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Detect   Listen
verb
Detect  v. t.  (past & past part. detected; pres. part. detecting)  
1.
To uncover; to discover; to find out; to bring to light; as, to detect a crime or a criminal; to detect a mistake in an account. "Plain good intention... is as easily discovered at the first view, as fraud is surely detected at last." "Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect."
2.
To inform against; to accuse. (Obs.) "He was untruly judged to have preached such articles as he was detected of."
Synonyms: To discover; find out; lay bare; expose.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Detect" Quotes from Famous Books



... in which the ichthyic remains of these alternating beds occur is always very different. The smaller and more delicately organized fishes are never found entire, save in the fissile, finely grained beds; in the others we detect only scattered fragments; and even these, unless they belonged to the robust Asterolepis or his congeners,—which, however, in these beds they usually do,—much broken. The polygonal partings seem ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... word—than my father, I stood in awe of him for a different reason, and this I know now was because he possessed the penetration to discern the flaws in my youthful character,—flaws that persisted in manhood. None so quick as Cousin Robert to detect deceptions which were hidden from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... at the bottle. She could detect no odour, but the fact that she could detect no odour appeared only ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... of the oil was spilled on the floor. This terrified Mell, for that kitchen-floor was the idol of Mrs. Davis's heart. It was scrubbed every day, and kept as white as snow. Mell knew that her step-mother's eyes would be keen as Blue Beard's to detect a spot; and, with all the energy of despair, she rubbed and scoured with soap and hot water. It was all in vain. The ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... each other appears to be. Once to have exercised this sense-freed perception is to realize that the gift of prophecy, although the subject of such frequent marvel, is no longer mysterious. The merest glance of our sensitive and uncloyed vision can detect the strength of the relation between two beings, and therefore instantly calculate its duration. If you see a heavy weight suspended from a slender string, you can know, without any wizardry, that in a few moments the string will snap; well, such, if you ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... absolutely identical. Every cake of indigo used for 'blueing' our post-demy is taken from a batch supplied by the same maker. Well, we have never yet been able to obtain two batches of precisely the same shade. There are variations in the material which we cannot detect. The quantity and the quality of the pulp modify every question at once. Suppose that you have in a caldron a quantity of ingredients of some kind (I don't ask to know what they are), you can do as you like with them, the treatment ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White's Sermons, p. 203, 204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.) * Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies it, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... credit. But it is a mistake to call children good judges of character, except in one direction, namely, their own. They understand it, up to the level of their own stature; they know who loves them, but not who loves virtue. Many a sinner has a great affection for children, and no child will ever detect the sins of such a friend; because, toward them, the sins ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... himself had all the virtues that became a man. [22] He believed that men do grow better through written laws, and he held that the good ruler is a living law with eyes that see, inasmuch as he is competent to guide and also to detect the sinner and chastise him. [23] Thus he took pains to show that he was the more assiduous in his service to the gods the higher his fortunes rose. It was at this time that the Persian priests, the Magians, were first established ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... the way home referred with smirking apologies as the mountain-lair of his barbarous ancestors) was patent enough even to Odo's undeveloped perceptions; but it would have required a more experienced understanding to detect the motive that led the Marquess, scarce two days after their visit, to accord his daughter's hand to the Count. Odo felt a shock of dismay on learning that his beautiful mother was to become the property of an old gentleman whom he guessed to be of his grandfather's age, and whose ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... children's book—that ascending wave of savagery and satire which overwhelms policy and learning to break against the ultimate citadel of humanity itself. In none of his contemporaries (except perhaps in the sentimentalities of Steele) can one detect the traces of emotion; to read Swift is to be conscious of intense feeling on almost every page. The surface of his style may be smooth and equable but the central fires of passion are never far beneath, and through cracks and fissures come intermittent bursts ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... it seemed that, even with this, the Gem would not come off the bar, and the girls looked anxiously over the side to detect the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... truth. I never saw Wirz when he was not angry; if not violently abusive, he was cynical and