her life, and send it whirling down a strange channel, giddy, precipitous, to an ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Sausalito and wander up through the coast counties Here, Hall had told them, they would find the true home of the redwood. But Billy, in the smoking car for a cigarette, seated himself beside a man who was destined to deflect them from their course. He was a keen-faced, dark-eyed man, undoubtedly a Jew; and Billy, remembering Saxon's admonition always to ask questions, watched his opportunity and started a conversation. It took but a little while to learn that Gunston was a commission merchant, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... to deflect Cis's interest from the rooms to herself. For now upon her own person she wrought improvements. These did not escape Johnnie, who accepted them as a part of the general upheaval—an upheaval which she informed him was "Spring cleaning." ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... fosse which protected the approaches to the dwellings. The rampart of Castione (Parma), which dates from the Bronze age, was even strengthened inside with large timber caissons.[223] In Switzerland, some works recently undertaken to deflect the course of the Aar, on its exit from Lake Bienne, have led to the discovery of a village of the Stone age, with the bridges leading to it and the little forts intended to protect it.[224] As have the neighboring settlements, this station ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... Frank managed to deflect the automatic's muzzle from himself. But Rodan moved it downward purposefully, lined it up on a box ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... the church spire, the towers, in the distance.... A wrong turn is no hardship; it merely gives additional knowledge of the country, a further detail of the characteristic lie of the land, a different view of some hill or some group of buildings. Indeed, I often deliberately deflect, try road and lane merely to return again, and have bicycled sometimes half an hour round a church to watch its transepts and choir fold and unfold, its towers change place, and its outline of high roof and gargoyles alter ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... ended. He turned to the great business of the world. Desire and Jealousy should deflect his life no more; like Fear they were to be dismissed as far as possible and subdued when they could not be altogether dismissed. Whatever stirrings of blood or imagination there were in him after that parting, whatever failures from this resolution, they left no trace on the rest of his research, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... would fall to thinking, with vague amazement, that this irremediable catastrophe was out of all proportion to its cause. It was monstrous that a crazy minute should ruin a whole life—two whole lives, hers and David's. It was as if a pebble should deflect a river from its course, and make it turn and overflow a landscape! It was incredible that so temporary a thing as an outbreak of temper should have eternal consequences. She gasped, with her face buried in her arms, at the realization— which comes to ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... with the mates, under whom he had approximately sixty days more of pulling and hauling, going up aloft, scrubbing, and chipping to do. I was puzzled at the steadfast, deliberate malingering of the man. The crew all hated him, too. I have seen the man at the wheel deliberately deflect the ship from its course, in order to bring the wind against the mutineer's belly, hoping to have him blown overboard while he was ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... of the settlement of the French shore question in Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line more to the south. The new boundary was described at some length, but provision was made for its modification in points of detail on the return of the commissioners engaged in surveying the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... at right angles to the long axis of the magnets, causing them to point east and west. Such a compound needle requires very little force to turn it one way or the other. If one of the needles is placed within a coil of insulated wire a feeble current will act almost as strongly to deflect the system as if the other was absent, and the deflection will only be resisted by the slight directive tendency of the pair of needles. This is the basis of construction of the astatic galvanometer. Sometimes coils wound in opposite directions and connected in series, or one following the other, ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... full of excitement and variety, and susceptible of infinite development of skill. The accuracy with which a long field will throw to base might turn an English long-leg green with envy; and the way in which an expert pitcher will make a ball deflect in the air, either up or down, to the right or left, must be seen to be believed. A really skilful pitcher is said to be able to throw a ball in such a way that it will go straight to within a foot of a tree, turn out for the tree, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... oars, knelt a moment, and up went the long, slender barrel of his Kentucky rifle. As he looked down the sight he was sure that the man at whom he was aiming was Braxton Wyatt, and he was sure, moreover, that he would not miss. But a feeling for which he could not account made him deflect slightly ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... it mounts, Stepping up on the rising scents of flowers, Buoyed up and under by the shining heat. Above the foxgloves, Above the guelder-roses, Above the greenhouse glitter, Till the shafts of cooler air Meet it, Deflect it, Reject it, Then down, Down, Past the greenhouse, Past the guelder-rose ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... apparent Motion grows slow, and the Star becomes Stationary (which, as he saith, it doth in respect of the Ecliptick, not its own Orbite,) Here he observes, That from Decemb. 8/18, to Decem. 