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Flourish   Listen
verb
Flourish  v. t.  
1.
To adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish. (Obs.)
2.
To embellish with the flowers of diction; to adorn with rhetorical figures; to grace with ostentatious eloquence; to set off with a parade of words. (Obs.) "Sith that the justice of your title to him Doth flourish the deceit."
3.
To move in bold or irregular figures; to swing about in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish. "And flourishes his blade in spite of me."
4.
To develop; to make thrive; to expand. (Obs.) "Bottoms of thread... which with a good needle, perhaps may be flourished into large works."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flourish" Quotes from Famous Books



... whole agave family thrives at Mentone; the ferox is particularly well represented; one misses, among others, that delightful medio-picta variety, of which I have noticed only a few indifferent specimens. [1] It is the same with the yuccas; they flourish here, though one kind, again, is conspicuous by its absence— the Atkinsi (some such name, for it is long since I planted my last yucca) with drooping leaves of golden-purple. You will be surprised at the number of agaves in flower here. The reason is, that they are liable to be moved about ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... finish off with in the last year, and music at any time when they would pay for it. At the close of their career in the Institute, they were submitted to a grand public examination, and received diplomas tied in blue ribbons, which proclaimed them with a great flourish of capitals to be graduates ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... Saratoga-trunk scheme not proving a success. In less than one hour after I had made the deal, the landlord asked me to pay in advance. I immediately flew into a rage and demanded him to make out my bill for what we had had and receipt it in full, which he did, and I paid it with a flourish and with the ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... varieties for very long periods, as has been shown to be the case by Mr. Wollaston with the varieties of certain fossil land-shells in Madeira, and with plants by Gaston de Saporta. If a variety were to flourish so as to exceed in numbers the parent species, it would then rank as the species, and the species as the variety; or it might come to supplant and exterminate the parent species; or both might co-exist, and both rank as independent ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... and better Days, the Pen revives, and Authors flourish; more Money can be made now of a Play, nay, though it be a scurvy One, than Dryden got by all his Works. Therefore now or never is the Time to strike while the Iron is hot, to write my self out of Debt, and into Place, and then grow idle and laugh at the World, as my Betters ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous

... But that would be superfluous to start with, as long as the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland were blocked with ice and the Russian squadrons were unable to move. This way of making war reminds me forcibly of the state of things in the Crimean War, when a powerful English fleet set out with a great flourish of trumpets against Cronstadt and St. Petersburg, but did nothing except bombard Bomarsund, a place nobody cared about. The English Press had great difficulty in excusing the fiasco of ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... elevation, shows what the climate and soil are capable of if properly cultivated. From one to two thousand feet high, coffee would thrive; and there are hundreds of square miles of country over which all the varied products which require climates between those of coffee and wheat would flourish; but no attempt has yet been made to form a single mile of road, or a ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... thousand years, are as obsolete as the dodo. The rifle and bayonet very probably are becoming obsolete too. Knives and clubs and revolvers serve better in the trenches. The krees and the Roman sword would be as useful. The fine flourish of the bayonet is only possible in the rare infrequent open. Even the Zulu ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... with her topsail-yard down on the cap, her reef tackles bowsed up, and eight men on her yard busily engaged in reefing her topsail. It was not yet so dark but that those men must have seen us distinctly—in fact one of them paused in his work to flourish his hand at us; yet, but for the sailmaker's watchfulness, the craft would have driven right over us! There could be no doubt of the fact that her crew had seen us, for, in addition to the man who waved to us from the yard, there were two men pacing her monkey poop aft who paused in their ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... by their harshness if they were heard quite alone, and yet in combination they render the harmony more pleasing. He also points out divers goods involved in evils, for instance, the usefulness of prodigality in the rich and avarice in the poor; indeed it serves to make the arts flourish. We must also bear in mind that we are not to judge the universe by the small size of our globe and of all that is known to us. For the stains and defects in it may be found as useful for enhancing ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... only a little body, but she hasn't her peer in Christendom. I gave her only a plain gold engagement ring, when fashion imperatively demands a two-hundred-dollar diamond one, and told her it was typical of her future life-namely, that she would have to flourish on substance, rather than luxuries (but you see I know the girl—she don't care anything about luxuries).... She spends no money but her astral year's allowance, and spends nearly every cent of that on other people. She will be a good, sensible little wife, without any ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... flourish like the green bay-tree. We shall have to take larger premises. By-the-bye, you must read the paper we are going to publish; the first number will be out in a month, though the name isn't quite decided upon yet. Miss Barfoot was never in such ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... him at leisure to play with them. They called him father, and Queen Harmonia mother. The five old soldiers of the dragon's teeth grew very fond of these small urchins, and were never weary of showing them how to shoulder sticks, flourish wooden swords, and march in military order, blowing a penny trumpet, or beating an abominable rub-a-dub ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... necessary, the wife was called in from her washing. She came into the parlor drying her hands on her apron, which she discarded by rolling up and tossing into a chair. Ranger Fisk produced the ring, with a flourish, at the proper moment, gave the minister his money, after all the "I do's" had been said, and the wedding was over. So we were married. No wedding march, no flower girls, no veil, no rice, no wedding breakfast. Just a ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith

... his own fancies. And yet these are facts I have told you—cold and bare and sufficient to have proved to me that the adventure and romance mourned for by some men are not dead, but, were it only known, still flourish, concealed in the hearts and experience of ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... half dream when the blue of a lake glimmered beyond the far aisles and the carryall drew up with a flourish before three tents set in the pines on the ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... topick, which is often ignorantly urged, that the Universities of England are too rich[40]; so that learning does not flourish in them as it would do, if those who teach had smaller salaries, and depended on their assiduity for a great part of their income. JOHNSON. 'Sir, the very reverse of this is the truth; the English Universities are not rich enough. Our fellowships are only sufficient to support ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... life most, when the fire of youth is tempered by the experience of age, and one knows how to enjoy to the utmost the good things of this world, videlicet—love, wine, and friendship. I am afraid I am growing poetical, which is a bad thing for a lawyer, for the flower of poetry cannot flourish in the arid wastes of the law. On reading what I have written, I find I have been as discursive as Praed's Vicar, and as this letter is supposed to be a business one, I must deny myself the luxury of following out a train of idle ideas, and write sense. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... to support precisely the same genera or species. The ox, horse, goat, &c., of the elder continent have thriven and extended themselves in the new, and many of the indigenous tribes of America would no doubt flourish in corresponding climates in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has, however, been remarked by naturalists unacquainted with the Macleay system, that the larger and more powerful animals of their respective orders belong ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... head. "I am but a surgeon," he answered shortly, meanwhile writing with a flourish on a piece of paper. When he had finished, he handed the paper to the soldier, with an order. Then he turned to go, politely bowing to me, but turned again and said, "I would not, were I you, trouble to plan escape these months yet. This is a comfortable prison, but it is easier coming ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the fellow in Spanish, with an air of mystery, as he took off his sombrero with a flourish, "but have I the supreme honour of addressing the noble Englishman who owns the beautiful yacht that came ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... large cane with the gold knob to it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me the moment I set eyes on him. All the old loathing crept and crawled through me, when he took off his hat with a flourish and spoke to me, as if we had parted on the friendliest terms hardly a ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... author—a model that has lasted to the present day; of Kempe, the original Dogberry, and of the exuberant, merry Richard Tarleton, after whom that comic genius had fashioned his artistic method; of Alleyne, who kept the bear-garden, and who founded the College and Home at Dulwich—where they still flourish; of Gabriel Spencer, and his duel with Ben Jonson, wherein he lost his life at the hands of that burly antagonist; of Marlowe "of the mighty line," and his awful and lamentable death—stabbed at Deptford by a drunken drawer in a tavern brawl. Very rich and fine, there can be no doubt, were that ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... one to a thousand souls. This is in a land already intelligent and Christian; in a land of universities, colleges, and schools; in a land of enterprise, of industry, and of free institutions, where the arts flourish, and where improvements are various and unnumbered; and more than all, in a land where more than a million and a half of the people are professed Christians, and ready to aid the ministers of Christ in various ways. On the other hand, even if missionaries ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... and red clover globes, The swinging bellwort and the blue-eyed bent, With nameless plants as perfect in their hues— Perfect in root and branch, their plan of life, As if the intention of a soul were there: I see them flourish as I see them fall! But he, who once was growing with the grass, And blooming with the flowers, my little son, Fell, withered—dead, nor has revived again! Perfect and lovely, needful to my sight, Why comes he not to ornament my days? The barren fields ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard

... A furious flourish of music was now heard from the ball-room, the squire having secretly dispatched the little butler to order it to strike up, by way of a hint to Mr Cranium to finish his harangue. The company took the ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... out one by one as we sink through the social scale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, and last pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, where they do not flourish greatly. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... into the hansom, and after giving instructions to the cabman, stood back on the pavement, smiling and waving his hand, while the cab, with a flourish of whip from the driver and a jingle of harness, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... There was a clumsy method too in this optimistic garrulity, for at the close he referred with some pride to his own business career, and made a tender of his business card, "Lewis Babcock & Company, Varnishes," with a flourish. "If you do anything in my line, pleased ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... immense glaciers exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened the summits of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate these stupendous scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the glen—so deep that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to foam along the bottom was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these crags rose others of stupendous ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... Classical "tuck" from Italian "toccata," the preluding "touch" or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson under word "tucket," quoting "Othello"). The deeper Scottish vowels are used here to mark the deeper sound of the bass drum, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... organized at Pittsburg in September, 1883, and was launched with a great flourish of trumpets, the cities agreed upon for the circuit being Washington, St. Louis, Altoona, Pa., Boston, Baltimore, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... perfected the horned God, and crowned him with crowns of snakes, whence the thyrsus-bearing Maenads are wont to cover their prey with their locks. O Thebes, thou nurse of Semele, crown thyself with ivy, flourish, flourish with the verdant yew bearing sweet fruit, and be ye crowned in honor of Bacchus with branches of oak or pine, and adorn your garments of spotted deer-skin with fleeces of white-haired sheep,[6] ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... of his followers jumped down precipices to accompany him upon his journey to a better world. This custom and polygamy gave much trouble to the Jesuits, but their most admirable patience and knowledge of mankind helped them to overcome them by degrees. All was about to flourish in the mission, when one Acosta, a Brazilian priest, appeared. Perhaps he was in league with the Paulistas, or perhaps was jealous of the Jesuits, for he tried hard to lead a number of the Indians to San Paulo to show them (as he said) how they ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... the sciences appeared for a moment to flourish under the auspicious influence of the French Revolution. Observe, for example, with what grandeur of conception the reformation of weights and measures was planned; what geometers, what astronomers, what eminent philosophers presided over ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... the whirlwind poked the pugnacious little brass-rimmed nose of a new Ford, and behind the windshield Casey Ryan grinned widely as he swung up to the postoffice and stopped as he had always stopped his four-horse stage,—with a flourish. Stopping with a flourish is fine and spectacular when you are driving horses accustomed to that method and on the lookout for it. Horses have a way of stiffening their forelegs and sliding their hind feet and giving a lot of dramatic finish to the performance. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... with a flourish, and walked away. Tuppence remained for some minutes gazing after him. Then she gave a curious movement of her shoulders, rather ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... as a further security to the young plants, for they are very delicate, other trees or shrubs are planted to the south-west of the plants, that they may grow up with and shelter them, for young cacao will grow and flourish only in the shade. For this purpose the coral bean-tree (Erythrina Corallodendrum) is chosen. I should presume there are other trees and plants equally eligible for this purpose, and more useful; but my experience does not ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... their cheers. There was a flourish of trumpets, and the salutes fired from several small mortars were echoed back from the mountains. The large boat in which their household furniture, the two cows, and the fowls were placed, was adorned with wreaths of fir and oak. Walpurga was standing in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... detain you with professions of zeal in the cause of internal improvements. If to be their friend is a virtue which deserves commendation, our country is blessed with an abundance of it, for I do not suppose there is an intelligent citizen who does not wish to see them flourish. But though all are their friends, but few, I trust, are unmindful of the means by which they should be promoted; none certainly are so degenerate as to desire their success at the cost of that sacred instrument with the preservation of which is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... will be plenty of fighting," said Max, "or else what is the meaning of this preliminary flourish of trumpets, about Rokoa's chivalrous courage, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... morning. This entrance in the night, lit up by torches, was very impressive. The next day, January 1, 1806, a herald-at-arms, escorted by numerous horsemen, passed through the different quarters of the city, and read the following proclamation, after a flourish of drums and trumpets, while an immense crowd gathering in every street and crossway loudly applauded: "By the grace of God, the dignity of the sovereign of Bavaria having recovered its old-time splendor, and this State having resumed the rank it formerly held for the happiness ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... function it was always Nathan, it must be remembered—and a few kindred spirits who loved good music were expected; and at the appointed hour Malachi, his hands encased in white cotton gloves, would enter with a flourish, and would graciously beg leave to pass, the huge bowl held high above his head filled to the brim with smoking apple-toddy, the little pippins browned to a turn ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... of that opinion, but modesty urged him to reply with a small flourish. 'Just a few heads of ideas. When the wind puffs down a sooty chimney the air is filled with little blacks that settle pretty much like the notes in this book of mine. There they wait for another puff, or my fingers ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... church after Robert had signed his name in a big book, and his wife had written hers with a proud little flourish. Robert helped Drusilla into the wheel chair, after lifting Daphne from her place on the upholstered cushion. This time the little girl awoke. She was about to cry when Robert raised her in his arms and carried her down the road, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... librarians; so that in the learning and philosophy of Alexandria at this time, the Eastern and Western systems were combined. During the first century of the Christian era Egypt passed from the control of the Greek Kings to that of the Roman Emperors, under whom it continued to flourish. In the seventh century the country was conquered by the Saracens, who burned the great Alexandrian library. Following them came the Arabian Princes, who protected literature, and revived the Alexandrian schools, ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis

... rate," he said, as he throttled down his engine with a flourish before the pretty little Glenclair station, "that ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... which is a large garden, where beautiful masonry, flowers, trees and birds equally flourish, commemorates the capture of Delhi by Muhammad bin Sam in 1193, the battle being directed by his lieutenant, Kutb-ud-din. From that time until the Mutiny in 1857 Delhi was under Mohammedan rule. One of the first acts of the conqueror was to ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... autenticall histories it is recorded: sithens also that some prouinces of the sayd kingdom, euen in these our dayes, haue bene afflicted with pestilence and contagious diseases, and with famine. [Sidenote: Chinian stories.] Howbeit, that the foresaid three benefits do mightily flourish and abound in China, it cannot be denied. For (that I may first speake of the salubritie of the aire) the fathers of the societie themselues are witnesses; that scarcely in any other realme there are ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... abandonment of all creative virtues that brought Plato to conceive them so sharply and to preach them in so sad a tone. It was after all but the love of beauty that made him censure the poets; for like a true Greek and a true lover he wished to see beauty flourish in the real world. It was love of freedom that made him harsh to his ideal citizens, that they might be strong enough to preserve the liberal life. And when he broke away from political preoccupations and turned to the inner ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... like a wood in a storm. Meanwhile he overlooks, while he gabbles on, the very entries he wants to find, and spends twice the time he would if he had proceeded more leisurely. In a word, everything is done with a bounce, and a thump, and an air, and a flourish, and sharp and eager motions, and perpetual volubility of tongue. His image is that of a blind beetle in the twilight, which, with incessant hum and drone and buzz, flies blundering into the face of every one ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... successively to the Bishop and to the knights, but refused to notice the Earl. The King's horses were immediately ordered; and two lean and miserable animals were brought out, on which Richard and Salisbury mounted, and amid the flourish of trumpets and shouts of triumph ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... hardly be denied. Yet it is clear that his services will not be adequately remunerated if he is left to be remunerated by those whom he teaches, or by the voluntary contributions of the charitable. Is this disputed? Look at the facts. You tell us that schools will multiply and flourish exceedingly, if the Government will only abstain from interfering with them. Has not the Government long abstained from interfering with them? Has not everything been left, through many years, to individual exertion? If ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the 4th of November—a dreary Sunday—that the tragedy began. On that day, with a great flourish of trumpets and display of power, the monarch proceeded to the Great Church to be crowned. The huge edifice was filled to overflowing. From north and south, from mountain and valley, all of note in the three kingdoms had ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... pine family includes the various species of pine, tamarack, spruce, hemlock, fir, juniper, larch, cypress, and cedar. A few members of the family thrive in the warmer parts of the temperate zone, but for the greater part they flourish between the fortieth and sixtieth parallels. Most of the species found in low latitudes are mountain-trees. They constitute the greater part of the American and Russian forests. The American pine forest is thought to be the largest in ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... with a narrow red stripe along the top and the bottom edges; centered is a large white disk bearing the coat of arms; the coat of arms features a shield flanked by two workers in front of a mahogany tree with the related motto SUB UMBRA FLOREO (I Flourish in the Shade) on a scroll at the bottom, all encircled by ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... what you intend to do with us?" Terry burst forth one day, facing the calm and friendly Moadine with that funny half-blustering air of his. At first he used to storm and flourish quite a good deal, but nothing seemed to amuse them more; they would gather around and watch him as if it was an exhibition, politely, but with evident interest. So he learned to check himself, and was almost reasonable in his ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... scientific like. First he throws his left leg out, and then braces back the right one well behind him, and then he shuts his left eye to, and makes an awful wry face, as if he was determined to keep every bit of light out of it, and then he brought his gun up to the shoulder with a duce of a flourish, and took a long, steady aim. All at ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... holy intercessor who has made a speciality of the health of hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the game was turned and the branch broken by our best piqueur. A rare day's hunting lies before us. Wind a jolly flourish, sound the bien-aller with all your lungs. Jacques must stand by, hat in hand, while the quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across his field, and a year's sparing and labouring is as though it had not been. If he can see the ruin with a good enough grace, who knows but he may fall in favour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from the earliest times, and, from a remote antiquity, men have attained considerable practical skill in the cultivation of the useful plants, and have empirically established many scientific truths concerning the conditions under which they flourish. But, it is within the memory of many of us, that chemistry on the one hand, and vegetable physiology on the other, attained a stage of development such that they were able to furnish a sound basis for scientific agriculture. Similarly, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... at this, while the old man, after a flourish of his hat to me, piped up lively quickstep, called ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... may it flourish, to all of us dear, Loved and honoured by hearts that are true; But, should ever a foe chance his nose to