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Informal   Listen
adjective
Informal  adj.  
1.
Not in the regular, usual, or established form; not according to official, conventional, prescribed, or customary forms or rules; irregular; hence, without ceremony; as, an informal writing, proceeding, or visit.
2.
Deranged in mind; out of one's senses. (Obs.) "These poor informal women."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Informal" Quotes from Famous Books



... take an informal vote," proposed Charles, who was determined to get on the right side ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... illuminated, for the prince had given a great banquet in honour of the victory won by his son; and although most of the guests had left long before, a party of the closest friends and connections of the prince were holding an informal council, when the word came to them that three officers had arrived with despatches from the Duc d'Enghien. The prince came down. Hector had dismounted without assistance, but the other two officers had to be lifted from ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... European States after the war will grow up in the common European and American mind; public men on either side will indicate concordance with this general idea, and some neutral power, Denmark or Spain or the United States or Holland, will invite representatives to an informal discussion of these possibilities. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... her triumph at the Tuileries. Possibly Beaufort, who was her match in daring, would have succeeded in bringing about a fusion; but his grand house and silk-stockinged footmen were an obstacle to informal sociability. Moreover, he was as illiterate as old Mrs. Mingott, and considered "fellows who wrote" as the mere paid purveyors of rich men's pleasures; and no one rich enough to influence his opinion had ever ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... that interview to read to me the Duke de Broglie's dispatch, which I cheerfully did, you were enabled to avail yourself of that informal mode of apprising this Department of the views of your Government in the full extent authorized by diplomatic usage. The question whether or not I should ask a copy of that dispatch was of course left, as it should have been, by your Government exclusively to my discretion. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... with William Adolphus. Several men whom I knew were present, among them Wetter and M. le Vicomte de Varvilliers, second secretary of the French Embassy and a mirror of fashion. We were quite informal. Varvilliers sat on my left and employed himself in giving me an account of my right-hand neighbour Coralie. I listened absently, for the sight of Wetter had stirred other thoughts in my mind. I had not yet spoken to Coralie; my brother-in-law ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... later, and again living in Concord after 1857. He spoke, as opportunity offered, before the "lyceums'' then common in various parts of the United States, or addressed groups of hearers as they invited him. These "conversations,'' as he called them, were more or less informal talks on a great range of topics, spiritual, aesthetic and practical, in which he emphasized the ideas of the school of American Transcendentalists led by Emerson, who was always his supporter and discreet admirer. He dwelt upon the illumination of the mind and soul ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... best things in the latter volume are availed of, a different method is pursued in the present work. Outlines of speeches are preferred to those which are fully elaborated; and the few plain rules, by which a thing so informal and easy as an after-dinner speech may be produced, are so illustrated as to make their application almost a matter of course. Good-humor and brevity, an outline and a story—what more is needed, unless it be that serene self-confidence which enables a speaker to say even foolish and absurd ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... togs must seem a bit rummy to you—but I can assure you that, for informal occasions like the present, they're quite the right thing in England." (He had a momentary impulse to except his father's white tie, but, after all, why should he say anything about that when Mirliflor ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... provider an appalling calamity; and the widow, no matter how sincere her sorrow, soon remarried—for there were many suitors where women were not over-plenty. If in such a case the one thought dead returned, the neighbors and the parties interested seem frequently to have held a sort of informal court, and to have decided that the woman should choose either of the two men she wished to be her husband, the other being pledged to submit to the decision and leave the settlement. Evidently no one had the least idea that there was any legal ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... close of the calumet ceremony the girls immediately drew closer together about the fire, making ready for an informal discussion. Of course they had been uncommonly serious for the past hour, but the night was so mystically beautiful with the new moon casting a silver radiance over the hills and fields, that there in the yellow glow of the Council Fire ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook

... generally referred to in our columns as a "guest of Marshal Furgeson's informal house-party," and when a group of drunk-and-disorderlies is brought in we feel free to say of their evening diversion that they "spent the happy hours, after refreshments, playing progressive hell." And this brings us to the consideration of the most important personage with whom we have to ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... see the Turk shot out of hand. The rules of war warranted it. He had tried to rush a sentry on guard over an important military station. But the Bulgarian officers decided to hear his story, and a kind of informal court-martial was constituted. The proceedings, which were in Turkish, were translated to me, as I was acting in a way as friend of the accused ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... quietly stood a well-dressed handsomely middle-aged man, with a sensitive face culminating in a groomed Van Dyck beard. I thought for a moment that the Mayor of Orne, or whatever his title is, had dropped in for an informal inspection of The Enormous Room. Thank God, I said to myself, it has never looked so chaotically filthy since I have had the joy of inhabiting it. And sans blague, The Enormous Room was in a state of really supreme disorder; shirts were thrown ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... brethren the brother god in the sky, Jesus, is but a poetic symbol; nor do I now regard the communion of this supper as being essentially different from that of any ordinary family-meal, lodge-banquet, or socialist-picnic, with each of which repasts the informal Lord's Supper of the apostolic church had much more in common than it has with the formal celebrations of the sacrament in any among ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... of entertainments, agreeable as they were, became in the end fatiguing to quiet persons like ourselves. The routs and soirees, it is true, were more informal and unceremonious: one was not obliged to spend more than an hour at each, but then one was not expected to arrive before eleven o'clock. We fell, perforce, into the habits of the place,—of sleeping two or three hours after dinner, then rising, and, after a cup of strong tea, dressing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... or of the American Congress. These councils of Japan were called into spasmodic life simply by the necessity of the time. They were held either at the court of Kioto or that of Yedo, or at other places appointed for the purpose. The Kuges or Daimios assembled rather in an informal way, measured by modern parliamentary procedure, but in accordance with the court etiquette of the time, whose most minute regulations and rules have often embarrassed and plagued the modern ministers accredited to the court of the ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga

... once, for the king and Frances had not been on the floor three minutes till the gentlemen began to clap their hands softly, and in a moment a round of applause came from the entire audience, as often happened in those informal balls. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... enough, and she was anxious that his small real estate adventures should prosper. His property holdings, as yet, were rather small, but his income was pleasing and his position with Fitzgerald and Moy was fixed. Both those gentlemen were on pleasant and rather informal terms with him. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... midst of much partially suppressed excitement, and the announcement of the vote of different States occasioned many sharp remarks of dissent or approval. After the vote was announced, for some minutes no motion was made, and the delegates engaged in an informal conversation. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... isolated railway station and under the lonely mountains so far from their homes, they were drawn up, and the Prince made an informal inspection of the men who had been so long away, and who had travelled the long road from ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... There was an informal and an unconventional character about such proceedings as these which did much toward thawing the crust of Marion's reserve. She evidently enjoyed the situation—she enjoyed the falls—she enjoyed the rocky ledges—she enjoyed the scramble—she even went so far on one occasion ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... that the boy, who in spite of the royal favour had been on pins all the time, took fright at once, ready as he was to associate everything informal as being in some way connected with those who had escaped. The next moment the lad's hands had turned cold and damp, while a giddy sensation attacked his brain, for the King had ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... at the sound of his voice raised tremulously in a hymn, he would preach as a layman, thus borrowing from the Methodists a device by which he hoped not only his present hearers, but also his own future Presbyterian congregations, should benefit. It was from one of these informal meetings, broken up by the news from Massachusetts, that ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... teacher and taught are knit together thus; without some such bond of union no good will be done. The relation of pastor and people is so delicate and spiritual, the purpose of it so different from that of mere teaching, the laws of it so informal and elastic, the whole power of it, therefore, so dependent on sympathy and mutual kindliness that, unless there be something like the bond which united Paul and the Philippians, there will be no prosperity or blessing. The thinnest film of cloud prevents deposition of dew. If all men in pulpits ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... by Pyn might have been a curse; no one would touch it. While the women stood in groups talking of poor John Penelles and Denas, the men held an informal meeting around the ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... General's arm and be piloted safely between the hay-wagons and the sprinkling-cart to the other side of the street. Proceeding to the post-office in the care of his friend, the esteemed statesmen would there hold an informal levee among the citizens who were come for their morning mail. Here, gathering two or three prominent in law, politics, or family, the pageant would make a stately progress along the Avenue, stopping at the Palace Hotel, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... in the chair. We began with an informal discussion of the best way of preventing the common people from dressing so as not to be distinguished from the upper classes, but there was no heart in the talk, for we all felt that it was only preliminary. It was my friend Sarah ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... manoeuvres as in handling a ship, she endeavored to bring upon the scene the hitherto unseen figure of Mademoiselle Clara Longueville. The family party at the Villa Planat soon expressed the greatest desire to make the acquaintance of so amiable a young lady, and to give her some amusement. An informal dance was proposed and accepted. The ladies did not despair of making a young girl ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac

... this line of propaganda was at last made the subject of an informal protest by Major J. Brooks Nichols, one of our most influential and level-headed American officers, in a letter to General Ironside, whose sympathetic letter of reply did credit to his respect for other brave men and credit to his judgment. He ordered ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... to justify its existence, dare not neglect them. It will teach them, not dogmatically or by precept, but by example, and by the creation of a noble atmosphere around the child." Holmes also (op. cit., p. 276) insists that the teaching of patriotism and citizenship must be informal ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... he do his part beautifully?" cried Lloyd, as her father, with one long step, raised himself up to a place beside her on the stage, where the children were holding an informal reception. ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... minds of quite unmonarchical persons. Edward Henry first inquired after the health of Mr. Seven Sachs, and then obtained from Mr. Bryany all remaining papers and trifles of information concerning the affair of the option. Whereupon Mr. Bryany, apparently much elated by the honour of an informal reception, effusively retired. And Edward Henry too was so elated, and his faith in life so renewed and invigorated, that ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... for a weekly levee: "The President to accept no invitations, and to give formal entertainments only twice or four times a year, the anniversaries of important events of the Revolution." In addition, "the President on levee days, either by himself or some gentleman of his household, to give informal invitations to family dinners ... not more than six or eight to be invited at a time, and the matter to be confined essentially to members of the legislature and other official characters. The President never to remain long at table." Hamilton ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... no man but the king held land equivalent in extent to a number of "lots." The [Greek: gerontes], the gentry, the chariot-owning warriors, of whom there are hundreds not of kingly rank in Homer (as in Ireland there were many flaith to one Ri) probably, in an informal but tight grip, held considerable lands. When we note their position in the Iliad, high above the nameless host, can we imagine that they did not hold more land than the simple, perhaps periodically shifting, "lot"? There were "lotless" men (Odyssey, XL 490), lotless freemen, and ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... him in every letter that he was extravagant. He ran through the two dollars in practically no time at all. He was a member in good and regular standing of the informal club that hung about the Corner Drug Store, to drink coffee soda and discuss athletics and stare at the passing girls. He loved to set off his clear skin and shining pale hair with linen collars, though soft roll-collar shirts were in vogue. And he was ready for any wild ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... own. In order to judge the man we must know all sides of the man, and read the heaviest as well as the lightest of his works, the more scientific and theological as well as the more practical and popular, his informal letters as well as his formal treatises. We must take account of the time of each writing and the circumstances under which it was composed, of the adversaries against whom he was contending, and of the progress which he made ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... to assist in the realization of these rosy fore-thoughts, I suggested to the doctor that each of us should take his turn in Mona's instruction, so as to make it as easy and informal for her as possible. He had no objections to make, and we began a task which proved to be much simpler than we had imagined. Mona had heard us talk so much that she had half-learned a great many words ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... Painted Post, N.Y., February 26, 1869. Education informal; common schools, university lectures and private study. Manifested early a keen interest in birds and flowers. Was founder and first president of the American Fern Society. Collected in Jamaica more than three hundred species of ferns. Has written extensively on the ferns and ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... America. I was writing her a letter just before you came in—informal, you know, to put her out of her misery. If I had waited for the governor to let her know in the usual course of red tape we should never have got anywhere. Also one to the nephew, telling him about his twenty pounds. I believe in humane treatment on these occasions. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... was to be entirely informal and on our own initiative, no military provision having been made for such emergency. With little difficulty five tons of army rations were secured, and, accompanied by good Major Hirch, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... Bishop's wife, who only smiled indulgently. The rest of the party were young people, and their glee brooked no repression. The moment they reached the little platform they comprehended not only that they were coming to a most informal wedding—they were also in for a ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... present opportunity of humbling Russia is unique, and he will never have such another. Never again will a man like me be seen marching against the North with 600,000 men! He is not worth thinking about; let nobody mention him again to me; I forbid sending any communication to him, formal or informal." Thus repulsed, Bernadotte remained faithful to his engagements with Russia, and was soon after to make others, which were still more disastrous to his ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... 1778. The little companies in which, from Adrienne Lecouvreur, the Marquise de Lambert, and Madame de Tencin, in the first half of the century, groups of intelligent men and women had succeeded in founding informal schools of disinterested opinion, and in finally removing the centre of criticism and intellectual activity from Versailles to Paris, had now nearly all come to an end. Madame du Deffand died in 1780, Madame Geoffrin in 1779, and in 1776 Mdlle. Lespinasse, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... early stage in the life of the little community the difficulties which necessarily surround a state of civilisation began to appear, and came out at one of the frequent, though informal, meetings of the men on the sands of Silver Bay. It ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... right which, as he contended, no royal prerogative could be enabled or permitted to override. That question was not, however, brought before Parliament, to which, at that time, the King could, probably, not have trusted for any leanings in his favor; but he referred it, in an informal way, to the Lord Chancellor (Lord Cowper) and the Common-law Judges. They investigated it with great minuteness. A number of precedents were adduced for the marriage and education of the members of the royal family being regulated by the sovereign, beginning with Henry ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... come to the table. She's too little, and her table manners are informal, to say the least. However, the tradition still holds, so dinner's at two o'clock, and you may as well all go and get dressed, for it's after one, now. There'll be a few extra guests, so you girls will have ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... with only moon and stars, and unfamiliar scenes of earth for company, since eight o'clock; and morning was near at hand. The informal civilisation of Rawal Pindi lay fifty miles behind her; and five miles ahead lay Kushalghur, a handful of buildings on the south bank of the Indus, where the narrow line of railway came abruptly to an end. Beyond the Indus a lone wide cart-road stretched, through thirty miles of boulder-strewn ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... informal and almost jolly. (The "almost" belonged to Miss Rosabel while the "jolly" was looked after by Ned and Nat, Dorothy and Tavia feeling like an appreciative audience.) All sorts of topics were introduced by the unhappy boys, who ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and picket lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured. Unfortunately it had not proved possible to get this informal expression of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... casting shadows which a Rembrandt would have loved to paint. One or two intimates may have stood around Him; but the main inquiry was left to Himself, as He put the Master through a preliminary and informal examination, in the hope of extracting from His replies materials on which the court, which was hastily summoned for an early hour in ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... let us come to the business at hand, the subject of my last informal audience. It is true, then, that the consols for the loan of five millions of crowns are issued to-day, or have been, since the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... business ventures, wherein are exhibited as great a variety of operations as possible, with varying results of gains and losses, and the adjustment thereof in the partners' accounts, or in the account of the sole proprietor. After getting the results in this informal way—which is done in order as quickly as possible to get the theory of bookkeeping impressed upon his mind—he is required to go over the work again carefully, writing up with neatness and precision all the principal and auxiliary books, with the documents ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... joined the little party in the old study, and they all talked together round the fire. What talks they had; what themes they discussed! What animated discussions sprang from a casual word, and were pursued with a go and a spirit which seem to exist only on such informal occasions. Sometimes they laughed and quipped, and beheld everything from the comic point of view; anon, a sudden spirit of earnestness would pass from one to the other, and as the fading light hid their faces from view, tongues were set free, so that they talked of the things ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... of the next dance Betty and her partner finished up within a few feet of the camel. With the informal audacity that was the key-note of the evening she reached out and gently ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... Samoa has no formal defense structure or regular armed forces; informal defense ties exist with NZ, which is required to consider any Samoan request for assistance under the 1962 Treaty ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... presence of M. Leroy-Beaulieu in the Chamber of Deputies is a thing to be prevented at any price. The 'Republicans' of the Herault this year tried to prevent it not only by treating 'informal' ballots thrown for him as invalid, and accepting 'informal' ballots thrown against him as valid, but, as the report of a Committee of the Chamber admits, by 'irregularities' which in other countries would be described ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... the US and Bhutan have no formal diplomatic relations, although informal contact is maintained between the Bhutanese and US Embassy ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the return of the courier he wrote an informal note to Dona Ignacia, asking her to give him the honor of entertaining her for a day on the Juno, and to bring all the young people she would. As the weather was so fine, he hoped to see them in time for chocolate at nine o'clock. He knew that Luis, who was pressingly included in the invitation, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... a written invitation, send a written reply. Let the reply accord with the invitation in being either formal, or informal. ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous

... of the press. The ultra-clericals, who looked to the Vatican for their guidance, and the advanced liberals who professed the principles of the French Revolution were thus by the force of events led on step by step to convert an informal into a formal alliance. The Abbe de Foere in the Spectateur and MM. D'Ellougue and Donker in the Observateur had been for some years advocating united action; and it was their success in winning over to their side the support and powerful pen of Louis de Potter, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... precisely on this kind of evidence that we believe the great facts of the Christian Revolution. We have contemporary histories, formal and informal; letters, public and private, from the principal agents in it, and opposers of it, dispersed from Babylon to Rome, and addressed to Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Asiatics, written by physicians, fishermen, proconsuls, emperors, and apostles. We have miles of monuments, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... one Sunday to Landrecies, where H.M. the King paid a visit. It was an informal affair, no guard of honour and no lining the road, and none of us will ever forget the scene. The King of England followed by his officers, all on foot, walking down the little street of the old French town, while both pavements were packed with soldiers and ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... grotesque ornament from the dwarf bookcase, and used the top of the bookcase as a writing-board. Hilda was called upon to sign two papers. He explained exactly what these papers were, but she did not understand, nor did she desire to understand. One was an informal sale-note and the other was an authority; but which was which, and to what each had reference, she superbly and wilfully ignored. She could, by a religious effort of volition, make of herself an excellent clerk, eagerly imitative and mechanical, but she had an instinctive ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... followed yours so often, Davy, that I should think by this time it had lost the edge of novelty. Including that informal affair in Scotland, when you were a lad, you've been ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... writers make no difference between a Colloquy and a Parliament. The Rolls always distinguish them, treating; the Colloquy as a lesser and more informal gathering. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... country where trial by jury exists, in which the decisions that are made in the haste and sometimes confusion of such trials, are not subject to review before any other tribunal. I believe that to the decisions of this court, in criminal cases, no review is allowed, except in the same court in the informal way in which I now ask your honor to review the decisions made on this trial. This is therefore the court of last resort, and I hope your honor will give to these, as they appear to me, grave questions, ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... some of these would come and go, so that one could never count with certainty upon meeting them, there was one who never failed to be present when such an informal reception was held. Of him I must speak at greater length, for a reason ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... counsel for the prosecution of this man, contemplating taking a woman to wife, when I had promised before God to be faithful to another. I tried to persuade myself that the Scotch marriage was not only informal but illegal, and could have no weight of whatever nature, yet my heart swept away all the sophistries of my mind, and proclaimed me to be a villain. So much moved was I by this that I at length decided to send a man to Scotland to make inquiries. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... and wisely done they might better be taken seriously and held up as examples worthy of imitation. Formal "full dress" social functions for young people, where acquaintance is likely to be too perfunctory, should be discouraged, and should give place to informal dances, beach parties, house parties and the like, where boys and girls will have a chance to come to know each other, and, at the proper age, to fall in love. Let social stratification be not too rigid, yet maintained on the basis of intrinsic worth rather than solely on financial or ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... passages from memory, and whenever I indicated vaguely any text which I needed, they at once supplied it verbatim, so that the big folio Bible served merely as an ornament. Three or four of them seemed to know the whole of the New Testament by heart. The course of our informal debate need not here be described; suffice it to say that, after four hours of uninterrupted conversation, we agreed to differ on questions of detail, and parted from each other without a trace of that ill-feeling which religious discussion commonly engenders. Never have ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... poor informal women] I once believed informal had no other or deeper signification than informing, accusing. The scope of justice, is the full extent; but think, upon farther enquiry, that informal signifies incompetent, not qualified ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... with a name like mine. It sounds so beastly informal when you leave off the Mister, and it sounds as if you'd been a servant in the family for at least one generation if you stick it on. If you could only call me Monsieur Percival, or Senor Percival, or even Herr Percival, it wouldn't seem so bad, but Mister Percival,—well, it's ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... of the Philadelphia T Square Club an informal supper was held at "Bohemia," a charming rathsheller recently designed by Wilson Eyre, Jr., a member of the executive committee of the club. The president, Walter Cope, presided, while the fifty-four members present lubricated ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 03, March 1895 - The Cloister at Monreale, Near Palermo, Sicily • Various

... did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. The text intentionally contains non-standard contractions, unhyphenated combination words and other informal styles and spellings, which, except for minor typographical errors, have ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... organization is usually quite informal and is determined by the nature and imminence of its conflicts with other groups. When one crowd encounters another it either goes to pieces or it changes its character and becomes a conflict group. When negotiations and palavers take place as they eventually do between conflict groups, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Mrs. James Harris Jones gave a | |reception yesterday at her home, 136 | |Fifth street, for her daughter, Miss | |Dorothy Jones. In the receiving line were | |Miss Marjorie Smith, Miss, etc. * * The | |reception was followed by an informal ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde

... "Sir" Antony (or Anthony) Sherley (1565-1630), a picturesque gentleman-adventurer, the first Englishman to mention coffee drinking in the Orient, sailed from Venice on a kind of self-appointed, informal Persian mission, to invite the shah to ally himself with the Christian princes against the Turks, and incidentally, to promote English trade interests in the East. The English government knew nothing of the arrangement, disavowed him, and forbade his return ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... business with him, setting apart a certain hour every morning; whether the customs of the presidents of the old Congress, in giving large dinner-parties to both sexes twice a-week, ought not to be abolished, and invitations to dine at the president's house, informal or otherwise, be limited, in regard to persons, to six, eight, or ten official characters, including in rotation the members of both houses of Congress, on days fixed for receiving company; whether the public would be satisfied if he should give four ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... of the Letter. It is an informal letter with no logical plan or doctrinal arguments. It is the spontaneous utterance of love and gratitude. It is a tender, warm-hearted, loving friend and brother presenting the essential truths of the gospel in terms of friendly ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... Howland repeated the governor's instructions, and requested those of the dame, who at once convened an informal council of matrons, and so well advised them that in a scant hour the clumsy boat, rolling and bumping against the side of the brig, was laden with bales of clothing, tubs whose hoops John Alden, a cooper by trade, was hurriedly overlooking, and sundry great brass ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... take the more important business of the evening afterwards, namely, the discussion of this great problem of Marriage. They had all been deeply moved by Mr. Palfrey's beautiful verses and would no doubt like an opportunity of discussing them in an informal manner.... ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... afternoon, and the "afflicted circle" was having one of its informal meetings at the house of Mistress Ann Putnam. At these meetings the latest developments were talked over; and all the scandal of the neighborhood, and even of Boston and other towns, gathered and discussed. Thus in the examination of Captain ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... of his life Morton turned over to Kate, and such was her tact, and her skill and charm as hostess, that her rooms of a Tuesday afternoon were filled with a company of men and women as cheerful and as informal as they were clever and distinguished. Among these groups Serviss moved as detached of all responsibility as any of his guests, finding in this contact with bright minds one of the greatest pleasures of ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... said yes, she was sure they would enjoy a glimpse of real country Southern life, and some of our informal fun, far more than the functions they could attend any time in the East. Besides she wanted everybody to keep in mind that we were still little schoolgirls, even if we were to be bridesmaids, and that was why she was taking us all off to the woods for an old-time ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... though informal proceedings, where age alone gives a place in the council; where youth, ardour, and valour in the field, give a title to the station of leader; where the whole community is assembled on any alarming occasion, we may venture to say, that we have found the origin ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... make any special change as to costume for the occasion. We try to make it informal, so far as possible, and though some of us wear full dress we do not make that obligatory on those who take a part in the exercises. If you decide to wear your every-day reigning clothes it will not excite comment on the part of our literati. We do not judge ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... we are met, To represent the general weal. In us Are all the people of the land convened. Then let us hold the Diet, as of old, And as we're wont in peaceful times to do. The time's necessity be our excuse, If there be aught informal in this meeting. Still, wheresoe'er men strike for justice, there Is God, and now beneath His ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... trick on him. He did not remember a line of his lecture; he could not even recall how it began! He arose, after his introduction, in a bath of cold perspiration. The applause gave him a moment to recover himself, but not a word came to his mind. He sparred for time by some informal prefatory remarks expressing regret at his illness and that he had been compelled to disappoint his audience a few days before, and then he stood helpless! In sheer desperation he looked at Mrs. Bok sitting in the stage box, who, divining her ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... well-nigh desperate. Mining and incendiarism proved far greater dangers than shot and shell. Suddenly, just when things were looking blackest, on the 17th of July the Chinese ceased firing, and a sort of informal armistice secured a period of respite for the beleaguered Europeans. The capture of the native city of Tientsin by the allied forces had shaken the self-confidence of the Chinese authorities, who had hitherto not only countenanced, but themselves directed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... Maumbry's acquaintance in an informal manner at an afternoon tea to which he went in a wheeled chair—one of the very rare outings that the state of his health permitted. Maumbry showed himself to be a handsome man of twenty-eight or thirty, with an attractive hint of ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... on the Governor's right, and at the proper point his Excellency sang her praises in a charmingly informal speech, which delighted and amused the press men, actors and actresses whom he had collected for the occasion. Only the guest of honor looked a little weary and condescending; she had a sufficient experience ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... reached home, Johnny McComas had turned his informal suburban enterprise into a "state" bank, with his father-in-law as president and himself as cashier. The father-in-law lent his name and furnished most of the capital; Johnny himself provided the driving power. And by the time ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... requests the pleasure of your presence at an informal wake to be held in honor of a double-breasted overcoat, London cut. The body and tail will be the ducks, and the two sleeves and velvet ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... fathers' acquaintances. They do not loiter on the way. Close behind, carrying their writing tablets, follow the faithful 'pedagogues,' the body-servants appointed to conduct them to school, give them informal instruction, and, if need be, correct their faults in no painless manner. Besides the water maids and the schoolboys, from the innumerable house doors now opening the respective masters are stepping forth—followed by one, two, or several serving varlets, as ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... examination and application to the case of the United States. It has been fully shown, in previous chapters, that the terms "Union," "Federal Union," "Federal Constitution," "Constitution of the Federal Government," and the like, were used—not merely in colloquial, informal speech, but in public proceedings and official documents—with reference to the Articles of Confederation, as freely as they have since been employed under the present Constitution. The former Union was—as Mr. Webster expressly admits—as nobody denies—a compact between States, yet it nowhere ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... for the remonstrants at the hearing of 1894 had received $500 for his services, and asked Mr. Russell if he appeared in the same capacity. He answered that no compensation had been promised him, and that he did not mean to accept any. He added: "I represent no organization, anything more than an informal gathering of ladies, and as for the numbers I can not state. But I do not come here basing my claim to be heard on the numbers of those who have asked me to appear. It is the justice of the cause which ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... set off short, informal quotations, unless such quotation is a word or phrase closely woven ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... I was afraid you would escape me, and I have so much to do this week. I want you to come in socially on Tuesday evening; just a few friends; an informal gathering; tea at eight, because the girls want a little dance after it. ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... rather informal arrangement of classes and schedule for the next day, Margaret giving out slips of paper with questions for each to answer, that she might find out just where to place them; and while they wrote she went from one to another, getting acquainted, advising, and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... the office. There would probably be no difficulty about that. The man suspected nothing. But Thorpe had to confess himself fearfully uneasy about his own financial arrangements. That was the rub. Wallace Carpenter had been sincere enough in his informal striking of partnership, but had he retained his enthusiasm? Had second thought convicted him of folly? Had conservative business friends dissuaded him? Had the glow faded in the reality of his accustomed life? And even if his good-will remained unimpaired, would he be able, at ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... ought to have a good grasp of the following subjects relative to guard duty: 1. Guard mounting (both formal and informal). 2. Posting reliefs. 3. Preparation and running of rosters. 4. General orders—also special orders at post No. 1. 5. Duties of the following in reference to guard duty: 1. Commanding officer. 2. Officer of the day. 3. Adjutant. 4. Sergeant Major. 5. ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... New York was hardly more than a big village, such as Boston continued to be for a half-century later. Everybody (who was anybody) knew everybody else in the friendly and informal way which nowadays belongs to a "set." Conviviality—this dignified name of the thing best suggests the way in which it was looked at then—was as much a part of fashionable life in New York as in Edinburgh or London. Into this society Irving entered with zest, ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... Miss Sherwood Larry tried to behave as if nothing had happened more than the pleasant interruption of an informal tea: but beneath that calm all his senses were waiting breathless, so to speak, for news of what had happened within Maggie, and what might ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... Elizabeth's reign, served as a hotbed. But it is the great secret of prose that it can dispense with such stimulants. Everybody who wished to make his thoughts known began, with the help of the printing press, to make them known; and the informal use of the vernacular, by dint of this unconscious practice and of the growing scholarship both of writers and readers, tended insensibly to make itself less of a mere written conversation and more of a finished prose style. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... came—first the call, which was duly returned, and then the invitation. That was quite informal. Mrs Grove would be happy if Miss Elliott and her sister would spend the evening at her house to meet a few friends. To their surprise, Harry, as well as Arthur, came home with a little pink note to the ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... hundreds of eyes. The School had not been told that a famous Field Marshal, the hero of a hundred fights, was coming to the concert. And, indeed, he had accepted an invitation given at the last moment—accepted it, moreover, on the understanding that his visit was to be informal. None the less, his face was familiar to all readers of illustrated papers. And, suddenly, conviction seized the boys that a conqueror was among them, an Old Etonian, making, possibly, his first visit to the Hill. Scaife whispered his ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... the sacredness of the marriage tie. Certainly this involves a theory of home life which differs from ours. Many matings are consummated without any regular marriage ceremony and with little reference to legal requirements, and divorces are equally informal. Moral lapses seldom bring the Negro before the courts. All these things but indicate the handicap which has to be overcome. Within the family there is often great abuse on the part of the men. The result of it all is that many Negroes do not know their own fathers and so little ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey

... three years had gone by. At Hellhoughton, a manor now belonging to the Marquis of Townshend, where two courts were held annually, the series of rolls for the first twenty-two years of Edward III. is complete. Then comes one which scarcely deserves to be called a Court Roll, so entirely informal is it, and so evidently drawn up by some one who did not know his business, and who did not pretend to know it. It is little more than a collection of rough memoranda of deaths. Twelve of the suitors of the court had died without heirs; seven ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... to be informal, as these were war times and there were no court levees. Indeed, the Czar was only staying for a brief time at his palace before going to take command of his own troops. Owing to the frequent Russian defeats in the past few months, the Czar had concluded that he must command his men in person ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook

... informal. It was held in the bar, and the discussion of the vital matter in hand was concurrent with the absorption of McMahon's beer. Mr. Ham's best attention was given to the ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... menage was an informal meal. At a quarter past one every day, it was on the table—a cold lunch to which the three members of the household helped themselves as they liked, independent of the services of servants. Sometimes ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher

... more eloquently significant of physical and mental refreshment, more expressive of remission of toil and restful relaxation, or so rich in associations with the comforts and serenity of home life, and also with unpretentious, informal, social intercourse? ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... Maltby—he's home for a spell; fancy he's sent down from Oxford—and he asked me to go rabbiting with him. He's not much of a shot, though he is a baronet's son and heir, and I rather think I put him up to a wrinkle or two. Anyway, the other day he mentioned that they were going to have a dance—quite an informal affair—and asked if I'd care to go; and Lady Maltby's just ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... way it was dispelled, is part of the history of the time. It went to make up the life in the Army of Northern Virginia; it lives in the recollection of that good old time. No record of that old time would be complete without it. So I make no apology for falling into it, in this informal reminiscence. ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame

... Hammond to pretend that though he had no powers to conclude a treaty of commerce, yet his general commission authorized him to enter into the discussion of one, then proposed to the President at one of our meetings, that the business should be taken up with Hammond in the same informal way. I now discovered the trap which he had laid, by first getting the President into the step with Ternant. I opposed the thing warmly. Hamilton observed, if we did it with Ternant we should also with Hammond. The ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Messrs. Marais and Malan were commissioned to negotiate with the Johannesburg people was, with the exception of General Smit (then dying and since dead), attended by every member of the Executive Council, and there is no truth in the suggestion made on behalf of the Government that it was an informal meeting of a few men who were not acting on behalf of the State, nor is there any justification for the statement made by Judge Ameshof in the witness-box that Messrs. Marais and Malan were not officially authorized to negotiate ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... party Bernice strove in vain to master a rising uneasiness. She had offended Marjorie, the sphinx of sphinxes. With the most wholesome and innocent intentions in the world she had stolen Marjorie's property. She felt suddenly and horribly guilty. After the bridge game, when they sat in an informal circle and the conversation became general, the storm gradually broke. Little Otis Ormonde ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... place, the procedure of the Cabinet must be intimate, informal, elastic, and confidential; every member must be able to feel that he has played his part in all the main decisions of policy, whether they directly concern his department or not, and that he is personally responsible for these decisions. Constitutional usage has always prescribed that it is ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... Dosia, obeying the summons with alacrity, and pleased that she should be considered so intimate. This was more than she had expected—an informal reception and talk. With Dosia's own responsive warmth, she felt that she really must always have wanted to see more of Alice, who, in her lacy pink-and-white negligee, might be pardoned for wishing to show off this ornament ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... coach and six through the statute. No doubt technical amendments will be required from time to time. What is still more requisite is an understanding between the more reasonable leaders on both sides of industry, by which arrangements may be made for the more effectual and informal use of the Conciliation Boards. Meanwhile it savours of the absurd to talk and write—as certain fault-finders have done—as though every arbitration under the Act were a disturbance of industry as ruinous as a prolonged ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... in this revision of "Graded Lessons" are designed to review the regular Lessons and to prepare in a broad, informal way for text work that follows. But since these Exercises go much farther, and teach the pupil how to construct paragraphs and how to observe and imitate what is good in different authors, they are placed in a supplement, and not between consecutive ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... turn in the offices. His mind was a good one; his education both formal and informal, had trained it fairly well; yet he could not quite make good. Energetic, ambitious, keen young men, clambering upward from the ruck, gave him points at the game and then beat him. It was humiliating to the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... deferring thus to the judgment of others, and consenting to remove a sentence which he doubtless regarded with particular satisfaction as expressing a decided opinion upon a favorite picture, Mr. Ruskin indulged in one of those pleasantries which now and again we observe in his informal letters, though seldom, if ever, in his serious writings. In the margin, below the canceled passage, he wrote boldly: "Sacrificed to the Muse of ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... the bakers, the tailors, and the smiths; then the informal gaiety came to a sudden pause and the cry went up that the great Mastersingers themselves had arrived. They disembarked and formed a long procession, Kothner going ahead bearing the banner, which had the portrait of King David and his harp ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... the fabulist with a wink aside for Jeff's benefit. "I am indeed delighted to make the acquaintance of one thus gifted, even under the present informal circumstances. In what way, if any, may I be of service to you, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... streets, a haunting of horse-cars, railway-stations, shops that were "selling off." But the places that knew him best were the offices of the newspapers and the vestibules of the hotels—the big marble-paved chambers of informal reunion which offer to the streets, through high glass plates, the sight of the American citizen suspended by his heels. Here, amid the piled-up luggage, the convenient spittoons, the elbowing loungers, the disconsolate "guests," the truculent Irish ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... all-important subject of Pastoral Visitation, for the same sort of informal and fragmentary treatment as that attempted in the last chapter, and with the same feeling that the subject is ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... flower arrangement which did not embody these principles was considered barren and dead. They also dwelt much on the importance of treating a flower in its three different aspects, the Formal, the Semi-Formal, and the Informal. The first might be said to represent flowers in the stately costume of the ballroom, the second in the easy elegance of afternoon dress, the third in the charming deshabille ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... individuals and groups are fresh in mind at this writing. On one occasion a guild of working boys in later adolescence were living together in a church fraternity house, and it was their custom on one evening of each week to have some prominent man as guest at dinner and to hear an informal address from him after the meal. It chanced that on the list of guests there was, in addition to the mayor of their city and a well-known bishop of the Episcopal church, the manager of one of the greatest automobile factories in America. On the occasion ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... near Washington, I could be withdrawn from the most unpleasant attitude of a "go-between," but there is no army there, nor any military duties which you with a host of subordinates can not perform. Therefore I would be there with naked, informal, and sinecure duties, and utterly out of place. This you understand well enough, and the army too, but the President and the politicians, who flatter themselves they are saving the country, cannot and will not understand. My opinion is, the country is doctored to death, and if President and Congress ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Wood House. Indeed, he was in high good-humour, and told his best stories, quite convulsing Mr. Carlyon with his comic ones; indeed, he made himself so agreeable and entertaining—he so threw himself into the spirit of their informal picnic—that Elizabeth's bright eyes rested on his dark face more than once with marked approval. And when they went out into the front garden to wait for the dog-cart, Mr. Carlyon said to her confidentially, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... and an annual journal, which will interchange with geographical and other societies. Monthly meetings are to be held, at which original papers will be read or lectures be given; and to which, as well as to the entertainments to distinguished travelers, to the conversazioni, and to the informal evenings, the fellows of the society will have the privilege of introducing their friends. The initiation fee to the society is $10; monthly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various