30. Jan. 9. its course was almost a great Circle: but that then it began to deflect from that Circle towards the North; so that afterwards, with a very notable and conspicuous Curvity, it directed its course towards Primam Arietis: Of which deflection, he ventures to assign the cause from the Cometical Matter, the various position and the distance of the Comet from the ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... of humor takes the same unexpected slants, not because his mental processes differ from those of other men, but because he is unshackled by the subtle and unnoticed nothingnesses of precedent which deflect our action toward the common uniformity of our neighbors. It must be confessed that his sense of humor possesses ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... wind buffeted us might have led one to suppose that its primary objective was to deflect our steps, and turn them in the direction of the mountains. Indeed, at times its pressure was so strong that we had no choice but to halt, to turn our backs to the sea, and, with feet planted apart, to prise ourselves against ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... inside. He turned over the pieces. Some he rejected. A small mist of powdered rust began to rise about his busy hands. Mr. Massy knew something of the scientific basis of his clever trick. If you want to deflect the magnetic needle of a ship's compass, soft iron is the best; likewise many small pieces in the pockets of a jacket would have more effect than a few large ones, because in that way you obtain a greater amount of surface for weight ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... with that peculiar look on his face which always appeared when he was about to deflect from the serious to the humorous. "Whilst I should not object to hearing my old friend Peters called a gorilla, I draw the line at gorilla. I should object to the appellation orang-outang, and I should resent with emphasis that ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... the synergistic as well as the Manichean aberrations in the doctrine of original sin. In its Thorough Declaration we read: "Now this doctrine [of original sin] must be so maintained and guarded that it may not deflect either to the Pelagian or the Manichean side. For this reason the contrary doctrine ... should also be briefly stated." (865, 16.) Accordingly, in a series of arguments, the Flacian error is thoroughly refuted and decidedly rejected. At the same time the Formula of ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... the armour shield The might of Rome drew nigh beneath the wall (The front rank with their bucklers interlaced And held above their helms), the missiles fell Behind their backs, nor could the toiling Greeks Deflect their engines, throwing still the bolts Far into space; but from the rampart top Flung ponderous masses down. Long as the shields Held firm together, like to hail that falls Harmless upon a roof, so long the stones ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... shoulder-strap; and attached, in a similar manner, was a huge crescent-shaped horn, upon which was carved many a strange souvenir. His arms consisted of a knife and pistol—both stuck in the waist-belt—and a long rifle, so straight that the line of the barrel seemed scarcely to deflect ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... traveller, such as Kingozi, knew this for a blind rush in the direction toward which the animal happened to be headed. The rhinoceros, alarmed by the first intimation of danger, unable to get further news from its keener senses, had been seized by a panic. Were nothing to deflect him from the straight line, he would continue ahead on it until the panic had ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... praying for things which are fictitious or abstract or mere theological blessings. Open to God the realities of your heart and seek the blessings which you sincerely desire. But in all prayers desire most to know the will of God toward you, and to do it. Prayer is not offered to deflect God's will to yours, but to adjust your will to His. When a ship's captain is setting out on a {158} voyage he first of all adjusts his compasses, corrects their divergence, and counteracts the influences which draw the ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... belief in superhuman beings who rule the world, and, second, an attempt to win their favour, it clearly assumes that the course of nature is to some extent elastic or variable, and that we can persuade or induce the mighty beings who control it to deflect, for our benefit, the current of events from the channel in which they would otherwise flow. Now this implied elasticity or variability of nature is directly opposed to the principles of magic as well as of science, both of which assume that the processes ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... consider love in all its developments due to social conditions. Still, in spite of the heresies of the endless sects that divide the church of Love, there is one broad and trenchant line of difference in doctrine, a line that all the discussion in the world can never deflect. A rigid application of this line explains the nature of the crisis through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass. Passion she knew, but she did not love ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... been purchased and new silver brought forth from the bag, and the receipt made out, and the item struck off and the amount entered, and the bus had started again, George perceived that he would soon be passing the end of Elm Park Gardens. Dared he ask the Major to deflect the bus into Elm Park Road so that he might obtain news of Lois? He dared not. The scheme, simple and feasible enough, was nevertheless unthinkable. The bus, with 'Liverpool Street' inscribed on its forehead, rolled its straight inevitable course along Fulham ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... literary pilgrimage. Indeed, if there is a rumor that Milton died in a neighboring town, or a treaty of consequence was signed close by, choose