show here He shall find all our Noses ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... had been overlooked in this partial dialogue, determined to sustain her part in the conversation with a dignity becoming her situation, now resolved to flourish in with ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... nourish, Thy smiles its bloom restore; So warmed its buds may flourish, And bloom to life ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... it is magnificent—superb! What wit—what agacerie—what exquisite badinage is contained in every line of it! You are the veritable monarch of English humour. Hail, then, great fun-ambule, PUNCH THE FIRST! Long may you live, to flourish your invincible baton, and to increase the number of your laughing subjects. Your "Physiology of the Medical Student" has been translated, and the avidity with which it is read here has suggested to me the idea that sketches of French character might be equally popular amongst English ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various

... the most prominent trees. Between 4,000 and 2,000 feet we find our familiar friends the oak, the chestnut, cereals, maize, potatoes. Below this is the Mediterranean region. Here orange, lemon, fig, and olive trees, the vine, mulberry, etc., flourish in the open as well as any number of exotics, palms, aloes, cactuses, castor oil plants, etc. It is in this region that nature with lavish hand bestows her flowers, which, unlike their compeers in other lands, are not born to waste their fragrance on the desert air or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... juvenile delinquency is beginning to attract a good deal of attention, for it is now clearly seen that the root of most of the predatory crime by which the country is afflicted lies here, and till the root is struck at, the branches will continue to flourish. It appears that for some years the number of juvenile criminals has been on the increase; auguring, of course, an ultimate increase in the number of adult offenders. Some vigorous measure for the reduction of juvenile delinquency is felt to be now required. Amidst ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... facility render it common, as by the experience of our civil wars is manifest enough; and whoever could at this time unite us all, Catholic and Huguenot, into one body, and set us upon some brave common enterprise, we should again make our ancient military reputation flourish. It is most certain that in times past the recompense of this order had not only a regard to valour, but had a further prospect; it never was the reward of a valiant soldier but of a great captain; the science of obeying was not reputed worthy ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... nothing so flattering as the sight of oneself in solid black print upon nice white paper. Confess, now. Are you not at this moment carrying a copy of that story of mine in your breast pocket next your heart, and don't you flourish it before your colleagues and rivals about six ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... on our highest peaks for use of the war aeroplanes which are being built for him. It is such a man as this who makes a nation great; and right sure I am that in his hands this splendid land and our noble, freedom-loving people will flourish and become a power in the world. Then, brothers, let me, as one to whom this nation and its history and its future are dear, ask you to give to the husband of my daughter the honour which you would confer ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... and shook hands with each and thanked us in the name of the republic, for the example of courage and patriotism we and many others had given to the army. He had a lean, tall, ungraceful figure and he spoke his mind without any frill or flourish. He said only a few words of good plain talk and was done ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... fiddles that did me yeomen's service once, when I fell off a bag of corn up garret and broke my head, and the frightened fiddles, not knowing what else to do, came and fiddled to me lying on the settee, with such boundless, extravagant flourish that nobody heard the doctor's gig rolling by, and so sinciput and occiput were left overnight to compose their own quarrels, whereby I was naturally all right before the doctor had a chance at me, suffering only the slight disadvantage of going broken-headed through life. What I might have ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... frontier should have local Christian people to wait on them and do their bidding. But what I was going to say was that so very few Jews seem to me an insufficient fuel to fire the anti-Semites. How does their opinion flourish?' ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... wicked that I replied, 'I have heard nothing, sir; I just came in.' 'You do not deceive me?' 'No, sir.' 'Well, what do you want?' 'To ask for some signatures, sir.' 'Give me the papers.' And he began to sign—without reading them, a half dozen notarial acts—he, who never put his flourish on an act without spelling it, letter by letter, and twice over, from end to end. I remarked that, from time to time, his hand slackened a little in the middle of his signature, as if he was absorbed by a fixed idea, and ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... and Austria, entered into a conditional compact with the Powers of the Entente. In Paris the secret quickly leaked out and was at once communicated to Berlin, whose organized espionage continued to flourish in the French capital. Thereupon Herr Jagow urged Buelow to bestir himself without delay. But the Prince was hard set. On the Italian Cabinet he had lost his hold. It had already crossed the Rubicon and passed over to the Entente. True, the Cabinet ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... countries of the Generality. Guelderland and Overyssel cannot too much extend their manufactures of wool, of swanskin, and other things; even the shoemakers of the mayoralty, and of Langstret, will find a considerable opening; almost all the manufactures of Utrecht and of Leyden will flourish anew. Harlem will see revive its manufactures of stuffs, of laces of ribbons, of twist, at present in the lowest state of decay. Delft will see vastly augmented the sale of its earthen ware, and Gouda ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... Bambarre people are indifferent cultivators, planting maize, bananas and plantains, and ground-nuts only—no dura, a little cassava, no pennisetum, meleza, pumpkins, melons, or nyumbo, though they all flourish in other districts: a few sweet potatoes appear, but