... At last Mr. Davis, on consultation with Vice- President Stephens and his Cabinet, decided to appoint a commission, composed of Mr. Stephens, Senator R. M. T. Hunter, and ex-Secretary of War John A. Campbell. This commission was directed (January 28, 1865) to go to Washington for informal conference with President Lincoln "upon the issues involved in the existing war, and for the purpose of securing peace to the two countries." Mr. Davis was advised by his Secretary of State, Mr. Benjamin, to instruct the commissioners to confer upon the subject of Mr. Lincoln's ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... of a club of gentlemen in New York who were associated for social and informal intellectual converse, which held weekly meetings at each other's houses in rotation. Most of these distinguished men are now deceased. The club consisted of such men as Chancellor Kent, Albert Gallatin, Peter Augustus Jay, Reporter Johnson, Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Wainwright, the President and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... the boys made the parting as "informal" as possible. All through the winter the Shawanoe had impressed upon the Blackfeet that this separation in the nature of things would be brief. The time was certain to come, at no distant day, when they would all be together again. So he smiled, the boys ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... a straggling, informal meal, and the men came down in pink coats. They were going hunting on an anise-seed trail, and ordered what they wished, standing by the side-board and eating. Maggie, after the men had followed the hounds, left the other ladies ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... deeply the inner characteristics of a people, a statement I am glad to corroborate. But never had it struck me so forcibly as now. Gazing up at a dim picture of informal construction, interlaced and blended with the trunks, boughs and foliage of the overarching palms I saw at a glance the key-note of the life of this simple people—absence ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... new kind of fun, and was enjoyed to the utmost. They went to near-by towns, and had oyster suppers, going to informal dances afterward. Mr. Blackford stayed, and as he could do little business while thus snow-bound he made arrangements to remain in camp a week or two. The boys and girls were glad to have him, as he was good company, and knew no end of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope

... for an hour. Then the children sang songs to a piano accompaniment, and there followed a lesson in cooking and the proper setting of a table. All this instruction was succeeded by an informal chat. ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... this time he might quite easily have completed the preliminary pourparlers and be deep in an informal discussion of honeymoon plans was very pleasant ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... with the use of electricity in mines, an informal series of tests has been made on all enclosed electric fuses, as to whether or not they will ignite an explosive mixture of air and gas when blown out. The results of this work, which is under the direction of Mr. H. H. Clark, Electrical Engineer for Mines, have been furnished the manufacturers ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... usually dance either before or after every meal; and by this cheerfulness, probably, render the Great Spirit, to whom they consider themselves as indebted for every good, a more acceptable sacrifice than a formal and unanimated thanksgiving;"(46) and he proceeds to describe the informal dances as well as the more formal ceremonials preparatory to joining in the chase or setting out on the warpath. The ceremonial observances of the Siouan tribes were not different in kind from those of neighboring contemporaries, ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... soon simplified the original process of bare barter. It is reasonable to suppose that as soon as the introduction of currency marked the abandonment of direct relations between purchaser and consumer an informal system of advertisement in turn rose to meet the need of publicity. At first the offer of the producer must have been brought to the trader's attention, and the trader's offer to the notice of the consumer, by casual personal contact, supplemented by local ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the turn of the road. Waving his hat, he put spurs to his mount and came forward at a gallop. The newcomer rode with military uprightness, softened by the informal ease of the polo-player. Even at the distance, which his horse was lessening under the insistent pressure of his heels, one could note a boyish charm in the frankness of his smile and ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... that the two German officials who sat behind a table examining him, asked him every question which could possibly be framed in connection with himself. And when they had finished, and the answers had been written down, they made a few informal inquiries about American troops and transports, which he was thankful that he could not answer. When he returned to the ante-room he had fastened to his buttonhole a brass disk with a number stamped upon it and a German word which was not "Slopsgotten," though it looked ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... boys were at Chris Gore's home, and there they remained until noon, when it was learned that a formal town meeting was appointed for three o'clock in the afternoon. During the informal meeting Master Samuel Adams had made an address to the people, in which he recommended that a committee be sent to the Governor, to tell him once more that peace could not be maintained while the British soldiers virtually held possession of the city, and of this committee ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis

... abjured it in a general sense, she could not live alone, so in addition to the companionship of her favourite sister Mrs. Fitzgerald, who lived with her and shared all her thoughts, she widened her circle a little and received a few friends. She was fond of entertaining, and gave many little informal gatherings, which were memorable from the grace and charm of the hostess. Lady Burton was always a picturesque and fascinating personality, but never more so than in these last years of her life. She possessed ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... was nothing notable in it, unless the song prepared by Barnaby for the occasion, and sung by him thereupon to a captivating banjo accompaniment, may be so distinguished. A stanza, the final one of that masterpiece, has been preserved. It may serve as an informal ending, a charcoal tail-piece, to our ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... a very "informal" approach to grammar and syntax; so apparently did his editor. I corrected several obvious errors in the book and listed them at the end of the text. Many more doubtful spellings and countless abbreviations remain as they appear in ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,''2 since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally to move in concert towards their object; and it is therefore essential that such changes be instituted by some INFORMAL AND UNAUTHORIZED PROPOSITIONS, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens. They must have recollected that it was by this irregular and assumed privilege of proposing to the people plans for their safety and ...
— The Federalist Papers

... credibility of no witness, and waived all the privileges of cross-examination. Now and then, the audience criticised in whispers the "undue latitude" allowed by the Judge, to the District Solicitor; but their "exceptions" were informal, and the prosecution received no serious ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... and irresponsible young creature when he married her, so much so that he had found it expedient to put her on an allowance and ask her not to ran up staggering bills in the fashionable shops; which she visited daily, as much for the pleasure of the informal encounter with other lively and irresponsible young luminaries of San Francisco society as for the excitement of buying what ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... beck that runs from the lake, he was overtaken by the gentleman he had left behind, and accosted in the informal English style, with all the politeness possible to a nervously blunt manner: 'This book is yours,—I have no doubt it is yours; I am glad to be able to restore it; I should be glad to be the owner-writer of the contents, I mean. I have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... than the farmer's two he-goats, that "fit an' fit" until there was nothing left of 'em but a splotch o' blood and two belligerent tails. Those who exchanged compliments at Corinth and Cold Harbor; those who received informal calls from Kilpatrick's cavalry, who we are told "rode like centaurs and fought like devils"; those who saw Grant's intrepid Westerners hurl themselves against Vicksburg's impregnable heights; those who were slammed up against Jackson's ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... edition of the Poems—again withdrawn in the recent Rossetti edition. In these Notes—many of which in both senses are elaborate and full—are some of the deepest and daintiest-worded things from WORDSWORTH. The I.F. MSS. are delightfully chatty and informal, and ages hence will be treasured and studied in relation to the Poems by the (then) myriad millions ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... that I was merely talking extraneous matter and would come to the sketch presently. It was a beautiful success. I knew the substance of the sketch and the telling phrases of it; and so, the throwing of the rest of it into informal talk as I went along limbered it up and gave it the snap and go and freshness of an impromptu. I was to read several pieces, and I played the same game with all of them, and always the audience thought I was being reminded ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the gossip of the clubs, and was not content, like the majority of men, either to believe it or to dismiss the matter with a shrug of the shoulders. He sought my brother out at his own house, heard the whole story from his own lips—through an informal but stringent process of cross-examination—drew his own conclusions, and did more than anyone else to turn the tide of misrepresentation. Lord Russell never rested until Wemyss Reid was elected an honorary member of the Eighty Club, a distinction shared by only two or three persons, and one which ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... scene—the bustle about the court house; the agreeable crowd of black-coated lawyers, with their clever talk, their good stories; the grave judge, and the still graver side judges; the greetings and hand-shakings amid much joking and laughter; the county gossip among the grand jurors in the informal moments before they filed into the courtroom to be sworn and to receive the judge's charge; himself, finally, in his best black coat and cherished beaver hat, there in the midst of it—important, weighty, ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... the South would but remain in the Union." On the 4th of May preceding, Lord John had received these Commissioners at his house; and in a letter of May 11, 1861, wrote, from the Foreign Office, to Lord Lyons, the British Minister at Washington, a letter, in which, alluding to his informal communication with them, he said: "One of these gentlemen, speaking for the others, dilated on the causes which had induced the Southern States to Secede from the Northern. The principal of these causes, he said, was not Slavery, but the very high price which, for the sake of ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... of romance might well desire to look upon. Everything had a cheery, sunshiny aspect, looking life, comfort, and the "all in all content;" and, with a feeling of pleasure kindled anew in his bosom by the prospect, Ralph complied readily with the frank and somewhat informal invitation of his companion, and was soon made perfectly at home by the freedom and ease which characterized the manners of the young girl who descended to receive them. A slight suffusion of the cheek and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... thought she was entering a carriage to pay visits and so told her son."—Ibid., 471. After Thermidor, the judges of the Orange commission having been put on trial, the jury declared that "they refused to hear testimony for the defense and did not allow the accused even informal lawyers ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the hand of a savage may be regarded as an artificial extension of the natural man, so tools, machinery, technical and administrative devices, including the formal organization of government and the informal "political machine," may be regarded as more or less artificial extensions of the natural ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... week of January a compromise was discussed by an informal by-partisan committee, and the President wrote a letter saying he would accept the Hitchcock reservations, but Lodge refused to accept any compromise. On February 9 the Senate again referred the treaty ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane

... frankly informal and ungainly. Evidences of sharp discipline one moment; the next, awkward short-cuts. The Germans have never been able to harmonize these extremes into a medium of easy formality or sightly smoothness. At the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry



Words linked to "Informal" :   unliterary, free-and-easy, vulgar, folksy, everyday, colloquial, formalness, slangy, nonliterary, unceremonious, unofficial, formal, informality, loose, epistolary, unrhetorical, friendly, formality, common, unceremonial, conversational



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