another path! Let neither Oliver Cromwell nor the Magna Carta deflect your course! One of my finest walks was on no better advice than the avoidance of a celebrated shrine. I was led along the swift waters of a river, through several pretty towns, and witnessed the building of a lofty bridge. For lunch I had some ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... distress, decimate. dsordre, m., disorder, confusion. dsormais, henceforth. dessein, m., design. dessiller, to open (the eyes). destin, m., fate. destine, f., destiny, fate. dtacher, to divert. detestable, abominable. dtester, to detest, hate. dtourer, to turn away, avert, deflect. dtruire, to destroy. deux, two. devancer, to anticipate, come before, rise before. devant, before, in front of, in the sight of. dvelopper, to unravel. devenir, to become. devin, m., seer. devoir, to owe, have to, be to. devoir, m., duty. dvorer, to devour, swallow up, consume, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... is plain, that the mean state is in all things praiseworthy, and that practically we must deflect sometimes towards excess sometimes towards defect, because this will be the easiest method of hitting on the mean, that is, on what ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... war it becomes necessary for guard or patrol work to deflect any troops from the army, or ships from the navy, it is of advantage to the enemy. If a coming war found the United States lined up with the democratic as against the fascist powers and serious uprisings broke ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak

... The rider could not deflect her mount. Into the fence went Wild Fire blindly and furiously. The girl threw up her leg to keep it from being jammed. Up went the bronco again before Wild Rose could find the stirrup. She knew she was gone, felt herself shooting forward. She struck the ground close to the horse's hoofs. Wild ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... thank heaven, we have always with us. Spectres cannot afright him, nor mundane terrors deflect him from his path. He takes nothing either in earth or heaven seriously, as is his God-given right. Some of the best examples of what he has done in the general field of mystery are presented here for the first ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... outline; and the sight produced in Amherst and Justine a vague sense of helplessness and constraint. It was impossible to speak with the same freedom, confronted by that substantial symbol of the accepted order, which seemed to glare down on them in massive disdain of their puny efforts to deflect the course of events: and Amherst, without reverting to her last words, asked after a moment if ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... If with a percussion cap and a tear we may develop sufficient power to deflect a magnetic needle 3,000 miles distant, what power may not be expected of the sun, 1,250,000 times larger than the earth; the sun exercising a force ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the line ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... point of the shot being seen to be slightly above and to the right of the tangent, with a right-handed twist. The effect is as if there was a mean sidelong thrust w tan [delta] on the shot from left to right in order to deflect the plane of the trajectory at angle [delta] to the vertical. But no formula has yet been invented, derived on theoretical principles from the physical data, which will assign by calculation ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... stockade nor simplest defensive work. It is all it can do to stand up against a "Cheyenne zephyr," and a shot fired at one end of it would go clean through to the other without meeting anything sufficiently solid to deflect it from its course. It is a fort by courtesy, as some of our non-combatants are generals by brevet, and would be as valuable in time of defensive need. All around it, east, west, and north, sweeps the level prairie. South of its unenclosed limits there flows a rapid-running stream, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... their growth. This direction is constant over wide districts in a flat country, but cannot be equally relied upon in a hilly one, where the mountains and valleys affect the conditions of shade and shelter, and deflect the course of ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... defeat which she pretended was inevitable. Whether she pitied or praised, she seemed always sincere for the moment, so that Jack gave up any lingering hope of knowing how she really felt about it, and contented himself with the determination to deflect all the pity towards Jose when the time came, and keep the praise ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... this substance in water 'containing seventeen times the weight of the oxygen in crystallized proto-sulphate of iron, or 3.4 times its weight of metallic iron in that state of combination.' By its capability to deflect a fine glass fibre, he finds that the attraction of this bulb of oxygen, containing only 0.117 of a grain of the gas, at an average distance of more than an inch from the magnetic axis, is about equal to the gravitating force of the same amount ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... remarkable one. I had a passion for dancing and my father wanted me to go to balls; I had a genius for horses and adored hunting; I had such a wonderful hack that every one collected at the Park rails when they saw me coming into the Row; but all this did not deflect me from my purpose and I went to Dresden alone with a stupid maid at a time when—if not in England, certainly in Germany—I might have passed as ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated James's women-folk for the ruthless negation of all their patient effort and skilled diplomacy. It was rather trying to have to deflect their enthusiasm at a moment's notice from Joan Sebastable to Rhoda Ellam; but, after all, it was James's wife who was in question, and his tastes had some ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... so much empty