elsewhere all these native grains and roots are abundant and cheap. No one would choose this as a residence, except for the sake of Moenekuss. Oil is very dear, while at Lualaba a gallon may be got for a single string of beads, and beans, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... approved by the committee, and the only one upon which the clerk to whom the copying of the document had been entrusted had as yet written nothing. It was upon this sheet that Robespierre had placed his signature. His name, written by his own hand and ornamented with the flourish which he always appended to his signature, lay upon the immaculate whiteness of the paper like a blood stain. Without the slightest hesitation, Vauquelas tore this precious page loose from the others; then in a feigned hand he wrote these ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... I reckoned," he raged. "He was lookin' out to see how the joke worked. I see him dodge back. He's behind the curtain in his office." Again he whirled on Hiram. "After what the Reeves family has tried to do to us," he declared, with a flourish of his arm designed to call up in Mr. Look's soul all the sour memories of things past, "he's takin' his life in his hands when he starts in to make fun of me with a lunatic and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... years, is sure to increase the aggregate cordage of the forests. By the time we have brought our locomotive steam-cultivators to such perfection as to plough up and pulverize the great central deserts, we may see trees flourish where it would have been useless to plant the seed before we had converted so much of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... harm, hazard the suggestion, which is only a suggestion, that some of the chivalry of Scott's heroes wove itself into Grant's instincts and inspired this businesslike, modern general, in the days when politeness has lost some of its flourish, to be the great gentleman he was at Appomattox when he quietly wrote into the terms of the surrender that the Confederate officers should keep their side arms. Stevenson's account of the episode in his essay on "Gentlemen" ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... let a trial-bed be made on a light soil in Delaware or Virginia, and 100 varieties be planted. Many that are justly favorites in our locality would there shrivel and burn, proving valueless; but those that did thrive and produce well, exhibiting a power to endure a Southern sun, and to flourish in sand, should be the choice for all that region. To the far South and North, and in the extremes of the East and West, trial-beds would give still varying results; but such results would apply ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... snow-drift is scattered on the pinnacles of the Alps, the avalanche thunders down their vallies. Thou holdest the keys of the frost, and canst first chain and then set free the streams; under thy gentle governance the buds and leaves are born, they flourish nursed by thee. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... are the confiscations of property quite sufficient to account for the effect. There have been great confiscations in other countries, and still they have flourished; the petty states of Greece were quite analogous to the chiefries, as they were called, in Ireland; and yet they seemed to flourish almost in proportion to their dissensions. Poland felt the bad effects of an elective monarchy more than any other country; and yet, in point of civilisation, it maintained a very respectable rank ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... shrines, immense crowds about the localities of popular legends, relics, or special grace. In the magnetic sphere of such a fervid and credulous multitude, filled with the kindling interaction of enthusiasm, of course prodigies would abound, fables would flourish, and faith would be doubly generated and fortified. In commemoration of a miraculous act of virtue performed by St. Francis, the pope offered to all who should enter the church at Assisi between the eve of the 1st and the eve ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the disputes between the first Government Resident, or Superintendent, and the officers under him, a branch colony was successfully founded at Port Darwin, opposite to Melville Island. This settlement has become a prosperous one: all the fruits and grains of tropical countries flourish and thrive to perfection; gold has been discovered; and it is asserted that there exist in the neighbourhood rich mines of other metals, which will, in the future, yield great wealth, while the stations ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... also obtained by the natives by boiling, and it is accordingly excessively rank after long keeping. The castor-oil plant is a perfect weed throughout Ceylon, being one of the few useful shrubs that will flourish in such ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... concerns? And what concern can be so intimate as that of the conduct of the individual citizen in the pursuit of his daily life? How can the idea of the State as an object of pride or as a source of authority flourish when the most elementary of its functions is supinely abandoned to the custody of a higher and a stronger power? The Prohibition Amendment has done more to sap the vitality of our State system than could be done by a hundred years of misrule at Albany or Harrisburg or Springfield. ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin

... "No; Peter Duckett, the finest mate that ever sailed," he said, with a flourish. "We're lucky to have the chance of getting him, I can tell you. To see him handle sailormen is a revelation; to see ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... author's The Princess Maritza is charged to the brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude, sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born, flourish, and ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... of Governor Browne the colony continued to steadily flourish; he conducted the business of the colony in the greatest harmony with the different branches of the legislature. He found the financial affairs of the islands in a confused and ruinous state, and left them flourishing. In 1778 he ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... grateful animals neigh, and paw, and rub their noses fondly upon his shoulder as he passes fearlessly around them. If Nannie could see his devotion to the helpless and dumb it would awaken within her a far deeper regard than the combined results of curling-tongs and pomatum, or the outward flourish