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Deform   Listen
adjective
Deform  adj.  Deformed; misshapen; shapeless; horrid. (Obs.) "Sight so deform what heart of rock could long Dry-eyed behold?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Deform" Quotes from Famous Books



... Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name— But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of mortal life! For to this earthly frame Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... them myself. It may, perhaps, be worth while to state that at these meetings the sons of farmers, and even of lairds, did not disdain to make their appearance, and mingle delightedly with the lads that wore the crook and plaid. Where pride does not come to chill nor foppery to deform homely and open-hearted kindness, yet where native modesty and self-respect induce propriety of conduct, society possesses its own attractions, and can subsist on ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... wooden buildings and a certain extent of wire fencing represented most of the initial expenses of the pioneer. Pastoral settlement speedily overran such a land, followed more slowly and partially by agriculture. The settler came, not with axe and fire to ravage and deform, but as builder, planter and gardener. Being in nineteen cases out of twenty a Briton, or a child of one, he set to work to fill this void land with everything British which he could transport or transplant His gardens were filled with the flowers, the vegetables, the fruit trees of the old land. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... adorned with scrupulous care; her eyebrows trimmed of every stray hair that might deform the beauty-arch; the lids pencilled with lampblack; the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet stained with henna; not one stray lock encroached on the straight parting of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... tight about the waist often produces serious deformities of the bones of the trunk, and makes the chest so small that the lungs have not room to act properly. Tight or high-heeled shoes also often deform and injure the feet and make ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg

... general recognition, and passes as quickly out again. Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms" is full of words of this kind—locofoco, for example—which lived their short lives, and then passed not only out of use, but out of memory. While they are in vogue, however, they deform our speech, and they tend to increase our habits of looseness in language; and they bring reproach upon us such as that with an allusion to which we began this item. For our reputation's sake we should stop this; it subjects us with some ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... blushing hides her wreath at Shakespeare's name. Hard was the lot those injured strains endured, Unown'd by Science, and by years obscured: 10 Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confess'd A fix'd despair in every tuneful breast. Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear, When wintry winds deform the plenteous year; When lingering frosts the ruin'd seats invade 15 Where Peace resorted, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... evanished, like a passing summer storm, And a gush of hope like sunshine flashed around me, to deform The image of repentance, while the darkness of remorse Retreated from its presence with a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... (these being at this game the groom-porters) is advertised by the secretary who brings him in, and the electors disputing are bound to acquiesce in his sentence. For which cause it is that the censors do not ballot at the urns; the signory also abstains, lest it should deform the house: wherefore the blanks in the side urns are by so many the fewer. And so much for the lot, which is of the greater art but less consequence, because it concerns proposition only: but all (except the tribunes and the judges, which being ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, And winter oft, at eve, resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... alone shot forth a spark To prove thee—not Eternity. That beam hath sunk—and now thou art A blank—a thing to count and curse Through each dull tedious trifling part, Which all regret, yet all rehearse. One scene even thou canst not deform— The limit of thy sloth or speed When future wanderers bear the storm Which we shall sleep too sound to heed. And I can smile to think how weak Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... space which had intervened between our parting and reunion was but brief, yet at the period of life at which we were, even a shorter interval than that of three years has frequently served to form or DEform ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... of an amorous and rural Nature, worthily deserving commendations, as any one will confess who shall peruse it with an impartial eye. Take a view of his abilities, out of his Second Book, first Song of his Pastorals, speaking of a deform'd Woman. ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... who have subscribed this paper, (for the showing of our own innocency in this behalf,) do declare and manifest our dislike and detestation against the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing uncivil and unmanly; whereby men do deform themselves, and offend sober and modest men, and do corrupt good manners. We do therefore, earnestly intreat all the elders of this jurisdiction, as often as they shall see cause, to manifest their zeal against ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... please, or a hawk, or whatever else your learnings may call it, but I do declare and manifest my dislike and detestation of such wearing of long hair, as against a thing uncivil and unmanly, whereby men deform themselves, and offend sober and modest ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... them, and on the ankles they have silver, brass, copper or iron shackles. A pair of silver ones were seen, which weighed one hundred and twenty-eight ounces, but these ponderous ornaments produce a callous lump on the leg, and entirely deform the ankle. The poorest people have only the jereed and sandals. Both men and women have a singular custom of stuffing their nostrils with a twisted leaf of onions or clover, which has a very disgusting appearance. The men, not using oil, are much cleaner than the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... come! let polar spirits sweep The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep! Though boundless snows the withered heath deform, And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm, Yet shall the smile of social love repay, With mental light, the melancholy day! And, when its short and sullen noon is o'er, The ice-chained waters slumbering on the shore, How bright the ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... scene of woe: Matrons and maids, both sexes, every state, With tears lament the knight's untimely fate. Nor greater grief in falling Troy was seen For Hector's death, but Hector was not then. Old men with dust deform'd their hoary hair; The women beat their breasts, their cheeks they tear: Why wouldst thou go, (with one consent they cry,) When thou hadst ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... pure perfectness: The balmy breathings of the wind inhale Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad: Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere, 350 Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream; No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven, Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride The foliage of the undecaying trees; But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair, 355 And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace, Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... grave, He rests as sweetly 'neath the wave As though in Auburn's bowers he lay, Where sunbeams through green branches play, And roses, wet with tear drops, bloom Around th' unconscious sleeper's tomb. Let no rude wind, no angry storm, The ocean's heaving breast deform,— 'Tis hallowed as dear Judson's bed, Until the sea gives up its dead. Though mortals weep with fond regret, The Lord that spot will ne'er forget; He will a faithful record keep,— He knows where all his ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower

... generally regarded as unscientific. The so-called philosophic materialism of the present day seems to be in general far nearer to pantheism than to the old form of materialism which recognized only atoms and mechanism. Atheism as a power to deform the lives of men has, for the present, lost its hold, and even agnosticism is respectful. The materialism against which we have to struggle is not that of the school, but of the shop, of society, of life. There are comparatively few now who avow a system of ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... the beauty of American women does not lie, as the writer of the 'Post' contends, in an overworking of the physical system which shall stunt and deform; on the contrary, American women of the comfortable classes are in danger of a loss of physical beauty from the entire deterioration of the muscular system for want of exercise. Take the life of any American girl in one of our large ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... not into his words, but into his sleeve; If thou canst learn what language his purse speaks, Be ruled by that; that's golden eloquence. Money can make a slavering tongue speak plain. If he that loves thee be deform'd and rich, Accept his love: gold hides deformity. Gold can make limping Vulcan walk upright; Make squint eyes straight, a crabbed face look smooth, Gilds copper noses, makes them look like gold; Fills age's wrinkles up, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... ideal, is so commonplace, so false to the grand, gracious, mighty-hearted Jesus—that YOU are the cause why the truth hangs its head in patience, and rides not forth on the white horse, conquering and to conquer. You dull its lustre in the eyes of men; you deform its fair proportions; you represent not that which it is, but that which it is not, yet call yourselves by its name; you are not the salt of the earth, but a salt that has lost its savour, for ye ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... and more. A mind exempt From every low-bred passion, where contempt, Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found A harbor yet; an understanding sound; Just views of right and wrong; perception full Of the deform'd, and of the beautiful, In life and manners; wit above her sex, Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks; Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth, To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth; A noble nature, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... has noticed the extraordinary list of names suggested lately in order to designate motion by electricity; that list of names only revealed what many of us had been observing for a long time—namely, the appalling forces that are ready at a moment's notice to deface and deform our English tongue. These strange, fantastic, grotesque, and weird titles open up to my prophetic vision a most unwelcome prospect. I tremble to see the day approach—and I am not sure that it is not approaching—when the humorists of the headlines of American journalism shall pass current ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... become the Sam Brown he might have been and the teacher cannot win special comfort in the reflection that she has helped to produce a cripple. We can better afford to depart from the beaten path, and even do violence to the sanctity of the course of study, than to lose or deform Sam Brown. If his soul yearns for green fields and budding trees, it is cruel if not criminal to fail to cater to this yearning. And only by cultivating and ministering to this native disposition can we hope to be of service in ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... beautify, embellish, deck, ornament, grace, garnish, bedizen, bedeck, bestud, beset, emblazon. Antonyms: disfigure, mar, deform. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... fish. One of them wore a high helmet of puma-skin, with the tail hanging down his back— handsome head-gear, which he gladly bartered for several strings of bright coral-red beads. Around the upper arms of two of them were bands bound so tightly as to cut into and deform the muscles—a singular custom, seemingly not only purposeless but mischievous, which is common among ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... Natives of Carolina are a straight, clean-limb'd People; the Children being seldom or never troubled with Rickets, or those other Distempers, that the Europeans are visited withal. 'Tis next to a Miracle, to see one of them deform'd in Body. The Vicinity of the Sun makes Impression on the Men, who labour out of doors, or use the Water. {Beautiful.} As for those Women, that do not expose themselves to the Weather, they are often very fair, and generally as ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... haunt our verdant meads, No grinning imps deform our blazing hearth; Beneath the kelpie's fang no traveller bleeds, Nor gory vampyre taints our holy earth, Nor spectres stalk to frighten harmless mirth, Nor tortured demon howls adown the gale; Fair reason checks these monsters in their birth. Yet have we ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... has youth on his side, could we give him fresh sea air, good diet, cod oil, etc., we might very likely obtain anchylosis; true, but he may die while trying for this anchylosis, and also this anchylosis, when got, may so lame or deform him that resection may ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... in the toilette," while Petrarch, in 1366, recognized the power of fashion over its votaries. "Who can see with patience," he writes, "the monstrous fantastical inventions which people of our times have invented to deform rather than adorn their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes, their caps with feathers, their hair twisted and hanging down like tails,... their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords that ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... that many incomprehensible things were done, which trustworthy people affirmed. 'But the discovery of some new foreign god is one thing,' said he, 'and the reception of his teaching another. I have no wish to know anything which may deform life and mar its beauty. Never mind whether our gods are true or not; they are beautiful, their rule is pleasant for us, and we live without care.' 'Thou art willing to reject the religion of love, justice, and ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... desirable or even possible way of attaining the revelation of love. The wiser psycho-analysts insist that the process of liberating the individual from outer and inner influences that repress or deform his energies and impulses is effected by removing the inhibitions on the free-play of his nature. It is a process of education in the true sense, not of the suppression of natural impulses nor even of the instillation of ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... we think the absolutely reasonable. Alas, that by our thoughtlessness or unkindness we should so often be the cause of monster-births, and those even in the minds of the loved! that we should be, if but for a moment, the demons that deform a fair world that loves us! Such was Mrs. Wardour, with her worldly ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... green pallor of a storm A summer landscape doth deform, Making a livid shadow grow Athwart ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey

... clouds, and fail to rise, Heedless when Morning calls thee to the skies! Then now exult, O Sun! and gaily shine, While Youth and Strength and Beauty all are thine. For Age is dark, unlovely, as the light Shed by the Moon when clouds deform the night, Glimmering uncertain as they hurry past. Loud o'er the plain is heard the northern blast, Mists shroud the hills, and 'neath the growing gloom, The weary traveller shrinks ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... abandoned the exact sciences for the perusal of such controversial and metaphysical writings of the schoolmen as his master's library afforded. The smattering of Latin which he acquired only served in after years to deform his treatises with barbarous, ill-adapted, and erroneous citations. "As to myself," said he, in his letter written in old age to Anthony Wood, who had inquired whether he was an Oxonian graduate, "my faults are ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... vices which deform this Metropolis (and there are not a few) the most ruinous is that of Rouge et Noir gambling, for that is practised in the day time, and it is a matter of astonishment to think that it has remained undisturbed by the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... his solution of the problem of two mean proportionals, still extant, offers ample evidence; and it is only of late years that the fragments remaining of his Chronicles of the Theban Kings have been properly appreciated. He hoped to free history as well as geography from the myths that deform it, a task which the prejudices and interests of man will never permit to be accomplished. Some amusing anecdotes of his opinions in these respects have descended to us. He ventured to doubt the historical truth of the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... it to be an act of condescension. I won't hint under my breath that Lord Bacon reverenced every fact as a footstep of Deity, and stooped to pick up every rough, ungainly stone of a fact, though it were likely to tear and deform the smooth wallet of a theory. I, for my part, belong, you know, not to the 'eminent men of science,' nor even to the 'intelligent men,' but simply to the women, children (and poets?), and if we happen to see ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning



Words linked to "Deform" :   jaundice, unbend, form, pouch, change, wrench, change shape, bulge out, turn, deformation, morph, strain, indent, roll, stretch out, granulate, contort, flatten, dinge, point, extend, stretch, distort, alter, flatten out, furl, gnarl, incurvate, come out, shape, dent, pop, modify, bug out, twist, bend, unfold, pop out, grain, convolute, crank, change form, draw, batter, roll up



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