wind, and was like a straw laid across the course of an express train, in so far as its power to modify the gracious purpose of God already declared was concerned. And would it not be a miserable thing if we could deflect the solemn, loving march of the divine Providence by these hot, foolish, purblind wishes of ours, that see only the nearer end of things, and have no notion of where their further end may go, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... perhaps, repose confidence in the personal attachment of my father-in-law, but this could not blind me to the policy of his cabinet. This policy never changes. Treaties of alliance and marriages may somewhat retard its course, but never deflect it. Austria never renounces what she was compelled to cede. When she is weaker than her enemy, she resorts to peace, but this is always only an armistice for her, and, in signing it, she thinks of a new war. Such has been her conduct during the long series of years during ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.' In the original application of the metaphor, Paul is thinking of all these teachers in that church at Corinth as being engaged in building the one structure—I venture to deflect here, and to regard each of us as rearing our own structure of life and character on the foundation of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... profession. I had very little money left—some three or four ducats, I think. I determined to be careful of these, and to endeavour after some employment in Bologna, at once congenial and lucrative, which should not, however, deflect my designs from the speedy ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... seven out of twelve members, after they had passed forty, and ended fatally within ten years. In another, hysteria, chorea, epilepsy and mania, with drunkenness, came on soon after puberty, and seemed to deflect to other disorders, or exhaust itself before middle life. This occurred in eight out of fourteen, extending over two generations. In another instance, the descendants of three generations, and many of the collateral branches, developed inebriety, mental eccentricities, with other disorders ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... and directness. He believed absolutely in the final outcome of his proposition: where others saw mist and failure ahead, he saw clear weather and the port of success. Never did he waver: never did he deflect from his course. He knew no path save the direct one that led straight to success, and, through his eyes, he made Bok see it with equal clarity until Bok wondered why others could not see it. But they could not. Cyrus Curtis would never be able, they said, to come out from under ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... and thus the mean standard will be kept up without any advancement. If our billiard-table were sufficiently extensive, i. e., infinite, the balls rolled from the corners would never meet, and the necessity which we have supposed to deflect ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... in all relations in which affection was complicated on one side by gratitude, or on her side by superiority in education or social position, she was perfect. She could be employer and benefactress without letting such circumstances deflect in the slightest degree the stream of confidence and affection between her and another. She had the faculty of removing a sense of obligation and of forgetting it herself. Such a faculty is only found in its perfection where ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... experience, whether there was a reason or not? Might it not be the nature of bodies, or of some particular bodies, to deviate toward the right? or if the supposition is preferred, toward the east, or south? It was long thought that bodies, terrestrial ones at least, had a natural tendency to deflect downward; and there is no shadow of any thing objectionable in the supposition, except that it is not true. The pretended proof of the law of motion is even more manifestly untenable than that of the law of inertia, for it is ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... a single exciting word may call up its own associates prepotently, and deflect our whole train of thinking from the previous track. The fact is that every portion of the field tends to call up its own associates; but, if these associates be severally different, there is rivalry, and as soon ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... journey in a car with winged horses—it must be an odd taste which finds things improved. In Greek verse, in Latin verse, or even in Milton's English one could stand Night, docile to the orders of Satan, condescending to deflect a hatchet which is whistling unpleasantly close to Rene's ear, not that he may be benefited, but preserved for more sufferings. In comparatively plain French prose—the qualification is intentional, as will be seen a little later—with a scene and time barely two hundred ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... still higher by one hundred and fifty feet. The Flying Fish, therefore, skimming along at a height of ten thousand feet only, was liable to dash into either of these peaks if it so happened that she chanced to encounter an air current to deflect her to the eastward of her proper course. This, however, was exceedingly unlikely, for at the height of ten thousand feet above the earth she was in what is known as "the calm belt" of the atmosphere, where the air-currents—when such exist at all—are very ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... and spray, Seem more to me than man, With their unconquerable spirits.—Mountains may Succumb to men like these, to wills like theirs,— The Puritan's tenacity to do; The stubbornness of genius;—holding to Their purpose to the end, No New-World hardship could deflect or bend;— That never doubted in their worst despairs, But steadily on their way Held to the last, trusting in God, who filled Their souls with fire of faith that helped them build A country, greater than had ever thrilled Man's wildest dreams, or entered in His ...