and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... vision, professionalism into that of life. Instead of bread we have a stone; instead of a fish, a serpent. Did such a conglomeration of abstract terms give really the gist of our knowledge of the deity, schools of theology might indeed continue to flourish, but religion, vital religion, would have taken its flight from this world. What keeps religion going is something else than abstract definitions and systems of concatenated adjectives, and something different from faculties of theology and their professors. All these things are after-effects, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... sentiments, in regard to politics and government, on mankind; infused their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others; or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which they assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and protect it no longer; for it has struck its roots deep; it has sent them to the very center; no storm, not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; they stretch their protecting arms broader and ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... been realized. Our establishment, here, continues to flourish as of yore. Nothing has come to light in the press calculated to prejudice us in the eyes of our patrons, and although your ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... I'm tired of this hole of a town already. We'll go west and renew our youth. Country's big, and nobody to meddle. You'll flourish like a green ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody

... me here. God knows I do not go in for the devoted mother who thinks of nothing but her boys and to whom the whole world besides is nothing but an empty flourish of the pen about their names. Such mothers are like Chinese teacups, with no perspective and everything out of proportion; where the Mandarin is as big as the Pagoda, and suffers from a pathetic inability to get in at his own door. You must see things in moral perspective in order ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... Ann could not help warming towards an accomplice who carried off an unnerving situation with such a flourish. She had always regarded herself with a fair degree of complacency as possessed of no mean stock of courage and resource, but she could not have spoken then without betraying her anxiety. She thought highly of Jimmy, but all the same she could not ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... some shares," Watts called after him as he turned away. He nodded in reply and was leaving the room when Cynthia detained him by a flourish of the fly-brush. "Say," she said,—she always called ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... unfinished for the present. Yet I should think neither of these objects an equivalent for renewing the displeasure of the legislature. Unless we can carry their hearty patronage with us, the institution can never flourish. I would not, therefore, hint at this additional aid, unless it were agreeable to our friends generally, and tolerably sure of being ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Then Bribes shall cease, and Suits shall not stick long Patience and purse of Clients oft to wrong; Then high Commissions shall fall to decay, And Pursivants and Catchpoles want their pay. So shall thy happy nation ever flourish, When truth and righteousness they thus shall nourish, When thus in peace, thine Armies brave send out, To sack proud Rome, and all her Vassals rout; There let thy name, thy fame and glory shine, As did thine Ancestors in Palestine; And let her spoyls ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... the air just where a tenor should. Jacqueline was startled but not nonplussed; she had been hoping a miracle might occur that day. At seventeen, the age of miracles has not passed. She finished her share of the duet with a flourish, and on the last note of his, Percival ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... recently a subject of remark. Lady-novelists we have in super-abundance, of lady-dramatists we have more than enough, of lady-journalists we have legions—but lady-poets we have but few. Possibly, they flourish more on the other side of the Atlantic. At any rate we have a good example of the American Muse in the latest volume by Mrs. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. This little book is full of grace, its versification is melodious, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various

... set thick with cheerful country homes. In some portions of New England they still are travelled and form the general thoroughfare, but in many lonely townships the old paths are deserted, and traffic and passage over the post or county road is gone forever. Bushes flourish and meet gloomily across the grass-grown track; forest trees droop heavily over it in summer and fall unheeded across it in winter. On either side moss-grown, winter-killed apple-trees and ancient stunted currant-bushes ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... of it, poor little Barbara would have been overwhelmed by this flourish of trumpets. But Colonel Kate did not allow it to fall under her eye. And the girl did not even know that, whatever she was not, she certainly was interesting and picturesque on the day when she first entered her ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... often a they might have been. One warrior has gone to his happy hunting-grounds, and that's the whole of it. A man of white blood and white gifts is not to be expected to boast of his expl'ites and to flourish scalps." ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... of our mental development, since it is approached only by the calm light of the intellect. And intellect can but make an appeal to reason. If the seeds of these appeals fall on the fertile minds of mentally advanced humanity, they will flourish; if they fall on the barren ground of creed-bound minds, they take no root. Recognition of facts and honest deductions are not natural to the human mind. As far as religious matters are concerned, the vast majority of men ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... seem almost new to me. One of these was "John Spooner's Human Menagerie," in the number for April, 1875, and I have been trying to get up a "menagerie" like John's. I can make most of the wonderful living curiosities, but I do not know how to make a curtain that will "go up with a flourish." I have made one to draw sideways, but I want one to go up. Please inform me how ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... its near cousins, scuffling and fighting, only one of