sardonic. Never, in my little experience with him did I detect a glint of kindly, generous humanity; if he ever was moved by any sight of suffering its exhibition in his face escaped my eye. If he ever had even a wish to mitigate the pain or hardship of any man the expression of such wish never ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... foot of each column form open on one side at the bottom so that the column reinforcement can be adjusted and connected up and so that a clear view can be had through the form to detect any object that may have fallen into the form and become wedged; this same opening makes it ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... works to come. The critics of that day, the most flattering, equally with the severest, concurred in objecting to them obscurity, a general turgidness of diction, and a profusion of new coined double epithets [1]. The first is the fault which a writer is the least able to detect in his own compositions: and my mind was not then sufficiently disciplined to receive the authority of others, as a substitute for my own conviction. Satisfied that the thoughts, such as they were, could not have been expressed otherwise, or at least more perspicuously, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... my inquiries as to how the major had passed the night, related this incident to me the following morning, I could detect, under all his deference and respect toward his master's guest, a certain manner and air plainly implying that, so far as the major and himself were concerned, every other but the most diplomatic ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Carlton, looking in the direction Claverhouse pointed. "I see the brushwood, and it may be that there are troops behind, but my eyes cannot detect them." ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... made an annual joke. I believe I have in April or May an annual poetic conatus rather than afflatus, experimenting to the length of thirty lines or so, if I may judge from the dates of the rhythmical scraps I detect among my MSS. I look upon this incontinence as merely the redundancy of a susceptibility to poetry which makes all the bards my daily treasures, and I can well run the risk of being ridiculous once a year for the benefit of happy reading all the other days. In regard ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... air-atoms, whether of oxygen or nitrogen, packed close together on the surface of the earth, and lying gradually farther and farther apart, as they have less weight above them, till they become so scattered that we can only detect them as they rub against the flying meteors which flash into light. We can feel this great weight of air pressing the limpet on to the rock; and we can see it pressing up the mercury in the barometer ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... confession, I have no doubt that even in the matter of pure and conscious reason further thought has enabled me to detect serious errors, or rather oversights, in the very foundations of my Candid Examination of Theism. I still think, indeed, that from the premises there laid down the conclusions result in due logical sequence, so that, as a matter of mere ratiocination, I am not likely ever to detect ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes

... artistic destinies. That distinguished expert, while the others were speaking, had been listening intently; ostensibly, the while, he examined the picture with a show of trained skill that, it seemed, could not fail to detect unerringly those more subtle values and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden from the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, they watched the process by which professional criticism finds its verdict. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... shifting channel, but as steamboats developed in size and power the man at the wheel had to become almost a superman. He needed to be. He must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at the river banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the head of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by night as well as by day, avoid the" breaks" in the "graveyard" behind Goose Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the "middle ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... on spies dogged her tracks. She cared for the wounded German soldiers and nursed a number of German officers, as well as the Belgians who were in her care, but this made no difference to the authorities. They were determined to detect her in some crime and punish her. It was not fitting, they thought, that an enemy should be engaged in works of mercy, even though they themselves might benefit thereby. And soon spies began to come to the Governor with tales and fabrications of the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... nothing to detect Pomona Road along - None faked a cly, nor cracked a crib, Nor prigged a wipe, nor told a fib,— Minds cultivated and ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang

... districts, where sometimes there is risk both from robbers and wild beasts. The runner may be recognised by a sort of javelin which he carries, presumably for his protection; and to this are attached some jingling bits of iron or small bells, so that after dark you can detect the post-runner by this sound. More often than not his long journey extends into the night. Considering the lonely tracks through which his road frequently leads, it is to the credit of the inhabitants of the country that he is not ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... which her uncle had spared no expense, for masters and professors had been procured from London to superintend her studies. She was perfectly happy, occasionally receiving letters from Arthur, which always afforded her much pleasure to peruse and think over, and frequently would she detect herself gazing upon his photograph in the pretty little locket he had sent her from Oxford by Tom Barton, and which, since his ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... loud as he strode through the woods on his way to the police post. A thought had occurred to him which pleased his simple mind mightily. It was not a very profound thought. And the humour of it was difficult to detect. But it pleased him, and he had to laugh, and when he laughed the echoes rang. It had occurred to him that it took a man of real brain to be a perfect ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... scorned from the first to descend and to dip Peddling and meddling in private affairs: To detect and collect every petty defect Of husband and wife and domestical life; But intrepid and bold, like Alcides of old, When the rest stood aloof, put himself to the proof In his country's behoof." [Footnote: Aristoph. Peace, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... the rooms set to rights, and the beds made, and Bobberts given his bath, Kitty came out. It had been a long and tedious morning for Billy. There is nothing so helpless as a detective who can't work at his business of detecting, and when the job is to detect a pretty girl, and she won't show up, the waiting is rather tiresome. At one time Billy was almost tempted to go in and ask her to come out, and he would probably have gone in and snooped around a bit, if she had not ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

... of papers has been taken, which has produced a great excitement, and has caused me serious injury." When he mentioned PAPERS, there was a sensible pause, and a piercing look which exhibited a determination to detect the slightest expression of guilt. I was enabled to command myself, however, in such a way, that I think I satisfied him ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... detect a single object, excepting the four statues on the bridge, which is not the creation of a few months. The hill beyond has been torn to pieces and sloped, and the palace built upon it. Every house in sight is new. The very ground in front on which I look down has been raised, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... feeling a pressure on his chest. The room was not so dark but that he could detect a shadowy ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... suffered agonies in the course of his life, though too wise and modest a man to hold up his heart for daws to peck at, and you will believe him. Look narrowly at the well-preserved, well-veiled exterior, and you will be able to detect, through the nicely adjusted folds, or even when it is brightened by smiles, how remorse has sharpened the flesh, and grief hollowed it, and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... pleased. At the moment he had achieved forgetfulness of boudoir trickery and so retained almost all his usual assumption of dignity. Even Joan, with her quick eye for the ridiculous, failed to detect the bathos of his attitude, and merely thought that he was trying to be funny and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... sound, like a smothered exclamation; and then all was still in the little grove of trees, nor could Ham's straining eyes detect any ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... strangely. Rose-Marie could almost detect a gleam of latent interest in his dark eyes. And then, as if he had gained a sort of ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... dubiously: "I fear I could not act successfully the role of Puritan maiden, when I have always been in reality just the opposite. And yet it would be grand sport to make the attempt, and a decided novelty. But surely your cousin cannot be so verdant but that he would soon see through our mischief and detect ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... infringe the law because they do not know any better, and their acts of depredation are clumsy and can be easily found out, but when men of education commit crimes these are so skilfully planned and executed that it is difficult for the police to unravel and detect them. It has been known that frauds and forgeries perpetrated by such unscrupulous persons were so cleverly designed that they bore the evidence of superior education, and almost of genius. The more a man is educated the more ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... I could detect a significant smile at the angles formed by Rube's thin lips; but this disappeared as the laughter continued too long for ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... even the most experienced to tell just how long the fermentation should continue. Sometimes the work is done in two or three hours, and sometimes it requires as many days. Incessant watchfulness both day and night is required to detect the critical moment. With the less delicate skins this bran bath is not necessary. Lime and acid solutions accomplish the same purpose. When the gelatine matter is all removed the skins are ready ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... instruments which he had gathered about him in his scientific warfare against crime. I could see that she was becoming more and more nervous, perhaps fearing even that in some incomprehensible way he might read her own thoughts. Yet one thing I did not detect. She showed no disposition to turn back on the course on which she had entered by coming to us in the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... office