— An Ode • Madison J. Cawein

... on a solid chair he finds himself sprawling on the floor, in a word his actions are all topsy-turvy or mere beating the air, while in every case the effect is invariably one of momentum. Habit has given the impulse: what was wanted was to check the movement or deflect it. He did nothing of the sort, but continued like a machine in the same straight line. The victim, then, of a practical joke is in a position similar to that of a runner who falls,—he is comic for the same reason. ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... that, although we can rest assured that he exercised a considerable influence upon later writers, we cannot actually trace this influence at work; we cannot in fact point to Lyly as the first of a definite series. The novel like its style coloured, but did not deflect, the stream of English literature. And indeed we may say this not only of Euphues but of Elizabethan fiction as a whole. The public to which a 16th century novel would appeal was a small one. Few people in those days could read, and of these the majority preferred ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... had ne'er known such regret. How must thou suffer, who so lov'st the shade, In Fame's full glare, whom one stride more shall set Upon the Papal seat! I stand dismayed, Familiar with thy fearful soul, and yet Half glad, perceiving modest worth repaid Even by the Christians! Could thy soul deflect? No, no, thrice ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... right through atoms, without appreciably experiencing any effects from them, diminishes. The opposing atoms begin to exert an influence on the path of the ray, deflecting it a little. The heavier atoms will deflect it most. This effect has been very successfully investigated by Geiger. It is known as "scattering." The angle of scattering increases rapidly with the decrease of velocity. Now the effect of the scattering will be ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... "In view of the fact that you have not yet made provision to deflect the rock it seems rather dangerous to leave things in this state. If the rock came down it would hit the roof of the porch and kill whoever happened to be there. You say you have installed the photo-electric cell? What ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... low barge drifted into sight, picking up speed as it came into the rapid current. Polemen balanced themselves alertly in the bow, their long sticks poised to deflect their course ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole

... direction indicated by the dotted arrow, T. In other words, we have a sort of compression, or force of air, acting on the face of the ball in the direction indicated by the arrow, T. This force, as we can readily see, tends, when combined with the original impetus given to the ball, to deflect or cause time ball to curve in the direction of the dotted line, B P, instead of maintaining its right line direction, B K. If the ball rotate about its vert axis in the opposite direction, the curve, B N, will be ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... it in this way. What business has a man to think of things right in front of you, poke his head, as it were, into your light? What right has he to set up dams and tunnel out swallow-holes to deflect the current of your thoughts? Surely you may remove these obstructions, if it suits you, and put them where you will. Else all literature will presently be choked up, and the making of books come ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... the first place to deflect the beast's charge when I was in danger, and, that accomplished, to lead him past my ambush in order that I might have the opportunity of ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... all of us move in certain orbits, from which we are sensibly deflected only by the approach of some new body of adequate mass. Now our "psychical" experiments and observations have plainly not as yet attained sufficient mass to be able to deflect the majority of those great bodies, the luminaries of science, from their accustomed paths through the heavens. Tides, indeed, we do create; there is a refluent washing to and fro of magazine articles about our topic; but we have not yet generated that wholesale perturbation ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... very end, bitterly and intensely, the stupidity of the War Office. Had he been allowed to deflect the routine indifference and suspicion of the War Office from its old ruts into the deep-cut channels of Irish feelings and sentiments, he might have carried his countrymen with him, but he jumped first and tried to make his bargain afterwards ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... some power of administration, studies mining engineering, moves to a mining center and expresses his individual and social powers along the lines of his work until he is sixty. The women who impinge against his life may deflect him from the mines in California to those in Australia, or from the actual work of superintendence to an office; or from an interest in Browning to Tennyson; or from Methodism to Christian Science. The girl with industrious and observant interests studies stenography and type-writing, ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... the boundary between these principles. Where the democratic power in the constitution is weak or over-passive, and requires stimulation; where the representative, on leaving his constituents, enters at once into a courtly or aristocratic atmosphere, whose influences all tend to deflect his course into a different direction from the popular one, to tone down any democratic feelings which he may have brought with him, and make him forget the wishes and grow cool to the interests of those who chose him, the obligation of a frequent return to them for a renewal ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... so hard that nothing can scratch them, and of course Roeser's Rays go right through our bodies, or any ordinary substance, like a bullet through a hole in a Swiss cheese. Even