the three plays has more than a trace. Hence the earlier remark, that Heywood was before his time. It is not devils in bearskins and wooden-sworded vices that create true comedy; they belong to the realm of farce. Yet they continued to flourish long after Heywood had set another example, and with them the cuffing of ears and drunken gambolling which we may see, in the works of other men, trying to rescue prosy scenes from dullness. In Johan Johan is simple comedy, the comedy of laughter-raising dialogue and 'asides'. We do not say ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... stayed with the McDonnells at the gate, while I followed Sorley Boy, amid shouts and flourish of trumpets, into the Castle. All was prepared to do the old Chief honour. Attendants bowed, guards saluted, and my Lord Deputy's womenkind waved handkerchiefs from the windows. Sir John Perrott himself, all smiles, chatted affably. But never a ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... have been impossible for the Badhaks to exist and flourish as they did without the protection of the landowners on whose estates they lived; and this they received in full measure in return for a liberal share of their booty. When the chief of Karauli was called upon to dislodge a gang within his territory, he expressed ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... be devised that ignorance and wickedness may be chased from our people in general, and that household piety in particular may flourish among them? ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... of Mount Vision; the blasts grew louder as he descended the hill and approached the village; then the thunder of the four post-horses as they crossed the bridge was heard, and the postman drew up with a flourish at the post office, where the villagers had gathered to await the news of the outer world. The Otsego Herald publishes a letter from an indignant citizen, complaining that the mails were opened in a bar-room. ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... dummy field piece, by dismounting a cart from its wheels and fixing on the axle a great old wooden pump, not unlike a big gun in shape; another cart was attached to this to represent a limber; four horses were harnessed to the affair; two men mounted these, and, amid a tremendous flourish of trumpets and beating of drums, the artillery went crashing along the streets and up the eminence crowned by the earthwork, where they wheeled ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... I perceived a man coming up the hill at a swift pace, directly towards me. As he approached I could almost swear that it was Vincent, the negro captain; but when within ten yards of me, I perceived, him turn round and flourish his sabre in the air, while, at the same time, three large bloodhounds sprang at him. One fell by the blow of his sabre, but the other two flew at his throat, and fastened on him, tearing him to the around, and holding him in spite of all his ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... effects (if any) of climate to have been developed. I have, however, been astonished and delighted at the evidence of the energetic attempts to do good by such numbers of people, and most of them evidently not personally interested in the result. Long may our rule flourish in India. I declare all the labour shown in these transactions is enough by itself to make ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... with the blood and tears of its children, it would be vain to expect that scholarship could flourish. And yet the period had its distinguished Irish scholars both at home and abroad. At Louvain, in the sixteenth century, were Lombard and Creagh, who both became Archbishops of Armagh, and O'Hurley who became Archbishop of Cashel. An even greater scholar than ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... arms, for her Daffodil, who's been a great worry to her (she's the only clever one, you know, all the others being pretty), has the best arms of the whole bunch. She's taken Madame Fallalerie's course, "The Fascination of the Arms," and is made to flourish hers about from morn to night, poor child, till she sometimes does a small weep from sheer exhaustion. The other day at Kempford Races, in a no-sleeved coatee with a black sticking-plaster racehorse in full gallop on her upper arm, she attracted plenty of attention and had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various

... was true he had not celebrated Pelle's victory with a flourish of trumpets, but had preferred to be his conscience! That was really at the bottom of it. He had intoxicated himself in the noise, and wanted to find something with which to drown Morten's quiet warning voice, and the accusation was not far to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... regulated artificially until the XIIth Dynasty; and hence at the period of this tale it was a large sheet of water, fluctuating with each rise and fall of the Nile, and bordered by lagoons where rushes would flourish, and where salt and natron would accumulate daring the dry season of each year. At the present time the lake of the Fayum is brackish, and the cliffs which border it contain so much salt that rain pools which collect on them are not drinkable. The paths ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie

... swearing by saying that, once in a year, in this way he cleared himself out. There are men who have no control of their blasphemous utterances, who want us to send them to Congress. Others have blasphemed in senatorial places, pretending afterwards that it was a mere rhetorical flourish. ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... compound, that by proper treatment they may become the most valuable wheat-producing lands in the world. The desert shall become the source of abundance! Under the transforming influence of a generous water supply, forests shall spring up, and fields of waving grain shall flourish around the village homes of a happy, prosperous people! Altogether, we have an empire of these irrigable lands now worthless, awaiting the transforming labor of the homeless and landless, to restore them to ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... however, have flourish'd some time longer, had not the Controversie been taken up ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay



Words linked to "Flourish" :   melodic line, line, luxuriate, turn, melody, boom, wave, waving, thrive, fly high, air, wigwag, displace, expand, take hold, rhetoric, change state, grandiloquence, gesture, magniloquence, motion, fanfare, ornateness, brandish, music, tune



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