two days ahead of time, her heart thumping so loudly that she thought Miss Lunk would surely detect the sound. She deliberately dressed herself in a demure new suit and a becoming black-winged hat which made her seem as if delightfully arrayed for afternoon tea. And it was with a charming timidity that ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... make my protest against such spectacular performances by casting my vote, altogether uninfluenced, for the Honorable Robert Burroughs," he gave a quick glance to the rear of the room where a new group had just crowded in, "and I defy anyone to detect 'a blush ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... into the room withdrew, leaving him quite alone. He hastened to Robespierre's desk and began rummaging among the papers with which it was strewn, keeping one eye all the while upon the door lest some one should enter and detect him. There were intended orders, lists of proscriptions, documents and reports from the provinces, as well as police reports, but Vauquelas paid no attention to these. He continued his search until Robespierre's signature on the bottom ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... a conspiracy headed by Modred, Artus' nephew, against his uncle. Lancelot openly accuses him of treason, and the King sends to Merlin, for judgment. But alas, Merlin's love has already blinded his understanding; he fails to detect the culpable Modred, and declares that he is not able to find fault in him. King Artus and his knights depart to seek new laurels, leaving the country in Modred's hands. Merlin stays in his sanctum, to where the demon now leads Vivien who has lost her way. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... magistrate, bailiff of the town, made a stir: going himself to detect the knaves, he threatened and denounced them. Such, too, was the tacit opinion of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, to whom Grandier appealed. He despatched a set of rules for the guidance at least of the exorcisers, for putting a stop to their arbitrary doings; and, better ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the borderline of Szech'wan and Yuen-nan. The latter is supposed to be one of the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous, void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... mocking me? Or had he, after all, no suspicions? His voice was soft and pleasant as ever, nor could I detect a trace of irony in its tone. But ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to the conclusion that the powerful current whose existence he suspected had cut out for itself a deep-water channel towards the land, and the ship had struck on the silt of its back-wash. Anyhow, the Kansas was still living. The lights were all burning steadily. He could detect the rhythmic throb of the donkey-engine. He felt it like the faint beat of a pulse. In her new position the ship presented less of a solid wall to the onslaught of the sea. The tumultuous waves began to race past without breaking so fiercely. Had she started her plates? Were the holds ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... credited with many advantages; but against these might be weighed her evident insincerity—the volubility and gush that are so often affected to hide one's real nature, and which so shrewd and suspicious a woman as Aunt Jane could not fail to readily detect. Altogether, Beth was not greatly disturbed by her cousin's appearance, and suddenly realizing that they had been staring at one another rather ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne

... nations which surrounded it that its history cannot be properly understood apart from theirs. Isolated and alone, its history is in large measure unintelligible or open to misconception. The keenest criticism is powerless to discover the principles which underlie it, to detect the motives of the policy it describes, or to estimate the credibility of the narratives in which it is contained, unless it is assisted by testimony from without. It is like a dark jungle where the discovery of a path is impossible until the sun penetrates through the foliage and the daylight ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... known as The Book of Studies (Liber Studiorum). This book was suggested by Claude's Libri di Verita, six volumes of his own drawings (of pictures he himself had painted and sold) made in order to identify his own, and detect spurious, productions. But Turner's book was designed to show his power in the whole range of landscape art. The drawings were carefully finished productions, work by which he was willing to be judged, and many of them he etched with his own hands. His favourite ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway

... meat cut into thin slices dried in the sun, pounded to a powder, and then compressed into cakes.] and a draught of water from my flask, once more ventured forth. The wind had subsided, and the sea was tolerably smooth; and, keeping my eyes busily employed in seeking in every direction to detect, if possible, the slightest trace of smoke, or other sign of human life, I paddled on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... this work; nevertheless they were necessarily so veiled by the highly spiritual and metaphorical language of the poet, that it required some previous acquaintance with the system enforced, to be able to detect and recognise the esoteric spirit of his Muse. The public read only the history of an ideal world and of creatures of exquisite beauty, told in language that alike dazzled their fancy and captivated their ear. They were lost in a delicious maze ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... table, on which we press, or green colour of the grass, on which we tread, prevent the other ideas of the hardness and whiteness of the sugar from being exerted by association. Or if they should occur, we voluntarily compare them with the irritative ideas of the table or grass above mentioned, and detect their fallacy. We can thus distinguish the ideas caused by the stimuli of external objects from those, which are introduced by association, sensation, or volition; and during our waking hours can thus acquire ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... premonitions. Breezes blew and from every airbase along the coast fighting planes shot into the air and into formations designed to intercept anything that flew on wings or to launch atom-headed rockets at anything their radars could detect that didn't. ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... clothe. "The master sees, and speaks:—O, thou! who rul'st "The trembling reed; whose bending wire thy baits "Conceal; so may thy wiles the water aid; "So may the fish deceiv'd, beneath the waves, "Thy hooks detect not, till too firmly fixt. "Say thou but where she is, who stood but now "Upon this beach, in humble robes array'd, "With locks disorder'd; on this shore she stood; "I saw her,—but no further mark her feet.— "The aid of Neptune well the maid perceiv'd, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... moving to us as it has been to him, he must bring it before our eyes with scrupulous exactitude. Hence he must construct his work with such skill, it must be so artful under so simple a guise, that it is impossible to detect and sketch the plan, or discern ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... conscience, until that which at first was as sensitive as the palm of a little child's hand becomes as if it were 'seared with a hot iron.' The foulness of the atmosphere of a crowded hall is not perceived by the people in it. It needs a man to come in from the outer air to detect it. We can accustom ourselves to any mephitic and poisonous atmosphere, and many of us live in one all our days, and do not know that there is any need of ventilation or that the air is not perfectly sweet. The 'deceitfulness' of sin is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... irregularity of the discovery and adoption of the new methods made it impossible for the structure of industrial society to adjust itself at once to the conditions of the new environment. The maladies and defects which we detect in modern industry are but the measure of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... about him had an exotic tang, though what precisely his racial antecedents might have been was rather a riddle; a habit so thoroughly European went oddly with the hints of Asiatic strain which one thought to detect in his lineaments. Nevertheless, it were difficult otherwise to account for the faintly indicated slant of those little black eyes, the blurred modelling of the nose, the high cheekbones, and the thin thatch of coarse black hair which was plastered down with abundant brilliantine above that ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... Russell Andrews' patient: photographs[2, plate opposite p.243] show a rounded bodily outline, hairless face, well-developed mammae—the female sex characteristics in every respect which the ordinary person could detect. Yet an operation proved that the sex glands themselves ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... she would like to have pain inflicted on her. On the other hand, the desire to inflict pain seems almost universal among men. I have only met one man in whom I have never at any time been able to detect it. At the same time most men shrink from putting their ideas into practice. A friend of my husband finds his chief pleasure in imagining women hurt and ill-treated, but is too tender-hearted ever to inflict pain on them in reality, even when they ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... his life: but when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she goes in at the door, and out through the window." Opportunity is coy. The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy fail to see it, or clutch at it when it has gone. The sharp fellows detect it instantly, and catch it ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... he had drunk with all, was appreciative of every nicety of the game, and won fifteen hundred francs. He alone was cool, watching the faces of the players at every crisis, quick to detect a weakness, to interpret rightly a gesture or counting of losses and gains, remorselessly hammering home his victories, and always suave ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... permeates the brain; 270 Through each new sense the keen emotions dart, Flush the young cheek, and swell the throbbing heart. From pain and pleasure quick VOLITIONS rise, Lift the strong arm, or point the inquiring eyes; With Reason's light bewilder'd Man direct, And right and wrong with balance nice detect. Last in thick swarms ASSOCIATIONS spring, Thoughts join to thoughts, to motions motions cling; Whence in long trains of catenation flow Imagined joy, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... to detect in the face of his tormentor that terrible phenomenon, facies Hypocratica, and when he said to him: "Your face is deathly pale," he as irrecoverably plunged him into the grave that was gaping open for him, as if he had plunged a knife into ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... trumped up for the sole purpose of cheapening our work. Some of them were so transparently false that I wondered how any one could have the impudence to present them. Those who did so