those lenses wouldn't deflect them if they weren't solid fields ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... Socrates affirming, than in a whole world full of evidence denying, of such maunderers as you! See here; he was the most sensible of men; balanced; keeping his head always;—a mind no mood or circumstances could deflect from rational self-control, either towards passion or ecstasy. One explanation remains—as in the case of Joan, or of H.P. Blavatsky;—he was neither deceiving nor deceived, but what he claimed to hear, he did hear; and it was the voice ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... Democracy. In the United States we set our Democratic principles going. In Europe the Revolution shattered many of the hateful methods of Despotism, shattered, but did not destroy them. The amazing genius of Napoleon intervened to deflect Europe from her march towards Democracy and to convert her into the servant of his ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... those among them who felt a strange dread—that firing sounded so far up the stream from where Reno should have been by that time. Still it might be that those overhanging bluffs would muffle and deflect the reports. Those fighting men of the Seventh rode steadily on, unquestioningly pressing forward at the word of their beloved leader. All about them hovered death in dreadful guise. None among them ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... to stem the current of affairs, but she had proved as powerless to deflect it as a dried stick tossed on to a river in spate. And now, whether the end were ultimate happiness or hopeless, irretrievable disaster, Michael and Magda must still fight their way towards it, each alone, by the dim light ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... Thus as soon as we get a combination of empathic forces (for that is how they affect us) these will henceforth be in definite relation to one another. But the relation need not be that of mere give and take and rythmical cooperation. Lines meeting one another may conflict, check, deflect one another; or again resist each other's effort as the steady determination of a circumference resists, opposes a "Quos ego!" to the rushing impact of the spokes of a wheel-pattern. And, along with ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... Callisto's course. At first it did not seem to deflect from a straight line, and they stood ready to turn on the apergetic force again, when the car very slowly began to show the effect of the moon's near pull; but not till they had so far passed it that the dark side ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... in heaven, and, on the plane of that golden gamut, they should sing together their hymns of joy and praise, in that same, good, old tune, from those same star-notes, which a thousand centuries should not deflect nor transpose from their first order within those everlasting staves ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... Hay saw Russia knocking away the last blocks that held back the launch of this huge mass into the China Sea. The vast force of inertia known as China was to be united with the huge bulk of Russia in a single mass which no amount of new force could henceforward deflect. Had the Russian Government, with the sharpest sense of enlightenment, employed scores of de Wittes and Khilkoffs, and borrowed all the resources of Europe, it could not have lifted such a weight; and ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... interposed Aunt Jane tremulously. "In the sand—why, I am sure that is such a helpful thought! It shows quite plainly that the chest is not buried in—in a rock, you know." She gave the effect of a person trying to deflect a thunderstorm ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... give man some power to control natural conditions. But even this power is due to the very fact that man also is one of nature's products,—a product possessing a certain stability, a certain natural plasticity and docility, a limited range of natural initiative. As a rock may deflect a stream, so man, himself a natural mechanism, may turn the stream of nature's energies into paths that are temporarily useful for human purposes. But from the modern point of view the ancient plaint of the Book of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... consequence of some morbid affection that can be pointed out by the veterinarian:—a dentist can detect an unsound tooth:—a physician, from certain well marked symptoms, concludes that the lungs or liver of an individual are unsound:—particular doctrines are held to be unsound, because they deflect from such as are orthodox, and it is presumed there may be an unsound exposition of the law. The human mind, however, is not the subject of similar investigation; we are able to discover no virus by which it is contaminated—no ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam

... the faith of the Church. So successful were the Schoolmen in their efforts that instruction in Theology was raised by their work to a new position of importance, and a new interest in theological scholarship and general learning was awakened which helped not a little to deflect many strong spirits from a life of warfare to a life of study. They made the problems of learning seem much more worth while, and their work helped to create a more tolerant attitude toward the supporters of either ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... no trace of doubt about the matter. Some disturbing influence, however, there must be; the only question is whether that disturbing influence is sufficient to modify seriously the assumption we have made. A powerful disturbing influence might greatly alter the velocity of the star; it might deflect the star from its rectilinear course; it might even force the star to move around a closed orbit. We do not, however, believe that any disturbing influence of this magnitude need be contemplated, and there can be no reasonable doubt that 61 Cygni ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... tabs. Look at me. I do something outside the ordinary—I kick over the traces—and Milly says I'm to go to the Psychopathic. Dick more than half thinks so, too. Perhaps I ought. Perhaps most of us ought. We deflect just enough from what the majority are thinking and doing to warrant them in shutting us up. No, I don't believe ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... action. But now he has lost his faculty of forcing others to act. He makes a spurt but he can't stay the distance. He has met Millerand, French and Joffre in Council and allowed the searchlights of his genius to be snuffed out! That is what surprises me:—He, who once could deflect Joe Chamberlain and Milner from their orbits; who twisted stiff-necked Boers round his little finger; who bore down Asquith, Winston, Prince Louis and Beatty in Valetta Harbour—East versus West—Mediterranean versus North Sea—who, from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., withstood, wrestled with and overthrew ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... ground its whole length. A great hope came into his mind: perhaps he could work it upward, that is to say backward, far enough to lift the end and push aside the rifle; or, if that were too tightly wedged, so place the strip of board as to deflect the bullet. With this object he passed it backward inch by inch, hardly daring to breathe lest that act somehow defeat his intent, and more than ever unable to remove his eyes from the rifle, which might perhaps now hasten to improve its waning opportunity. Something at least had been ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... dense prejudice which is blind to the evident. "They did not believe that he had been blind." A prejudice can deflect the judgment, as subtle magnetic currents can deflect the needle. The film of an ecclesiastical prejudice can be so opaque as to make us "blind to facts." We do not "see things as they are." Our perverted eyes give us ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... faults in the model. First is the lack of an adequate bearing for the barrel to turn on. There is only one very short bearing a long way removed from the point of engagement between the pinion and internal gear, and no adequate support is given the barrel, with the result that it tends to deflect from the ideal or true position and to bind. This condition is aggravated by the fact that the ring gear was made by cutting its teeth on an angle to the axis around which it is to revolve, using only a saw ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison

... some extent accomplished, mainly by the agency of artillery, the bayonet and other weapons for use at close quarters will once more be in the ascendant. Thin shields of hard steel will be affixed to the rifles of the attacking party, so as to deflect the ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... question of treason, General Wood," said Mr. Sefton placidly. "None of us would wrong Captain Prescott by imputing to him such a crime. I merely suggested an unconscious motive that might have made him deflect for a moment, and for a moment only, from the straight ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... Sober—Ananias himself could scarce say that I am that. Trustworthy—indifferently so. Steady—hum! about as much so as Garraway's weathercock. Hang it, man, I am choke full of good resolutions, but a sparkling glass or a roguish eye will deflect me, as the mariners say of the compass. So much for my weaknesses. Now let me see what qualifications I can produce. A steady nerve, save only when I have my morning qualms, and a cheerful heart; I score two on that. I can dance saraband, minuet, or corranto; fence, ride, and sing French ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... electro-magnets, j j j j, placed underneath, the whole forming a pair of galvanoscopes or current detecters, one for each line. It will be understood that the varying currents from the lines are allowed to flow through the coils, i i, so as to deflect the needles, and that the deflections of the needles follow, so to speak, the variations of the currents. The electro-magnets are magnetized by a local battery; permanent magnets might, however, take their place with a gain ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various

... at all. You know you are clear of that kind of thing. You're like an arrow on its way to its goal. Straight and sure. Nothing can deflect you. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... Cynical allusions appeared in the Press. "The only danger in making oneself liable for new schemes," wrote one captious critic, "arises from the possibility of their being proceeded with." Not even the "glorious news" of the fall of Sebastopol sufficed to deflect the local mind from the irritating habits of a dilatory directorate. After all, the Crimea was a long way off,—much further than Chirk,—to which place, the Great Western Company, on taking over the Shrewsbury and Chester line, had, under ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... mountain clump eight miles or so north of the village of Mpokwa, and comes flowing down a narrow thread of water, sinuously winding amongst tall reeds and dense brakes on either side-the home of hundreds of antelopes and buffaloes. South of Mpokwa, the valley broadens, and the mountains deflect eastward and westward, and beyond this point commences the plain known as the Rikwa, which, during the Masika is inundated, but which, in the dry season, presents the same bleached aspect that plains in Africa generally do when the grass ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... metal in which many tiny holes had been punched, so that sharp bits of torn metal stood out to make the grating surface. Lockley knew that sharp points, when charged electrically, make tiny jets of ionized air which will deflect a candle flame. Here there ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... sends market prices up or down is far stronger than any man or combination of men. It would sweep any man or men aside like driftwood if they stood in its way or attempted to deflect it. ...