must have considered a sewing-woman as either too dull to detect the fallacy, or too timid to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... suspicious Endicott, and the subtle Spikeman, are disposed to regard him as one who, under the mask of an angel of light, doth conceal dangerous designs; as a plotter of mischief; some cunning tool of our enemies, who have sent him hither to creep into our confidence, that he may the better detect our weakness and confound our plans. I cannot harbor these latter notions. There is that about the knight which gives the lie to suspicion. Who can look upon his noble countenance and listen to the tones ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... better take yourself in hand. You have to decide whether you will be on the side of the angels or on the side of the nincompoops. There is no surer sign of imperfect development than the impulse to snigger at what is unusual, nave, or exuberant. And if you choose to do so, you can detect the cat walking across the stage in the sublimest passages of literature. But more advanced ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... upon the skirts of his own estate. Disguised as a mendicant, his secret was faithfully kept by the tenantry; and although it was more than surmised by the soldiers that he was lurking somewhere in the neighbourhood, they never were able to detect him. On one occasion he actually guided a party to a cave on the sea-shore, amidst the rough rocks of Buchan, where it was rumoured that he was lying in concealment; and on another, when overtaken by his asthma, and utterly unable to escape from an approaching patrol ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... elaborate revision and correction I have sent my MS. of the little "Mars" book to Macmillans yesterday.... Will you read the whole proofs carefully, in the character of the "intelligent reader"? Your fresh eye will detect little slips, bad logic, too positive statements, etc., which I may have overlooked. It will only be about 100 or 150 pages large type—and I want it to be really good, and free from blunders that any ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... Sunderland's intrigues is covered with an obscurity which it is not probable that any inquirer will ever succeed in penetrating: but, though it is impossible to discover the whole truth, it is easy to detect some palpable fictions. The Jacobites, for obvious reasons, affirmed that the revolution of 1688 was the result of a plot concerted long before. Sunderland they represented as the chief conspirator. He had, they averred, in pursuance of his great design, incited his too confiding master to dispense ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... second sight, as well as with endless other supernatural powers. Now, it is a peculiarity of my able brother-in-law's that, when he meets with a quack, he burns to expose him; he is so keen a man of business himself that it gives him, so to speak, a disinterested pleasure to unmask and detect imposture in others. Many ladies at the hotel, some of whom had met and conversed with the Mexican Seer, were constantly telling us strange stories of his doings. He had disclosed to one the present ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author is ready to present him to our (theoretically) ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... him with a disease that long lurked in his system and prompted various indirect investigations to get at the truth, during which he compared all distinguished guests with his own physiognomy to detect his ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... greatest discovery was when I detected the wonderful powers of Michael Faraday." And never will you make a greater and more beneficent discovery, than when, under the thick scurf of pauperism and vice, you detect the human soul that is fearfully and wonderfully made; than when you elicit its powers of self-consciousness and of memory, and, instrumentally, dedicate them to the service of ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... ranges of mountains in the distance, are now all visible in the soft and luxurious light. Near the spot which commands this view, not a living creature is to be seen on a first examination; but on a more industrious and patient observation, you are subsequently able to detect at one of the windows of Numerian's house, half hidden by a curtain, the figure of a ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... looked about quickly in all directions, as though seeking to detect the possible presence of other foes; but only the still and unconscious form of the girl, lying a few paces from him met his gaze, and with an angry growl he placed a forepaw upon the body of his kill and raising his head gave voice to ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... trials. We have all heard of trial by battle, under the old English law, and the trial of witches by water, where, if they sank and drowned they were innocent, and if they floated they were guilty and were hanged. But this trial was based on public sentiment or the ability of bystanders to detect guilt or innocence from the appearance and conduct of the litigants during the trial, which, although a crude method, is, in my judgment, much safer than some of those practised by our ancestors at no very ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now attained, continued its course upward with an even and undeviating ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect that it would have been impossible to detect in it the slightest vacillation whatever. This circumstance favored me greatly in the project I now determined to adopt. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely around the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... there may as well be an end of this! Every time I meet your eyes squarely I detect the question just slipping out of them. If you had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account; if this were not the evening of my birthday, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... up, the dean standing also before his tribune, and a deep-toned murmur went round the circle. This also was the word Allah, as was duly explained to Bertram by his dragoman; but without such explanation it would have been impossible to detect that any word was pronounced. Indeed, the sound was of such nature as to make it altogether doubtful from whence it came. It was like no human voice, or amalgamation of voices; but appeared as though it came from the very bowels of the earth. At first it was exceedingly ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... all the more of a triumph, if we convince him," declared Hallowell. "Understand, young man," he proclaimed loudly, "I am not a spiritualist. I am merely conducting an investigation. I want the truth. If you, or my niece, detect any fraud tonight, I want to know it." Including in his speech the others in the room, he glared suspiciously in turn at each. "Keep your eyes open," he ordered, "you will be serving me quite as much as you ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... seduce, and corrupt, is not at all exaggerated, as thousands of candid American Protestants can testify. Perhaps the sectarian dominies do not see the sad consequences that are infallibly produced on the minds of their hearers, after they come to detect the frauds and falsehoods which the parsons inculcate on them when children; but they are in the cause, and morally responsible for that doubt, irreligion, and downright infidelity which are the well-known characteristics of the male and female youth of our great country, and which threaten ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... to see you, Mr. Faucitt." Mrs. Meecher cast an appraising eye at the invalid, as if to detect symptoms of approaching discoloration. "I've been telling him that what I think you've gotten is this here new Spanish influenza. Two more deaths there were in the paper this morning, if you ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... my motives; and, in fact, if you watch them, you will detect a thinly-disguised envy in their countenances. I violate the laws of mechanics—to use your own sarcastic phrase—for many reasons. I like to be envied when there are solid reasons for it. It gratifies my vanity to be seen in this artistic quarter with a pretty ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... that the care of house and child occupied all the time she could spare from her intellectual pursuits. The worst of it was, she had little faith in the efficacy of these fictions; in uttering them she felt an unpleasant warmth upon her cheeks, and it was not difficult to detect a look of doubt in the eyes of the listener. She grew angry with herself for being dishonest, and with her husband ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... found himself in La Valliere's room. When there, he cut a square opening in the flooring, and out of the boards he manufactured a trap so accurately fitting into the opening, that the most practiced eye could hardly detect the necessary interstices made by joining the flooring. Malicorne had provided for everything: a ring and a couple of hinges, which had been bought for the purpose, were affixed to the trap-door; and a small circular staircase had ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... young princesses were all drawn up in a row, dressed precisely in the same manner, and with their eyes all cast down. As the prince looked at them, he was amazed at their likeness. Twice he walked along the line, without being able to detect the sign agreed upon. The third time his heart beat fast at the sight of a tiny speck upon the eyelid ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... visiting the convict-hulk, and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan crossed to Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the difference between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads, and the "immense cables made of iron wires" by which the vehicles are drawn on this line; the construction of which, as well as the electro-telegraph, ("a process for which we have no phrase in Oordoo,") by which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... of this country, men who have tried all other forms of light, and found them not at all suitable for their uses, have matched their colors under a vacuum tube supplied with carbon dioxide and have found after months of practical use that they could not detect any difference between most delicate lavender shades, when they are matched at night time under the tube and in day time by daylight, ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... certainly been an eventful day and evening, and I felt that my adventures could not be quite at an end yet, for I had still to find out what new power or sense the Fourth Jar had brought me. I stood and thought, and tried quite vainly to detect some difference in myself. And then I went to the window and drew the curtain aside and looked out on the road, and within a few minutes I began ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... letter came from Mademoiselle d'Arlange. Should he nevertheless ask the question, and again hear pronounced the name of Claire, which always aroused such painful emotions within him? He ventured to do so, leaning over his papers, so that the prisoner could not detect his emotion. ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... the breast of the sanguine, despair that of the gloomy and desponding. Sure eyes and good telescopes soon descry the Yankee ensign floating aloft in lazy folds; and as we come still nearer, those accustomed to observe the shape of sails and set of masts, detect the peculiarities of an old acquaintance. It is the Lucy Ann, an American vessel of a very suspicious character, which has been frequently boarded by our cruisers, but has ever been protected by the flag ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... minds are capable of identifying different objects on the basis of some common feature or features. This tendency of the mind to identify objects and group individual things into classes, depends upon its capacity to detect similarity and difference, or to make comparisons. When the mind, in identifying objects, events, qualities, etc., discovers certain relations between its various states, the process is especially known as that of thinking. ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... did his helmet) and the performance was an admirable imitation of the wind in a spout. There are noises, however, which cannot be thus cheaply disposed of, and among them are thundering whacks on the walls of rooms, which continue in spite of all efforts to detect imposture. These phenomena, says Kiesewetter, were known to the Acadians of old, a circumstance for which he quotes no ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... said Thomas Dean calmly, though Jane thought she could detect a twinkle in his eye. "One of my legs has ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... all this, Ashton-Kirk could detect something else. The almost swooning terror of the girl who had spoken to him over the telephone was still there—held rigidly in check to be sure, but unquestionably there. While her lips smiled, the eyes sometimes betrayed her; and there was a tenseness about ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... that he was damned; reason was in fault as well as imagination, which did not correct this error: they make away themselves oftentimes, and suppose many absurd and ridiculous things. Why doth not reason detect the fallacy, settle and persuade, if she be free? [1042]Avicenna therefore holds both corrupt, to whom most Arabians subscribe. The same is maintained by [1043]Areteus, [1044]Gorgonius, Guianerius, &c. To end the controversy, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... home and endeavour to write something a little better than this. Mind, if it is not very much better it won't do. And look here; take care that you do it yourself. If you bring me the writing of any one else, I shall be sure to detect you. I have not any more time now; as to arithmetic, we'll examine you in 'some of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... which made him so superior a disputant; for as his mind had investigated the various sentiments and hypotheses of men, so had his almost intuitive discrimination stripped them of their deceptive appendages, and separated fallacies from truth, marshalling their arguments, so as to elucidate or detect each other. But in all his disputations, it was an invariable maxim with him never to interrupt the most tedious or confused opponents, though, from his pithy questions, he made it evident, that, from the first, he anticipated the train ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... tickets on us," stated Joe to the chemist. "We want to find out who it is and how the trick is worked. So far, we haven't been able to find this out. As a matter of fact, we don't know whether there are bogus tickets in our boxes or not. We haven't been able to detect two kinds. They ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... result? That, I will confess, did astonish me considerably; it was the triumph of the unexpected. The two doctors who made the autopsy were obliged to confess that they could not discover the faintest trace of any kind of foul play; their most exquisite tests and reagents failed to detect the presence of poison in the most infinitesimal quantity. Death, they found, had been caused by a somewhat obscure and scientifically interesting form of brain disease. The tissue of the brain and the molecules of the gray matter had undergone a most extraordinary series of changes; ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... both sight and sound. Efficient lookout systems on shipboard, with men assigned to different sectors so as to cover the entire horizon, made it possible frequently to detect a periscope or torpedo wake in time to change course, bring guns to bear, and escape destruction. According to a British Admiralty estimate, in case a submarine were sighted the chances of escape were seven to three, but otherwise only one to four. Aircraft of all kinds proved of great value ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... mysterie to this day." What has he left a mystery? and what did he try to muffle? Not the imposture, but the truth. Had so politic a man any interest to leave the matter doubtful? Did he try to leave it so? On the contrary, his diligence to detect the imposture was prodigious. Did he publish his narrative to obscure or elucidate the transaction? Was it his matter to muffle any point that he could clear up, especially when it behoved him to have it cleared? When Lambert ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole



Words linked to "Detect" :   find out, see, detector, instantiate, notice, sense, detecting, observe, catch out, trace, discover, spy, detection



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