— The New York Stock Exchange and Public Opinion • Otto Hermann Kahn

... again, as the water is there mixed with fresher water from the South. The River La Plata sends out enormous quantities of fresh water into the ocean. Most of this goes northward, on account of the earth's rotation; the effect of this is, of course, to deflect the currents of the southern hemisphere to the left, and those of the northern hemisphere to the right. Besides the water from the River La Plata, there is a current flowing northward along the coast of Patagonia — namely, the Falkland Current. Like the Benguela ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... arrangement of polarity rotating to form its complete circle of attractions; and we can thus form in hard iron and steel a neutrality extremely difficult to break up or destroy. We have evident proof that this neutrality consists of a closed chain, or circle, as by torsion we can partially deflect them on either side; thus from a perfect externally neutral wire, producing either polarity, by simple mechanical angular displacement of the molecules, as by right ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... commanding), leaving its encumbrances with the right wing, will push as though straight for Weldon, until the enemy is across Tar River, and that bridge burned; then it will deflect toward Nashville and Warrenton, keeping ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... curious swinging movement of rivers which was first well observed by the skilful engineers of British India. This movement can best be illustrated by its effects. If on any river which winds through alluvial plains a jetty is so constructed as to deflect the stream at any point, the course which it follows will be altered during its subsequent flow, it may be, for the distance of hundreds of miles. It will be perceived that in its movements a river normally strikes first against one shore and then against the other. Its water in a general ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... regarding the universe as revolving about itself it sees that self as but part of the great machinery of life, planned and operating for the good of all. A man begins to deny himself as soon as he begins to love another. Even a yellow dog may act to deflect the heart from its old self-centre. The love of kin and family, of friends, and associates all serve to strengthen the habit ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... that a soft answer turneth away wrath he understated a great truth. A soft answer, if soft enough, will deflect the stroke of the sword of justice. Dr. Lovaway, though his conscience was still uneasy, could say no more. He felt that it was totally impossible to report Sergeant Rahilly's way of dealing with ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham

... established its trading stations only in the vicinity or on the coasts of that inland sea, far away from the two Canadas, from the Middle West and the vast North West. After a little reluctance and suspicion, most of the northern Amerindian tribes were persuaded to deflect their caravans from the routes leading to Hudson Bay, and to meet the British, the New Englander ("Bostonian"), and the French Canadian traders at various rendezvous on Lake Winnipeg and its tributary lakes and rivers. The principal depot and starting-point for the north-west ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... this ingenuous remark so unmanned him that his eyes filled with tears, and he dashed from the room, closing the door after him in order that her appealing eyes might not cause him to deflect ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... eye. "And now you tell me that the only man who can pinpoint that time more exactly for us is of no use whatever to us. If we knew when that meteor was due to arrive, we would be able to spot and deflect it in time. It must be of pretty good size if it's going to demolish the ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett

... curve, diverge, mold, submit, twist, bow, deflect, incline, persuade, turn, warp, crook, deviate, influence, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... this cable were firmly linked a watch at one end and a pencil-case at the other; the chain also served as a protection against a thief who might attempt to snatch the fancy waistcoat entire. Then there were longer chains, beneath the waistcoat, partly designed, no doubt, to deflect bullets, but serving mainly to enable the owner to haul up penknives, cigarette-cases, match-boxes, and key-rings from the profundities of hip-pockets. An essential portion of the man's braces, visible sometimes when he played at tennis, consisted of chain, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... Conceding that it has been done by every scribbler from tyro to best seller expert, you will acknowledge that there is the possibility of a fresh viewpoint—twist—what is it the sporting editors call it? Oh, yes—slant. There is the possibility of getting a new slant on an old idea. That may serve to deflect the line ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... the first and second fingers of his left hand, then rubbed them softly into the indentation in the back of his skull. Quick as had been the flash of the long handled tomahawk, he had been quick enough to duck away his head and partially to deflect the stroke with his up-flung hand. Two fingers and a hasty scalp-wound had been the price he paid for his life. With one barrel of his ten- gauge shot-gun he had blown the life out of the bushman who had so nearly got him; with the other barrel he had peppered the bushmen bending over ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... logical and consistent in his attitude. A judiciary is either an end in itself or a means to an end. If it be designed to protect the civil rights of citizens indifferently, it must be free from pressure which will deflect it from this path, and it can only be protected from the severest possible pressure by being removed from politics, because politics is the struggle for ascendancy of a class or a majority. If, on the other hand, the judiciary is to serve as an instrument ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... of the first picture will probably prove unnecessary. She will be, perforce, a person not only of pleasant pursuits, but of leisure. If she endears herself to her husband, he will feel not only the attraction but the duty of her vacant hours; he will not only deflect his working hours from the effective to the profitable, but that occasional burning of the midnight oil, that no brain-worker may forego if he is to retain his efficiency, will, in the interests of some attractive theatrical performance or some agreeable social occasion, all ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... be a garrulous old fellow, who needed no urging to talk about the late earl; indeed, it was almost impossible to deflect his conversation into any other channel. Twenty years' intimacy with the eccentric nobleman had largely obliterated that sense of deference with which an English servant usually approaches his master. An English underling's idea of nobility ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... life, the parent is responsible. The moral right of the parent, which is one with that of the child in that period of life, is fundamental. It constitutes the bed-rock on which rest all other rights in matters of education. To deny that principle, to deflect it from its proper meaning, to recognize it only partially, is to blast the very foundation of human nature. No reason of common good, of citizenship, can overthrow this right; on the contrary, it presupposes it; for, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly



Words linked to "Deflect" :   flurry, deflector, fend off, debar, head off, forestall, bend, distract, put off, turn, parry, deflexion, obviate, forfend, disconcert



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com